After retiring from a 40-plus year career as a photographer and a photo retail salesman and educator, Fred Bonilla had a huge amount of spare time and decided to devote his picture taking to one particular thing. But what would it be?

A jack of trades, knowing enough of every photo discipline there is but not an expert of any particular one, it wasn’t until he hosted a seminar in 2014 with noted nature photographer Roman Kurywczak that Bonilla found his new favorite subjects: flowers.

“Flowers and Other Beautiful Things,” an exhibition of work by Bonilla, is on view at The Newtown Municipal Art Gallery through October 31.

The Gallery — the central corridor of the municipal building at 3 Primrose Street — is open weekdays from 8 am until 4:30 pm. It is also open on evenings when there are Town board and commission meetings being conducted.

The gallery is managed by Newtown Cultural Arts Commission.

Bonilla is an active participant of En Foco & Help Portrait and a contributing writer to Photoinduced.com. His floral images were exhibited in Trumbull in 2019 and Norwalk Art Space in 2022.

An image of his was selected for exhibition at the 2009 Look 3 Festival of the Photograph in Charlotteville, Va., as well as The Musee de Lysee in France in 2011.

He has served as a teaching assistant at the International Center of Photography in New York City and volunteers his services in the food pantry and clothing center of Person to Person, a charitable organization in Fairfield County.