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. Jim Rohan’s image Suspension Tower, Brooklyn Bridge received the Director’s Award in the imperfect lens exhibition juried by Amanda Smith. Jim’s exhibition Film is Dead is discussed in this GalleryTalk.
Artist Statement
“Film is Dead is a long term project made during the last ten or so years using plastic cameras and film that reached its expiration date roughly forty to sixty years ago. This series of photos includes both images from the natural world and the constructed environment.
For many years, I was satisfied with making “straight” plastic camera with fresh film. Much of my recent work, however, has been about the deconstruction of my images and using extremely expired film allowed another avenue for me to appease my destructive image making tendencies even further.
During the past few years, the sixty year old film and the sixty plus year old me became friends. There’s something strangely comforting in using film that’s as old as oneself. I used films with names like “Lucky”, “Thrifty”, “Rex” and my personal favorite called “DandiPan”. These films were often excessively curly, brittle, or sometimes even strangely damp or sticky. Every now and then, I’d find some strange algae-like life forms growing on the emulsion. Magical numbers from the film’s paper backing often appeared out of nowhere. Now and then I’d be blessed with the occasional “black sun”, which was really not a sun but just a large imperfection placed in a fortuitous location in the film frame. All of the films used for these images have long ceased production. The “freshest” film that I used was Kodak Verichrome Pan that expired in 1986. Verichrome itself ceased to be manufactured nearly twenty five years ago.
It’s also a challenge using this ancient material masquerading as film. What I am not presenting here are the many blank rolls that I unintentionally shot because the film had reached its ultimate demise. Sometimes the rolls were clear. At other times, the rolls had so much base fog that they were almost completely black and no amount of chemical voodoo or secret developing incantation could rescue them. Of course, I am convinced that my best images remain lost forever on those particular rolls of film.
Film is dead. Long live film.”
Jim Rohan
March, 2026
Bio
I am a late arrival to my own photography. I spent thirty-five years in the commercial photographic industry as a studio photographer and photo lab co-owner. To this end, my time was devoted to making images for others. Now retired, I have rediscovered my own photography through the use of plastic cameras. These dubious cameras are the antithesis of everything that I did in the commercial photographic world for thirty plus years. I think of using plastic cameras as sort of a therapy, a cure for the sharp, detailed images that dominated my professional past. My current photos avoid technical sharpness and precision and celebrate the soft focus, light leaks, vignetting and the overall imperfections that plastic lenses produce. I feel that these qualities give my images a soft, atmospheric and evocative quality that feel-more like half-remembered memories or dreams than clinical documentary photos.
I grew up and currently live much of the year in the Boston area. My wife and I spend summers wondering up and down the beaches of Prince Edward Island, Canada. I received a BA from Boston College in Communications and Political Science. I did my graduate work at Penn State University in Journalism. Many years later, I discovered that this sort of education has very little to do with making photos with a plastic camera.
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. Renee Elkin’s image Meditation received the Juror’s Award in the imperfect lens exhibition juried by Amanda Smith. Renee’s exhibition Serenity is discussed in this GalleryTalk.
Artist Statement
“Using cameras in what they do best, capturing light on film or a media card, is how my imagination gets filled and how my artistic vision is seen. Throughout the years of making images with many different types of cameras (analog, digital, lensless/pinhole, plastic/toy), have all guided me to the juncture where I have been composing images towards a hybrid method of photographic art.
A good many of these images were produced with film, and on occasion, still are. My time of working in the darkroom has passed. Now film is scanned and then reworked in Photoshop. Using digital imaging has added to my repertoire and expanded my way of seeing the world around me. The initial captures now take on a new life.
I lean towards landscapes for the peace and solemnity it affords me while exploring gardens, the desert, and forest areas. If there is a message to my series it is to bring a calmness to this frantic world in which we are living.”
Renee Elkin
March, 2026
Bio
Renee Elkin’s art interests began very early in life. She remembers sitting with her mother who both taught and encouraged her to draw. Her encouragement led her to participate in summer school classes at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Renee earned a Bachelor of Arts degree and continued her education with a teaching certification plus an art endorsement in grades K-9.
Her use of arts as an educator expanded her creativity in the Chicago Public Schools. She has also been an adjunct professor in the Photography and Art departments at Columbia College Chicago. She uses her love of photography to volunteer in special programs to spread this art form to others.
Outside of teaching much of Renee’s history has been in the field of professional photography. She has exhibited her art photography in a variety of galleries as well as online throughout the United States. Her published work can be seen in books and magazines.
Spending part of the year in Arizona has allowed her to incorporate landscape and alternative photography to her art making.
Renee’s interest in all things creative has led her to the area of artisan bookmaking to use as a way to illustrate her art photography.
The photographic mysticism exhibition, juried by Michael Behlen, was in the online gallery from February 1 to March 31, 2026. The juror selected thirty eight images from eighteen artist for the exhibition. Brian Van de Wetering’s Face the Wind received the Juror’s Award. Susan Isaacson’s image Izzy Stardust received the Director’s Award.
Juror’s Statement
To jury Photographic Mysticism was to enter a space of deliberate slowness, to witness what happens when instant film is treated not as novelty but as a serious photographic medium. The submissions arrived as evidence of a shared resistance to visual acceleration: a refusal of the disposable digital image, and a return to photography as tactile encounter, devotional gesture, and metaphysical inquiry. In a culture where images are endlessly produced yet rarely inhabited, these works insisted on presence. They asked to be contemplated, not consumed.
What moved me most was the breadth of approaches that still honored the spirit of the call: instant photography as a ritual and a form of thinking. Across a wide range of subject matter and processes, artists demonstrated an uncommon willingness to surrender control and allow uncertainty to become meaning. Many extended the medium beyond exposure alone, physically revising the image through deliberate, inventive applications, including the transformation of original instant photographs through emulsion lifts, transfers, and other interventions that re-situate the photograph as object, surface, and artifact. These gestures did not dilute the integrity of the instant image; they intensified it, making the photograph not only a record of encounter, but a site of reconstruction, devotion, and material inquiry. The finest works did not simply depict the world; they translated experience into atmosphere, creating photographs that felt like relics rather than records by embracing the medium’s irreversibility, its chemical volatility, and its imperfections and accidents.
The final selection of 38 images forms a cohesive exhibition not because the works share the same medium, but because they share a deeper orientation: each treats instant film as an invocation of mystery through chemistry, a meditation enacted in light and time. Together, they reveal how instant photography continues to bridge the seen and the ineffable and how it can hold transcendence without spectacle, and intimacy without explanation. This show is, in the truest sense, a form of slow seeing: a collective devotion to what becomes visible only when we are willing to wait.
Michael Behlen, Curator and Publisher, Analog Forever Magazine
February, 2026
The portraits exhibition, juried by Aline Smithson, was in the online gallery from February 13 to March 26, 2026. The juror selected fifty one images from forty nine artist for the exhibition. Francis Crisafio’s Freedom 3 received the Juror’s Award. Daniel Haeker’s image Iryna received the Director’s Award.
Juror’s Statement
As a portrait photographer, I sometimes feel like a cross between a stalker and a hoarder—at least when it comes to my practice. I lie in wait to capture something essential in my subject, then carry it back to my lair to examine. Those revealed moments are stored away, pulled out and pored over for years to come. Though a photograph may take only seconds to make, I often spend hours, days, even years feeling connected to the person on the other side of the lens. Most of the time, my subjects have no idea how deeply they’ve imprinted themselves on my psyche.
It was a complete pleasure to spend time with faces from all over the world. The privilege of looking closely at so many well-crafted photographs is not an insignificant one. Each image reflects a photographer’s unique point of view and approach to seeing. The photographs selected for this exhibition are those I returned to again and again during the jurying process. Each portrait held a distinct essence—an immediacy, a sense of humor or pathos—and, ultimately, they felt like an arrow to the heart.
As a juror, I look for intention and a high level of excellence, but also for an indescribable quality I think of as presence. A photograph with presence has a unique power: it places the viewer in direct visual and visceral contact with a person who is physically or temporally distant. Photographs ripen over time. As the distance between the moment of exposure and the present grows, the image gains value—not only as a document, but as an aesthetic and emotional object.
Juroring an exhibition is never an easy task, especially when storytelling, intention, and the essence of a human being must be conveyed in a single frame. There were many wall-worthy submissions that came heartbreakingly close, only to be set aside due to the constraints of space. In the end, my role was not only to select individual images, but to shape a cohesive exhibition—one that feels fresh, resonant, and unified by a strong point of view.
Thank you to the artists and to the A Smith Gallery for this opportunity to consider so many great photographs.
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. Greg Miller’s Impressions of Late Autumn received the Visitors’ 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. Jeff Schewe’s Last Gas received the Visitors’ Award.
