Tom Burden and Melanie Marts, co-VP’s of Competition, are pleased to host Mary Ann Setton as our guest judge. There is no theme for this month. Please upload your digital images by the deadline, as per the current instructions on the club website. Prints should be signed in by 7:15, so our judge can preview them. You must be a paid member to compete. You are invited to join Mary Ann for dinner at The Olive Garden. She has thoughtfully provided the following bio:

Mary Ann is both a past VP for Competitions and Past President of the Northern Virginia Photographic Society (NVPS). She is a 1995 graduate of the Washington School of Photography and has augmented that training with many photography and Adobe Photoshop courses, including the famed Freeman Patterson’s Photography and Visual Design Workshop in 2007. She worked as a professional photographer and videographer from 1997 to 2009 and for several years ran a portrait studio in her home. Experienced as a judge and critique leader, Mary Ann completed Joe Miller’s Seminar on Judging in December 2006

Her images have won numerous awards in the Northern Virginia Photographic Society, ribbons from the Vienna Photography Shows where she won “Best In Show” in 2001, and several images were juried into the Art League of Alexandria’s monthly exhibits at The Torpedo Factory, where she also won a prestigious Equal Award in 2002 and maintained a bin for two years. She was named NVPS “Photographer of the Year” in both 2005 and 2006 in the category of Enhanced Prints and won two “Print of the Year” Awards in 2000 and two again in the 2005. Her image “All Truckered Out” won first place in the AAA World 2009 photo contest. In 2011 her prints were juried into both Joe Miller’s Abstract Art Exhibit and The Blue Ridge Mountain Arts Council Spring Photography Show.

Mary Ann and her husband Dick live in the northern Shenandoah Valley area where she has organized and leads a Photography Club in her active adult community, frequently teaching and encouraging novice photographers. While she continues to do some professional work in photo restoration, portraits, and creating fine art prints, greeting and note cards, she spends the majority of her photographic time honing her craft by working on photographic art and trying to stay current with her favorite software, Photoshop.

Respectfully submitted
Melanie Marts