Barbara Kantz: is a college professor who teaches history and human services. She is interested in visual art as an important element in examining the human condition. She developed an aesthetic sense from her father, a commercial artist. She lives on Long Island on a tidal marsh and tends to photograph what is local and regional. She is an award winning photographer and songwriter. She studied photography for one semester at Parsons School of Design.
 

Bree Lamb: is a working artist and photographer based in New Mexico. She received her MFA in Photography from the University of New Mexico in 2015. She is a Beaumont Newhall/Van Deren Cole Fellow. Her work has been exhibited in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, and she is represented by Gallery 19 in Chicago. Bree is Assistant Editor at Fraction Magazine, and Project Manager for Rogue Press. She is an Adjunct Professor in Creative Media Technology at Dona Ana Community College in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Bree has previously worked for Wildenstein & Company, The Center for Photography at Woodstock, Fovea Exhibitions, and photo technique Magazine.

Bree says of her work, "The project, Echo, is still in its early stages and is still very much a work in progress. It is growing out of my interest in portraying shared human experiences and bridging temporal gaps. I am combining photographs of landscapes that I have taken with images of older family members. By merging photographs of specific family members at times before I was born with images of dramatic, seemingly timeless landscapes, I am exploring my own curiosities about genetic connections within a larger context of shared human experience.
www.breelamb.com

Honorable Mention

Christine Zuerch: In traveling to the dark outer reaches of our planet, there exists the drive to find out something new about ourselves and the vastness above us. Shortwave radio and Space Race technology of the 1950’s and 1960’s cultivated intensely individual and collective experiences. My research on shortwave radio & space travel as landmarks of exploration includes photographs, shortwave spy codes, a spacesuit, & a collection of the QSL cards that shortwave operators mail to one another. This research has influenced my need to ask questions and seek the unknown through travel and my own experiences. I am commenting on our cultural associations with communication & distance while challenging the ownership and definitions of space exploration. Photographs are portals between our subjective and objective nature, the real and unreal. This research is comprised of photography, audio, & sculpture & is presented under the guise of the “American Interterrestrial Society”, a fictitious organization that isarchiving this investigation.
www.christinezuercher.com

Dan McCormack:"I use the extreme wide angle distortions of the round oatmeal box pinhole camera and the subtle digital colorization’s of B&W negatives to create a series of  visceral images that probe the unconscious, stepping away from the literal reality. The juxtaposition of the model and  the site triggers a response that I react to while colorizing. The resulting images range from the absurd to the profound."

I have taught photography at Purdue University, Pratt Institute, SUNY New Paltz, Bard College, Ramapo College and  Mercy College before I came to Marist College twenty years ago. I currently head the photography program at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York.
www.danmccormack.net

Dave Eckhart: "On my 21st birthday a letter from my Mom stated; “I remember the day you were born. Dad was so excited that he had a boy.  I was really excited too. I remember how quiet you were as a baby. I guess you were just observing everything. You were so shy that your little sister would speak up for you.You were always so creative. I think you drew better than me by the time you were eight." I always knew I wanted to do something where I could express my creativity. But it wasn’t ‘till high school when photography found me. I know a lot of photographers say,” I fell in love with photography when…” but I didn’t. I still remember when I got my first camera. It wasn’t a photographer’s cliché of “and ever since I have been in love with photography.” It took me about a decade after I got my first camera to realize that this is something I could imagine doing for the rest of my life, and another year after that to find that the love for photography had been slowly romancing me over the past few years. It was my tool for expression, a voice for a quiet child. Photography has become something I cannot be weaned off of. The addiction is much too strong. It is something I must partake in everyday.  Until the day I receive a letter, that I will never read, entitled: “Cease to Exist.”
www.daveeckhartphoto.com
 

Deb Schwedhelm: "In this series, I am exploring a sense of place and belonging. Being in the military system, my family often lives in a world of uncertainty. Untethered, without an anchor. The sea acts as an allegory of our lives, shifting and moving with the tides -- forcing us to tread, swim and stay afloat through the changes. While I am photographing my children and friends, I am also photographing myself, moving in and out of focus, allowing the liquid world to illustrate my journey. The photographs in this series were made in the waters of Florida and Minnesota between 2012 and 2014. I plan to continue the project throughout my travels, while living in Japan. The photographs were captured digitally using with underwater housing. My prints are produced on museum quality fine art paper and are limited to editions of fifteen."
 
Born in Detroit, Michigan, Deb Schwedhelm was originally trained as Registered Nurse and subsequently spent 10 years employed as an Air Force Nurse. Although she has been passionate about photography since her early 20s, it wasn't until Deb left the military that she was finally able to pursue the medium as a full time career.
 
Deb's photographs have been exhibited widely and featured in numerous publications throughout the world. She has received awards from PhotoNOLA, New Orleans, LA; MPLS Photo Center, Minneapolis, MN; The Perfect Exposures Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; A. Smith Gallery, Johnson City, TX; Santa Fe Photographic Workshops, Santa Fe, NM; and The Art of Photography Show, San Diego, CA. Her photographs have also been selected for the permanent collection of The Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO.
 
Deb is married to a Naval Explosive Ordnance Disposal Officer based in Zushi, Japan. She is the mother to three children, who are often the subjects of her photographs.

www.debschwedhelm.com

Diana Bloomfield: "Like many native Southerners, I am closely attuned to & completely enamored with the past. And photographs, for me, have always been about the past. Even when I photograph to make a statement about the present, or to comment on the future, the image itself-- the one I've just made simply by opening and closing a shutter-- is cemented in the past. These particular images, from an ongoing series I began 15 years ago, are of my now 28-year old daughter. An always intuitive and willing collaborator, she is the perfect photographic subject and - as ever- an inspiring muse. These images present as visual narratives; alone, or in combination, they have a story to tell. As metaphorical portraits, they suggest the essence of a person, rather than offer any literal interpretation. I like to think of these as visual vignettes that suggest half-remembered, fragmented dreams— or elusive memories. They borrow from the past, my ever-changing and skewed memories of that past, and fleeting moments in time. When I first began this series, I used lensless (pinhole) and toy cameras, because I love the movement, the fluidity, and the unpredictability inherent with these cameras. I feel I am at my creative best when that slight element of the unknown is a constant. For over 20 years, I have also printed in antique printing processes— for some of those same reasons.This figurative work, printed in the multi-layered gum bichromate process, exploits that sense of movement and fluidity and is also often rife with imperfection and unpredictability. This particular process offers me real creative freedom and seems to mesh well with my images, which remain wholly interpretive and suggestive in nature.
The repeated layerings (and the often slight mis-registrations of those layers) are meant to add a tonality and a saturated richness, yet each layer added also serves to remove all the hard, clearly defined edges and sharp clarity. A softness and ambiguity results-- much the way we see and remember.
www.dhbloomfield.com

Diane Peterson: "I am a self taught American photographer with a unique style and unconventional take on selective subjects which is reflected in the creation of photographic arts using a variety of cameras, formats and lenses. Many of my favorite images are made using discarded candy tins or boxes reinvented to become simple pinhole cameras. Because I spent many years living in a very isolated area I decided to create my own "people" as subjects for my photography.  I have made dolls since I was eight years old, so this was a natural extension of this craft, though these "dolls/people are made of wood with handpainted faces attached in a way that allows me to change them up a bit."
www.thepinholequeen.com
www.dianemartinpeterson.com   

All entrants images are shown in Exhibitons 1,2,3, and 4.