The Awards Collective was created to feature the works of artists who have received either a Juror’s Award or Director’s Award in ASG’s Online exhibitions. Peggy Reynolds’s image Parallel Universes received the Directors’ Award in the open | unleashed exhibition juried by Darren Ching. Peggy’s exhibition Empty Voices is discussed in this GalleryTalk.
Artist Statement
“This exhibition, ‘Empty Voices’ explores the impact of human expansion on the natural environment. Changes in demand, depletion of resources, and the creation of super highways all contribute to the migration of people. There is a stark contrast between the beauty of the desert and decaying buildings and vehicles. Peeling paint, rusted metal, and crumbling structures have a kind of unique aesthetic. These modern-day ruins give off a sense of mystery, melancholy, and a quiet stillness.
The use of black and white, through the dramatic contrast between light and shadow, emphasizes the landscape’s emptiness and loneliness. Each photo reflects my personal impressions and the imagined stories they inspired. Together, they form a narrative, though the connections may not always be obvious. I invite viewers to explore what memories, feelings, or ideas the work brings up. The meaning may shift and evolve over time.”
Peggy Reynolds
February, 2026
Bio
Peggy Reynolds is a photographer based in Vermont. She is largely self-taught and driven by a passion for photography. Her work covers a wide range of subjects, from portraits and still life to architectural and street photography, as well as conceptual pieces, urban exploration, landscapes, and events. The journey began with film photography and darkroom work, and eventually led to include taking photos with a digital camera.
Each photo represents a piece of a puzzle or a component of a journey. The images are a visual diary of thoughts, impressions, and reactions. They reflect an inner world with a hint of a story. Black and white is her preference for conveying mood and emotion, but sometimes color tells the story best.
In addition to two solo gallery shows in 2022 and 2023, her work has been shown in 45 juried exhibitions since 2012.
The Awards Collective was created to feature the works of artists who have received either a Juror’s Award or Director’s Award in ASG’s Online exhibitions. Laurie Peek’s image For Austin received the Juror’s Award in the open | unleashed exhibition juried by Darren Ching. Laurie’s exhibition GINKGO is discussed in this GalleryTalk.
Artist Statement
“Long revered in East Asian culture as a symbol of resilience, longevity, and wisdom, the Ginkgo tree’s ability to persist and survive extremely adverse conditions, including the bombing of Hiroshima, inspires me to believe in self-renewal even in the face of personal tragedy.
These images, which all feature ginkgo leaves, are part of my ongoing series of photographs dedicated to my son and all those who’ve lost a loved one. By naming each image for a departed individual, I honor them and keep their memory alive with a tangible tribute.
As part of my process, in addition to compositing lens-based photos of plants (mostly from my garden), I incorporate various alternative processes including cyanotypes, anthotypes, and lumens. After printing the images on semi-translucent vellum, I then gild the backs of the images with silver- or gold-toned metallic leaf and varnish both sides, giving the prints a metallic sheen reminiscent of sacred art.
With this memorializing project I bring together my long-time fascination with layers, abstraction, ambiguity and the natural world. Making this work has been healing for me and is meant to help heal others.”
Laurie Peek
February, 2026
Bio
Laurie Peek is an award-winning visual artist who’s been a photo-journalist, educator, librarian and fine artist. With an MFA in Photography from the Visual Studies Workshop (Rochester, NY), as well as positions at the George Eastman Museum and The Arts Students League, in recent years she’s been exhibiting her images widely in the US and internationally. She’s been a 2023 Critical Mass Top 200, Finalist in Klompching Gallery’s 2024 Fresh and twice been recognized as an International Garden Photographer of the Year, sponsored by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, London.
Peek’s work is in the collections of: Fine Art Museum of Houston, Paterson Museum (NJ), Center for Photography at Woodstock (Kingston, NY), Center (Santa Fe, NM), and Visual Studies Workshop (Rochester, NY) as well as the private collections of Paula Tognarelli and Mikhail Baryshnikov.
The trees exhibition, juried by Geoffrey Koslov, was in the online gallery from January 2 to February 12, 2026. The juror selected forty seven images from thirty five artist for the exhibition. Elizabeth Sanjuan’s Scalene received the Juror’s Award. Lawrence Manning’s image Breakdown received the Director’s Award.
Juror’s Statement
Trees, as seen in a photograph, is a collaboration between nature, the passage of time and an artist. Here, the artist is a photographer that will in some manner mechanically capture an image. There are more than 73,000 varieties of trees in the world, each presenting its own unique opportunity for a composition. Trees are found in most every country (except polar regions or severely dry desert regions). Attention can be given to each part of the tree; a branch, leaves or roots, each enjoyed and celebrated for its complexity, shape, age, texture, and color. A choice can be made to focus on a lone isolated tree, a group, or an entire forest. In these 27 images, our own relationship to a tree (or trees) is filtered through place, life, death and use.
The photographer takes credit for finding a composition to share with us as a story, emotion, or documentary statement. The images of trees are varied in subject, focus and technique. The appearance and visual appreciation of a tree (or trees) varies by the four seasons, whether it is night or day, and its full life cycle from a start as an acorn, seedling, pattern of growth, confrontation with the elements in nature and its eventual collapse.
Taking the time to take an image is one step, and then the next is to use a physical printing technique or darkroom technique to make the print that will deserve our attention. It is the additional effort by the photographer turned artist to not just stop, compose and then take the photo, but to then share with the viewer an additional effort to make it into an image, into art, beyond nature’s own craftsmanship. What this collection has in it is a
demonstration of how imaginative each of these photographers are to reflect on and share with us the beauty in nature as they see it.
Photography as art is varied not only by the mechanical capture of the composition, but also in the manner of production of the image. Some images are a documentary capture of one moment in time. The photographer is interested in conveying to us a well framed composition, asking us to stand as they did, to see what they see, to feel what they felt, in that place, in that moment. The success of that image depends on how well we are transported to that place and time.
The direct un-manipulated image of a tree will strongly convey emotion and story when taken by the photographer with an expert eye which the untrained eye may casually miss. The mere act of looking up, skyward, we are thrown into a violent tangle of weaving and angry branches in dark black and grey tones screaming upward against a white sky that remind us of the forests in scary haunting fairy tales. Even gazing into a forest, in black and white, we see a tangle of two thin tree trunks seemingly crossing in the center of the composition, as a “X”, in front of a thicker straight tree trunk. We must concentrate to see this as the rest of the image is all forest, and an immense tangle of vines and very thick plant growth on the forest floor. The sky is obscured by millions of leaves in the taller surrounding trees. Yet, the photograph is able to focus our attention on these three trees despite all the wild branch and plant entanglements that surround nature’s “X”. A casual eye might well have missed this engaging scene. Other images are presented to us in color with very muted fall colors, where we peak through the leaves of a nearby tree to our left out to a quiet lake in the near distance, in a style reminiscent of an early Italian renaissance artwork, combined with the quiet gentleness of a mid-19th century Hudson River School of Art painting. How often have we taken a walk through the woods in fall to see the clouds reflected in a very glass smooth stream or walked through a large field where we see a beautiful lone tree just beyond a fence with billowy white clouds cushioning the background. If you never have, then these images open a window in a very special way for you to experience these moments.
Beyond the literal image, the photographer can use any medium of image making or material to turn an image onto a deeper form of art. A photographer can vary the literal image through cropping, tonal change, light and color modification, fragmentation, manipulation, abstraction or turn what is traditionally a two dimensional work into three dimensions. While still literal, the extreme contrast of a truck outlined in white light and with a palm tree behind it, itself in white aflame against a black background, reminds us of the high contrast style used by Ray K. Metzker. The artist can choose to minimize what parts of an image we see, give us scant suggestion of what is there, which forces and demands our attention with a concentration and consensual second-look. In another black and white photograph, the frame is nearly full of a lone wind-blown tree extending to the right located on the shore of a lake (or edge of an ocean) where we see waves wildly and forcefully crashing over rocks. The waves enhance a sensation of wind against the majesty of this singular massive tree holding its own against the elements. The photographer, in making the print, gives the image a deckled textured border around the four sides of the image to fix our gaze. The print also seems to have been given a grainy textured surface. This image, because of these modification, is how this photographer, unlike others might have done, wished us to see, feel and imagine this tree, with these elements of nature, in this place, in this apparently windy stormy weather, for us to feel it as they felt it at that singular moment in time. We must remember that no two photographers, taking an image in the same spot, at the exact same time and place, will make a composition that looks the same as the other. And, despite the many varied ways a photographer can manipulate an image, we should not neglect to point out that an artist can also choose to embed photography into other physical mediums or materials to create a three dimensional artwork. However, with the selections in this collection of tree images, all appear as two dimensional works on paper, but still are so varied and unique.
In this collection, we enjoy the storytelling choices made by these photographers. Consider how the basic choice to make the image in color or black and white will affect how we first greet what we are shown, and how that may affect our reaction and engagement with the image. From what perspective should a singular tree, or a group of trees, be taken? Reflect on how you are impacted if the image has you standing near or far, above or below a particular composition? In one image the photographer gives us a distorted, “fish-eye” image where a very green thick forest is 360 degrees surrounding one grand tree a fairy tale fashion. From this we learn to appreciate the perspective taken by the photographer. Should our attention be driven to the tree in its entirety, or should we be directed to a part of it? Unlike many objects, a tree can be enjoyed and celebrated for the complexity in its roots, the variety in its leaves, short or large, bent or smooth, whether green or a rainbow of changing colors in Fall. All of these factors affect composition. All the other decisions the artist makes, and tools they use, let us see the tree as they wish it to be seen. These are excellent images, well taken and well composed, are uniquely different and distinguishable in where and how our focus is directed.
How light is used in a photograph is so important. It can make an image magical, delightful, mournful, playful, visually interesting and engaging. In one composition, there is a desert scene with a lone very barren leafless tree where light has varying effects. The time of day must have had the sun low on the horizon as light slices through the landscape. There appear to be dunes in the background that are half brown from the shadows cast across them with the other other half brightly lighted in contrast to the shadowed portion. In the foreground the light has a blue cast in its long shadow across the entire lower portion of the image with white light breaking through, somehow separating the foreground from the background. A tree stands very alone on the right side of the composition, partially in the shadow, partially in light, touching the cloudless blue sky above. Just behind the tree, where the floor of sand just touches the brown dunes in the background is the slightest appearance of a string of green bushes or the barest portion of tree tops that just etch across the entirety of the division of foreground and background. What appears to be a very simple image is instead a very artful complex use of light, color and subject. Of death and life. There is a very playful and enjoyable visual feeling from the dance of light and dark across the image in what otherwise is desolate and stark.
In another image, the scene has two trees that appear to hug close to each other while reaching into a night sky full of stars with a touch of light and wisp of clouds. They stand out apart from other trees that surround them at
a distance. The trees are almost anthropomorphic, two people, one taller than the other, pointing at the stars in a magical and mystical place overlooking a very still and smooth lake surrounded by stone boulders at the water’s edge. We are presented a place of isolation, with light coming from the right of the image illuminating the well weathered trunks of these two trees. This photographer has captured with the camera a classic painter’s chiaroscuro use of light. The composition conveys a feel of something sacred and solemn.
Some photographers give their image movement, a fluid and flowing sensation, by the use of layers of brightness and darkness in the photograph to set a mood. We see pieces of a broken branch, brown dried leaves with bits and pieces of other leaves and branches poking through white snow with the sense of a swirling pattern giving motion and movement to the image. The scene is slightly enhanced by increased contrast and brightness in the image that helps capture the viewer’s attention. In another, a lone tree is set in a field of blue and white flowers that seem to float across a green grass field. The mood is whimsical, and lively, with dark storm clouds sweeping across the top two-thirds of the composition, but not in a threatening way. There is a sense that the lone tree in the right third of the image, with a full bloom of green leaves, and with the blue and white flowers around it, is enjoying itself as much as we the viewer would. As the viewer enters the scene, we want to jump into the field and run across to this tree that seems to lean to its right from a breeze that must be sweeping across the field as the storm clouds pass across the sky where we also see patches of blue sky peeping through.
Trees convey strength and softness, defiance and sensitivity. There is a sense of persistence when we see a tree overcoming obstacles such as roots spreading over and around a boulder, or a lone tree standing tall and alone on a barren mountain top, or desert. Trees remain in place well beyond and despite whether mankind stays or moves on. We see fences, and trees growing around barbed wire in rebellion, swelling its own trunk around a bared-wire fence, holding it tight. A singular trees does not move on. Trees reproduce, spread, or endure defiantly, staking out their territory.
The wear and tear of nature encroaching on what ground a tree has claimed is a reminder that nothing is permanent, that nature and its elements get to us and will wear us down in and over time. Some images remind us of the denseness of the forest, and the special effect that light breaking through the canopy has in the morning or evening that is magical. Yet we are reminded of the cycle of life. In one image we have a smaller pine-like tree with its branches weighted down with snow. It is surrounded by larger trees with dark large round trunks only dusted on one side by the snow. This enhances the sense of youth in this young tree covered in snow, but the optimism of its future survival by the strength of other trees with varying trunk thickness, standing guard in an almost protective fashion around it. In yet another image there is a forest of bare, limbless trees, barren as if burned in a devastating fire, with fog in the air over a lifeless snow covered ground. A third image shows us a fallen decaying trunk over the leaf covered forest floor enhanced by limited darkening light, just enough to force the viewer to stare deep into the image. Together the contrast in these image together speak to a life and death cycle.
The photographer as an artist can forgo providing a literal documentary image, but instead use various tools and techniques to bring forward to the viewer their own interpretation and imagination of what they see. In a very
painterly style a photographer has a single large tree in black and white with a trunk that bends sharply left with stark white leaves against gray storm-like textured clouds with wispy fingered extensions in the upper right corner. The composition balances our eye to the center of the image in how the tree twists left while the stormy clouds drive our attention right. At the same time, the tree is set in an undefined open space with a white metal-looking fence in the foreground and a dense, also white, leafed row of trees running, in parallel to the fence, along the back of this undefined area to complete the lower third of the image. The white fence looses detail sharpness as it almost completely visually dissolves away in grainy texture into what may be mist on the ground in the lower right corner. The same technique of blurring detail is seen in this row of trees in the back of the field on either the right or left edges, with more detail toward the center. In this way, our attention is fully on the tree, and we are kept well within the composition, taking notice of the details and texture of the bark on the tree trunk, and detail of the branches and leaves. The tree is given depth and roundness, as the photographer has possibly used the lens aperture settings to take advantage of depth of field in such as way to give sharper detail to the front portion of the tree branches and a much softer focus on the farther back leaves and branches, that almost seem to blend and melt into the background clouds, just like a painter might. Within another very vertical image our
focus is again directed to a tall tree where the lower branches bend down like tired arms and the upper branches hold firm and outward, yet, something seems amiss. On close examination, we see that the photographer appears to have cut, and then reassembled, portions of the image. We see the tree trunk shift slightly right and left, five times, connected, but not connected, built in segments. The border of this image is made up of narrow long segments extracted from what must be a different image since the sparse tree branches in the slim margins are against a much whiter sky than in the core composition.
We have included in this collection an image that captures the vibrant change in color of leaves on a branch from vibrant green to hues of red and orange against the background of other leaves turned yellow and brown. Branches, in another of the selected images, appear translucent suggesting their presence while individual large tree leaves dominate the image in the foreground in orange, brown and purple as if blown off by the wind, against a cloudy enflamed sky in the background. In another, a white bird ascends onto a tree that appears to explode into fragments of shattered branches against a fiery sky above burnt brown earth, with the thick bluish roots of the tree digging down into the ground as if to hold firm as the tree above shatters. Using black, gray and white tones against a grainy sky in yet another image, the bare branches of a lone tree’s leaves appear to explode into a mass of white birds simultaneously becoming leaves, and back into birds, and then taking flight in bright fluttering movement. In yet another beautiful image, at the top third a branch full of green leaves, with the hint of tan-green shadow, vines hang downward through pinkish-orange clouds, fog or mist, falling into the hint of a layer of tree tops, themselves not clearly defined, but shadow-like tan-brown. The entire image has the delicate feel of a watercolor painting or rice paper print influenced by oriental far eastern art.
Some the images reflect on how people engage with trees in nature. When a person appears in an image, many different emotions are triggered. Even though we only see a pair of hands gently wrapped around a tree limb with
the sun low on the horizon in one of the images selected, it feels warm and romantic. We are reminded perhaps of our childhood, and a different memory. Another image places a very blurred large tree center-stage, surrounded by a curving neat line of other trees, also blurred, with a lone child running across a very flat green grass lawn carrying a ball with a smile on their face. A marvelous image of innocence and total joyfulness. One might assume this is the compilation of a number of images to gain this visual impact of movement in the trees. As the viewer and observer, we don’t need to know how the photographer achieved this affect other than tojust enjoy the result of what ever technique they used. And, there is playfulness in a black and white image of a tire rope swing hung from a outstretched branch, hanging down perfectly still, with a slightly foggy morning atmosphere, conveying a sense of silence and times not to be forgotten.
Trees as an object, landmark or setting have always held an endless role in art, literature, history, and our imaginations. There were many many exceptional images reviewed to curate this selection for exhibition. An enjoyable and most difficult task. In this selection of work we see some of the may ways in which a tree or grouping of trees are appreciated and cherished. The tree is much more than a living organism within nature. A tree, as we see in these photographs, are as cherished as any portrait of a person. We live among trees. We use trees. Trees are embedded in our folklore. We honor trees as landmarks, use trees in construction of our homes, or for shelter. It seems that we never tire of seeing trees in art. Within that art, and in this case photography, we can never exhaust this endless fascination and engagement. So it is here, in this exhibition, that we celebrate some of the many ways a tree(s) are captured in these images. We enjoy the beauty, and marvel at the story told, with the tree as the central actor on the stage created by the imagination and vision of these photographers.
The Awards Collective was created to feature the works of artists who have received either a Juror’s Award or Director’s Award in ASG’s Online exhibitions. Susan White’s image Caddo Lake 3 – Maenam, Mother of the Water received the Juror’s Award in the landscapes exhibition juried by Wendi Schneider. Susan’s exhibition Of Light Of Water is discussed in this GalleryTalk.
Bio
Susan White is a fine art photographer who loves to capture the quiet beauty of the natural world. Her journey in photography really took off after an inspiring trip to Italy in 2015 which transformed her passion into a dedicated practice.
Drawing influence from talented photographers like Keith Carter, Huibo Hou, Michael Kenna, and Charlotte Watts, Susan is continuously working to find her own unique style. She primarily focuses on landscape and monochromatic images, where she highlights the simple yet beautiful interplay of light, texture, and form. Her photographs feel like a moment frozen in time, inviting viewers to appreciate the beauty of a place without distractions.
Susan takes a hands-on approach to her work, printing her own photographs, which adds a personal touch to each piece. Her experiments with various fine art papers add depth and richness to her prints, enhancing the overall experience. She encourages folks to pause and connect with the stillness and wonder of the world.
Originally from San Diego, Susan felt a pull toward the stunning landscapes of the Pacific Northwest. The natural beauty around her fuels her creativity, helping her capture that unique blend of tranquility and ruggedness the region offers.
Traveling to various destinations plays a key role in shaping her photography. Each new location brings fresh inspiration, and these experiences help her weave the unique qualities of different places into her work.
In everything she does Susan invites viewers to slow down and appreciate the often overlooked moments of beauty in nature. Her photography offers a chance to reflect on the simple joys all around us, encouraging a deeper connection to the world we share.
The Awards Collective was created to feature the works of artist who have received either a Juror’s Award or Director’s Award in ASG’s Online exhibitions. Anne Walker’s image Threshold received the Directors’ Award in the elsewhere exhibition juried by Kevin Tully. Anne’s exhibition Recollection is discussed in this GalleryTalk.
Artist Statement
“An hour is not merely an hour, it is a vase full of scents and sounds and projects and climates and what we call reality is a certain connection between these immediate sensations and the memories which envelope us simultaneously with them.” Proust
For as long as I can remember, I have held on to family photographs and artifacts as tightly as I can for fear of losing the past. From an early age, I sensed how easily the memories and stories connected to these items could vanish with their storytellers. When I was 23 I lost my mother to cancer and a sense of finality and impermanence overtook me. The security of home and family stability disappeared. The person who shared the most precious family stories with me was gone. And now, as the years pass and there is no longer an older generation to verify facts, the stories are becoming murkier. I feel an urgency to give renewed energy to this history.
This series began with a rediscovered photograph of my maternal grandparent’s house. This was where I spent holidays and summers as a kid, exploring an attic filled with antique objects and photographs that opened a door to another time and place. There was magic in that house, something existed there that didn’t in my day to day world. My imagination was sparked.
Immersing myself in the visceral world of memory enables me to follow a bridge to the past to create this work. There I explore obscured family stories and fading recollections, creating photographs that meditate on the fragility of memory and discover touchstones to the past. Using my daughters in these images, wearing the clothes or holding objects that belonged to grandparents and great grandparents, the stories change and grow. There is no longer the finality I once saw in them but a continued thread.
This series is presented as selenium toned silver gelatin prints. All images were created with both large and medium format film cameras.
Anne Walker
January, 2026
Bio
Anne Walker is a San Francisco based photographer working in both film and digital formats.
Anne has been in love with photography since she processed her first roll of Tri-X in the Fort Hunt High School darkroom. She received her BA concentrating in photography at Hampshire College but after graduating followed her second love, working as a pastry chef, as a career. Over the past 8 years Anne has returned full time to photography and is currently pursuing her MFA at Maine Media College.
Much of Anne’s work focuses on themes of home, the fragility of memory, obscured family stories and traces of what we leave behind.
Anne’s work has been exhibited at The Center for Photographic Arts, The Griffin Museum, A. Smith Gallery, and many others. Anne is a 2023 and 2025 Critical Mass Finalist.
The history exhibition, juried by Kevin Tully, was in the online gallery from December 1, 2025 to January 31, 2026. The juror selected seventy-seven images from nineteen artists for the exhibition. Louise Sayers’ After the rains received the Juror’s Award. Vicki Reed’s image Spring Break Memories received the Director’s Award.
The Awards Collective was created to feature the works of artist who have received either a Juror’s Award or Director’s Award in ASG’s Online exhibitions. Lisa Tyson Ennis’ image Seen/Unseen received the Directors’ Award in the water exhibition juried by Catherine Couturier. Lisa’s exhibition Seen/Unseen is discussed in this GalleryTalk.
Artist Statement
My work is a collection of moments of questioning, of attempting to look beneath what is seen to the unseen.
I wonder at the complexity, mystery, beauty and indifference of our world and am trying to make sense of it by looking closely, working slowly, giving attention.
Water is a shapeshifting symbol that reappears often in my work. Alone at the waters edge, I go to a place that feels closest to my animal self – a place I can not properly describe with the words we have. A place of both peace and tension, fear and wonder where deeper questions surface. Spiritual in the way I can be so. Closer to the more than human world. The Sea, the birthplace of all life. Being in this semi-meditative state is integral to the way I work and the work that I make.
Lisa Tyson Ennis
December, 2025
Bio
What is seen and not seen – the truths that lie beneath the surface – these are important concepts in Lisa Tyson Ennis’ slow, meditative, process driven work.
She explores many different historical photographic processes in her work including tintype, wet plate collodion, cyanotype and film in her traditional wet darkroom and has recently introduced digital tools into her art making as well.
She has a BA in Art History from the University of Delaware. Her photographic skills are primarily self taught but have been greatly advanced by targeted process workshops with both Maine Media and Santa Fe Photographic Workshops.
Lisa’s photographs reside in many private collections including Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Tides Institute, Delaware Art Museum, and Portland Museum of Art, Biggs Museum of American Art and has been included in more than 75 solo and group exhibitions.
She lives on the coast of Maine with her husband John and their beloved pets.
The Awards Collective was created to feature the works of artists who have received either a Juror’s Award or Director’s Award in ASG’s Online exhibitions. Glen Serbin’s image Dune Study received the Juror’s Award in the elsewhere exhibition juried by Kevin Tully. Glen’s exhibition Ice and Sand is discussed in this GalleryTalk.
Artist Statement
“Photography has been a lifelong pursuit for me—a way of seeing and connecting with the world. My work focuses on uncovering the forms, shadows, and intricate patterns that nature reveals through its constant shaping and reshaping.
Over the past two years, I have concentrated on documenting the compositions embedded in glaciers and sand dunes across the globe. Though ice and sand are vastly different elements, both serve as canvases for the forces of wind and weather, which carve out strikingly similar rhythms of line, structure, and pattern.
In September 2024, the Lucie Foundation sponsored an exhibition of my series Fire and Ice at their gallery in Budapest, Hungary. The exhibition later traveled to Athens, Greece, in June 2025. At the conclusion of the Athens showing, select images were donated to Greenpeace in Budapest in support of their fundraising efforts.
I work exclusively in black and white to strip away the distraction of color, allowing viewers to experience the sheer intricacy of these environments—shapes, textures, and tonal subtleties illuminated by natural light. The influence of German photographer Karl Blossfeldt and American landscape photographer Ansel Adams is deeply present in my vision. Like them, I am compelled by the way light defines a subject’s form, atmosphere, and presence.
For decades, I worked as an editor and publisher in both commercial and fine art photography. Today, I am fully committed to my practice as a fine art photographer, with a devotion to monochrome landscapes and still life subjects.”
Glen Servin
December, 2025
Bio
Photography has been at the center my professional and creative life for almost half a century.
I am inspired by the work of German photographer Karl Blossfeldt and influenced by the American landscape photographer Ansel Adams. For me, it is essential to relay how an artist sees and uses light-it is what interests me the most about any photo. I am always interested in the quality of light that defines the shape, feel and detail of each subject.
From 1977-2018, I was the founder, publisher and editor of Photographer’s Forum magazine. The Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington D.C. has acknowledged Photographer’s Forum magazine’s importance by archiving all issues from November 1978-November 2018. The University of Missouri, School of Media Arts and Journalism library has archived all editions of Photographer’s Forum magazine.
In 2018 my publishing company was sold. I am now dedicated, full-time, to fine art photography, and as such, devoted to monochrome images of landscape and still life.
The portal exhibition, juried by Ann Jastrab, was in the online gallery from November 21, 2025 to January 1, 2026. The juror selected forty seven images from thirty four artist for the exhibition. Kari Bishop’s Eighth Door received the Juror’s Award and the Visitors’ Award. Jessica Wascak’s image Points of Light: “Veil” received the Director’s Award. (pardon the geographical misstep…Buenos Aires is in Argentina)
Juror’s Statement
These photographers…they took me on a journey, to places, through spaces, across borders and distances and landscapes, some familiar, some foreign, some mysterious, some unbelievable. And I went willingly.
To be with the juror award winner, Kari Bishop, is to know magic and breathe water. Her image, Eighth Door, really took the idea of “portal” to a new realm for me. The suspense of what will happen next and where her subject will go after they break through to the other side is everything for me. And really, all the images selected for this exhibition have that mystery and wonder, the question of what next, where next, what happened and what will happen…? It’s how the images can make us feel full of uncertainty and expectation at the same time, that is what makes them extraordinary. To be put on edge and then to be fulfilled. To be curious and trepidatious simultaneously. To be scared and also excited. And ultimately to be thrilled at the sight of something, some view, some discovery, some moment, that moment often akin to a miracle.
It wasn’t easy to whittle down the work, so many beautifully seen photographs, so many choices of how to put a show together. But one thing that all these pictures did was to remind me of one of my favorite quotes by Constantin Brancusi:
“To see far is one thing, going there is another.”
And these photographers went there.
Thank you for sharing your work with me and taking me with you.
Something we talk about a lot in reviews is how to create a cohesive, compelling body of work. There are many facets and answers to this question, but one I think doesn’t get talked about is the use of basic story structure.
The visual representation of basic story structure is a lopsided pyramid set in a plain. The elements are: exposition, conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution or denouement. Many bodies of work that have a strong narrative, a story to tell, can typically be made to follow this form.
Why is this beneficial? I think there are two primary reasons. One is that the viewer has been, unconsciously, bombarded with television shows, movies, songs, short stories and novels that follow this form. It is subconsciously recognized.
Second, if the photographer is conscious of attempting to create or curate in this manner, there can be a tighter, more cohesive relationship between the images, thereby telling the story with more clarity.
Having just been jurors of Critical Mass we saw numerous entries that could have benefited from thinking in these terms, especially since they only had ten images to get their creative concepts across.
The video below is great. Vonnegut expertly and humorously gets the point across, in his way.
