Coco Simon and Bob Catlett

If you like to get up late on Saturday, join us this month for an afternoon field trip to the Joseph Miller Center for Photographic Arts, out in rural Virginia near Gainesville. We’ll visit the 3rd Annual Abstracts Ex-hibit, which has entries by four members of SSCC. Having seen a preview, we can assure you that this year’s show has a spectacular array of mind-blowing images. After touring the abstracts, we’ll explore the acres and acres of woods, hills, and a pond with a creek. If we’re lucky, we’ll see resident wildlife, too. We meet at noon in the parking lot at the Giant on Arliss, as usual. Directions are in the Member Hand-book.

It takes about an hour to get to the Center. Plan on bringing a picnic lunch!

Joseph Miller Center for the Photographic Arts
4811 Catharpin Road
Gainesville, VA 20155

Matt Schmidt is not exactly a stranger to SSCC. Known for his work in abstracts and his affiliation with Joe Miller, Matt was invited to sit in on our February abstracts competition. In his professional life, Matt is a computer specialist, and he brings that expertise into his photographic life as well.

As an amateur photographer, Matt covers a wide variety of subjects. In colder months, he often shoots indoors, mostly macro and still life, while in the warm season he shoots landscapes, action, and motor sports. Over the last several years, he’s been developing his skills with more artistic photographic interpretations, incorporating panning, multiple exposures, and montages into his portfolio. He’s also produced Photoshop actions and Lightroom presets to simplify what he calls “the tedious tasks” of post-processing.

Even though Matt works in a technical field, he’s taken quite an interest in art, studying the masters in both painting and photography. Now, he’s begun to apply those interpretations and compositional and lighting techniques to his photography.

Matt frequently judges and gives presentations for the Northern Virginia Alliance of Camera Clubs and its affiliates. His work as the NVACC webmaster means managing all the electronic entries and preparing images for the jurying process. His generosity with his time and enthusiasm is Matt’s way of “giving back” to a community that, as he describes it, “has helped him without reservation.” Matt’s also a member of his local camera club, the Northern Virginia Photographic Society, and has held a board position in NVPS for the last six years. He is currently one of its webmasters and has been the digital competition coordinator, PSA rep, co-VP for competitions, and the coordinator of workshops, education, and training. To hone his perceptions and abilities as a competition judge, Matt has attended the PSA Image Analysis course and gone through the extensive training in judging given by the Joseph Miller Center for the Photographic Arts.

You can see Matt’s own work at his web site:  http://loreleistudios.com

For this final speaker’s night of the season, our guest is Greg Kearns, noted naturalist and photographer. By the time he was 17, Greg knew he wanted to work outdoors and, as he puts it, “give back to nature.” In 1979 he had an internship at Patuxent River Park in Croom, MD – and he never really left. For over 28 years now, Greg’s been enjoying his work as naturalist with the park (which falls under the Prince George’s side of the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission (MNCPPC)).

His role as naturalist extends to being a natural history educator, and Greg has communicated his passion for conservation not just to visitors to the park but also through his seminars for bird clubs and other conservation groups. Greg’s activities as a naturalist also take on other guises: he’s an accomplished photographer, worldwide traveler, and leader of eco-tours here and abroad. His specialty in the natural world is birds, and he’s a renowned authority on the Osprey and Sora Rail, an elusive bird of the marshes. In his decades of research on the bird, he pioneered successful trapping and tagging techniques and innovations in documenting its migrations.

Greg is known as an expert of the wetland ecology of Jug Bay. (Jug Bay is a component of Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve under NOAA.) In 2006, he was named conservationist of the year by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources for his work in wetlands habitat restoration, specifically for the restoration of the wild rice marshes on the river, which had been declining since the 1990s, eaten away by resident Canada geese. This restoration, by the way, has been recognized as one of the best wetlands restorations in our state. Greg also received the Jug Bay Award for significant contributions to the environment on the Patuxent.
Greg Kearns is a lucky man. How many of us work so hard and have so much fun doing it!

Come prepared with suggestions, comments and questions for the manager of the new Ritz Camera in Bethesda. Martin, the manager,will demonstrate the imaging capabilities Ritz has by bringing in samples of cards, books, metallic prints, etc. Ritz is a good place to get calenders, cards and books printed. You’ll be able to see actual samples of work done at the store. Martin will bring a price list so we will also know how much the services are. Also, Martin will talk about the new items the store stock that the previous Ritz did not have.

Martin Schulman has been in the Photo Industry for 30 years. He worked as a lab manager and customer service representative for Colorfax Labs during the 80’s. In 1988 Martin started working as a photo assistant both in Washington DC as well as NY with an eye to becoming a full time professional photographer. Martin worked as a commercial fashion photographer in NY, Miami,Madrid and Chicago, and has been published many times. He has also been part of group and one man shows of his artwork.

He moved back to his hometown of Washington DC following 9/11, and has been the Manager at The Ritz Camera in Bethesda MD for the past 9 years while also pursuing his own personal projects. He is married and lives with his Wife Ellen and their 2 cats in Gaithersburg Maryland

The location will be same last year, the Sheraton Washington North Hotel located at 4095 Powder Mill Road, Beltsville, MD 20705 (map).

Drinks (cash bar) and socializing begin at 6:30pm, with food service starting at 7pm. Year-End Competition Awards, a guest speaker, service awards, and other events ensure a full and fun evening.

Cost and other details to follow.

Photographer, multi-media strategist, interactive producer, anthropologist, it’s hard to categorize Josh Cogan, especially as each facet of his work influences the other facets. Even as a photographer, it’s tough to tack a label on Josh’s work. Portraits, travel, commercial – but there’s an essential documentary core. As noted in a recent article by Dan Havlik in Imaging Resource, a digital photo newsletter, “Josh Cogan’s background in anthropology gives him a unique perspective as a photographer, and his passion for traveling around the world to document its peoples, cultures and traditions gives us a rare glimpse at humanity’s hidden stories.”

While in college, during a semester of study in Israel, Josh discovered that the camera can be, as he says, “a good excuse to bridge the gap between yourself and people you don’t know.” He took his entry-level camera with him everywhere. Josh graduated from the University of Maryland with a Master’s degree in anthropology, spent a few years experimenting with life, and then, as he says, “took to the road with a mission: to document vanishing cultures and enrich our understanding of social issues through photography and new media.” The camera became for him the essential tool for ethnography; it lets him blend his passion for travel with his anthropologist’s inquisitive mindset. More specifically, he uses it to record how and where cultures meet and merge and the changes caused by cultural interactions.

One of his recent projects was titled “Tomorrow We Disappear,” a documentary film plus still shots that cover the “magicians’ ghetto” in New Delhi. It’s a seedy neighborhood of performers, puppet masters, and various other artists in danger of eclipse. The stills, expressive and haunting, were shown during last fall’s FotoWeek at the 6th and I Synagogue downtown. Another of Josh’s own special projects – as opposed to commercial work for clients – is called “Pilgrim” and depicts religious moments across the world’s traditions.

Josh has received considerable recognition for his work. His images have been published in the New Yorker, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers, and in Travel and Leisure magazine, among others. Recently, he received the German Marshall Fund Fellowship for his work on agribusiness in Brazil. One of his multimedia projects, “Hope: Living and Loving with HIV in Jamaica,” was created with the multimedia firm BlueCadet, where Josh was an interactive producer. It won Josh an Emmy for New Approaches to Documentary. These days, Josh is in demand for his commercial work, yet he still finds time to travel extensively, keep refining his photographic expertise, and grow in depth as a human being.