For decades, some of the South’s most talented photographers have brought color and personality to the glossy pages of one of the region’s most iconic magazines, Southern Living.

Now, a new photo exhibit showcases some of those photographers’ work from outside the pages of the magazine.

Eighteen former Southern Living photographers have shared some of their favorite images from their personal collections for the exhibit, which is currently on display at Aldridge Gardens in Hoover.

The Southern Living Photographers Exhibit, which opened earlier this month, runs through March 7 in the Aldridge Gardens gallery.

“Some people had stuff printed and mounted just for the show; some people just took stuff off the wall at home,” former Southern Living photographer Art Meripol, who curated the exhibit, tells AL.com. “It’s a little bit of everything. . . . The only thing in common is we all worked at Southern Living.”

Each photographer contributed two or three images for the show, Meripol says. All but three of the photos in the exhibit are available for purchase.

The photographers’ various careers at Southern Living span the 1970s to the early 2010s, Meripol says. They shot for the magazine’s travel, food, gardens, and homes and interiors sections.

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Since none of the photos in the exhibit appeared in the magazine, though, they get to show a different side of their work.

That is one of the themes of the show, Meripol adds.

“Very much so,” he says “It’s like, ‘What represents you or your name now and how do you see yourself? Not shooting for someone else but for you?’”

Former food photographer Beth Hontzas, for instance, contributed two tranquil beach waterscapes to the exhibit, while the widow of the late Bruce Roberts, the former director of photography for the magazine, provided a couple of his black-and-white photos from his newspaper days in the 1960s.

Meripol, a former travel photographer at Southern Living, has three photos in the exhibit, including one of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, another of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., and a third of the interior of Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Sheffield.

Gary Clark, another former travel photographer for the magazine, has two photographs of the Space Shuttle Endeavor in the exhibit, as well as one of Willie Seaberry, the late proprietor of the legendary Bolivar County, Miss., juke joint Po’ Monkey’s.

“There’s black and white. There’s color. There’s print on boards. There’s printing on metal,” Meripol says of the exhibit. “I mean, there’s all kinds of media.”

The other photographers whose works are featured in the exhibit are: Michael Clemmer, Mac Jamieson, Sylvia Martin, Meg McKinney, Jean Allsopp, Mary Margaret Chambliss, Van Chaplin, Tina Cornett, Colleen Duffley, Melissa Springer, Joe De Sciose, Jennifer Davick, Marygray Hunter and Kim McRae.

The Southern Living Photographers Exhibit is on display through the first week of March in the gallery at Aldridge Gardens, 3530 Lorna Road in Hoover, Ala. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. Visitors are encouraged to call 205-739-6558 before visiting the gallery to make sure it is not closed for a private event. For more information, go here.