Canceled due to weather:

In preparation for the Themed January Competition "Through Doors, Out Windows," we will be having an image critique on January 11th.  Our critics will again come from the club's deep pool of  NVACC trained judges.  Critiques are an ideal opportunity for club members to gain more detailed explanations of what is most effective about their work, where it could stand to be improved in the eyes of the judges.  For this critique we have an esteemed team of judges, Andy Klein, Scott Musson and Bill Prosser.  We will need to complete the meeting by 9:15 PM in order to allow time for a Board meeting following the critique.  As always, we will attempt to accommodate as many images as possible.

Andy Klein started his passion for photography at an early age. An Argus was his first camera and small, scalloped edged muted color images his first photographs. Darkrooms and better cameras and lenses followed over the years. Andy has been a darkroom instructor, photography teacher, wedding photographer, and even occasional award winner. While landscapes are in his work, photographic storytelling is what he prefers...a combination of capturing the decisive moment (Eggleston, Winogrand, and Cartier-Bresson), the human condition (Walker-Evans, Mary-Ellen Mark, Dorthea Lange, Norman Rockwell, and David Hume Kennerly) and the lines and shapes of equipment and buildings (Bourke-White). He likes the simplicity and elegance of black and white. Emblematic of this is his preference for simple, unobtrusive cameras. As a judge Andy prefers to make the "competition" more of a teaching/learning experience and as time permits will discuss each photograph and what he sees and feels about each.

Scott Musson is a photographer, lecturer and frequently critiques, speaks and judges at photography organizations and clubs in the Northern Virginia and Washington DC metropolitan area. A Photographer of the Year for the Northern Virginia Photographic Society (NVPS), Scott has published a photo calendar with his wife, Emi for the past nine years.

"Photography is a natural extension of my love for travel", says Scott. "While I've taken pictures all my life, it wasn't until I was older and could afford to travel that my passion for photography truly developed. I love the whole process of photography: planning a shoot, getting up early to catch the light, processing the images (nowadays digitally), and printing and matting."

Scott has a passion for photography in and around water. He has been capturing images from a kayak and while snorkeling for a number of years. "I would snorkel everyday if I could," Scott says, and tries to make several excursions a year to the tropics to enjoy this aspect of photography.

Scott and his wife Emi have had a number of photographs used in the sets of major motion pictures. Most recently Scott's photo "Lightning Steve" was a prominent backdrop in the 2009 motion picture "Wonderful World" starring Matthew Broderick.

Scott is a past president of the NVPS and has served on its board for several years. He has been Vice President of Competition and of Programs for that organization and currently is its website manager. He has received the NVPS "Versatile Photographer of the Year" award and the "Advanced Photographer of the Year" award for Prints and Digital Projected Images.

Bill Prosser has been a serious amateur photographer for over 35 years. Beginning in the early 1970's he studied under a number of Northern Virginia teachers and mentors and Canadian, Freeman Patterson. In 1995 he gave up the chemical darkroom for the computer and film for the digital chip in 2000 after learning Photoshop and working photographic images in his digital darkroom.  Also in 1995 he began his current volunteer work at McLean High School where he teaches Photoshop, photography, and mentors students in visual design. He served as a teaching assistant for several Smithsonian Institution Photoshop Classes. He is a founding member, and past-president, of the McLean Photography Club and a 20 year member and board member of the Northern Virginia Photographic Society (NVPS). In recent years he earned numerous NVPS Photographer-of-the-Year and Image-of-the -Year awards. He has exhibited his photographic images at University of Wisconsin-Madison and several Fairfax County Virginia venues.  Georgetown University purchased seven of his Washington, DC images to hang in its Graduate Public Policy Institute Faculty and Administrative Offices. His work has been published in the National Geographic Traveler Magazine and, most recently, the March/April 2008 AAA World Magazine.

Please submit your images by 6:00 pm on Monday, 10 January so that I can get the images sorted and copied onto media for Tuesday evening.  Images should be numbered in order of preference and have the photographer's name included for the critique, e.g., 1-JoeSmith.jpg, 2-JoeSmith, 3-JoeSmith.jpg.  Putting the number before the name allows us to use the computer to automatically sort the images.  Please size the images in accordance with the digital competition rules and email the images to critique@nospam!#*&^#)type address - don't copy spam protection(*@.@nospamnvps.org.

For those who are new to the club, typical critique sessions will cover two images from all submitters and occasionally are able to get into the 3rd round of images before running out of time.  Please number your images accordingly.

Questions can be addressed to Matthew Schmidt at mgs@nospam!#*&^#)type address - don't copy spam protection(*@.@nospamloreleistudios.com.