Member Bios
Group Admin
Diana Magor, MPSA, APSA
I come from a photographic family -my Grandpa took pictures and so did both my parents. All three of their kids caught the photography bug and I spent many hours in the blacked out kitchen and then the garden shed, printing my holiday pictures. My Dad insisted if we took them, we had to print them - monochrome of course. It took a long time before I moved on to colour slides and then colour prints although I have always kept on printing mono. Over the last few years I have moved on to digital work and the darkroom is no more.
I joined the Canterbury Camera Club when I lived at home, then Cambridge University club and finally Hoylake Photographic Society when we moved north and this is where I made lots of photographic friends and improved my standard by entering monthly competitions and more recently national and international competitions. I have had success in colour competitions but feel that my mono is falling behind and that I need some help.
I always used Olympus OM1 cameras - beautifully light to carry - but I transferred to a Canon, upgrading to more recent ones as they improved. However, it got to the point where I didn't want to be carrying around the huge weight of a big camera and enormous lenses, so I researched the Micro four-thirds cameras and took the plunge, ditching the Canon and going back to Olympus. I now have the OMD EM1 with a mixture of Olympus and Lumix lenses -small and light and superb quality. It was definitely a good decision.
I am an official judge for the Lancashire & Cheshire Photographic Union, which is the North West Federation area and means I judge club competitions within that area.
My husband and I only joined PSA in January 2009 because we had noticed how many competitions were PSA as well as FIAP. We are both working for the star ratings, and have become MPSA. We were impressed by how friendly the organisation is.
I have recently become an EFIAP/b through getting acceptances in International exhibitions - another threshold passed! I became an MPSA and also a BPE3*, which is the British Crown Awards for British Exhibitions. There aren't many in the year and they are very hard to get acceptances so getting 100 accepted, which is what 3* means, is an achievement I'm very proud of. I am also an LRPS which I did a long time ago with monochrome prints and I've certainly improved since then.
Manel Puigcerver
Born in Barcelona (Spain) in 1959, I am a retired field biologist. I have a PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Barcelona, where I served as a professor for 38 years. Since I was a student, I felt an enormous attraction to the natural environment; this, together with a manifest incapacity for drawing, made me to enter the world of photography, especially of naturalistic themes. Later, I became passionate about nude photography, always trying to capture the beauty of the human body and fleeing from vulgarity, bad taste or obscenity. Paraphrasing the poet Joan Manuel Homar, I have a very clear objective within nude photography: to persevere in the attempt to recover the pure exaltation of being, in this case mainly "limited "to the female body, which I consider a whole universe. Human body contains beauty, with its symmetries, shapes, volumes and textures; by combining all these elements with lights and shadows, a great plasticity and wonderful aesthetics are achieved. Paraphrasing the poet again, the female body is the place where the light sings, being the photographer's obligation to know how to listen to this heavenly music and to capture it in photos.
Basically self-taught, I have followed 18 courses and workshops that cover the entire process of photographic creation, from the conceptualization of the photo to its capture and processing.
From 2015 to 2023 I have participated in national and international competitions. Throughout these 9 years, I won more than 500 prizes in international competitions, including 14 gold medals from the F�©d�©ration International de l'Art Photographique (FIAP), 25 gold medals from the Photographic Society of America (PSA) and 50 gold medals in international salons. Likewise, I was the absolute winner of the "I Spanish Photography League" (2015-2016), the winner of the nude category in Leagues II and III and the winner of the monochrome category in Leagues V and VI.
Currently, I have the distinction of artist from the F�©d�©ration International de l'Art Photographique, Master Platinum from the Spanish Confederation of Photography and Master 5 * from the Catalan Federation of Photography.
Jennifer Doerrie
My love of photography began around age 12 in an old black and white wet darkroom. Consequently, I still very much enjoy a nice black and white image, although my wet darkroom has now been replaced by Photoshop and Silver Effects Pro. It is less messy, but occasionally more frustrating, especially as the techology has so many capabilities that I have yet to master.
My favorite subjects are landscapes and travel, although as an attorney with a busy solo practice, finding the time to travel can be a challenge. Fortunately, I am blessed to have lots of amazing scenery only a short drive from home here in Central California. When not working, I often can be found exploring Yosemite, Sequoia/Kings Canyon, or some of the area's national forests or wildlife refuges.
I enjoy learning from fellow photography enthusiasts, whether about a travel destination or tips to improve my own photography. I appreciate those who take the time to share their photos, ideas, and suggestions with me.
Somdutt Prasad
Hi, I have been dabbling in photography since 1977 when my father bought me 35mm SLR. Did some darkroom work with monochrome prints whilst I was in medical School. In recent years have taken to wildlife photography largely, but also like to dabble in other genre. Monochrome holds a deep fascination for me. Here to discuss and learn.
In my day job I am an eye surgeon, based in Kolkata, India.
Stephen Levitas
Greetings to everyone. I am pleased to meet the study group members and anyone else who reads this. I am 76 years old, retired from information technology work. I am married with three grown children and four grandchildren. We live in a close-in Maryland suburb of Washington, DC.
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<br />I started shooting in my 20s with a Minolta SR-1--a precursor to the better-known SRT-101, but the SR-1 had no meter, so I used a hand-held meter at the time, and had my own b/w darkroom.
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<br />Then life intervened, and getting married and raising a family claimed my time. However, I always took photographs, read books about photography, looked at photographs, and went to photography exhibits and museum shows. I was always interested in what made a good photograph and why it had impact.
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<br />Now that our children are grown, I have taken up photography more intensively. I shoot with a Canon G10, a compact camera, but with full manual controls available. I chose this because I was tired of lugging a lot of equipment around--the G10 can fit in my pocket. I almost never use a tripod.
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<br />I like to shoot markets and market baskets filled with jumbles of merchandise, people on the streets and in the markets of countries all over the world, scenes with a great deal of pure black in them, and scenes specifically without a focal point to express emptiness or calm.
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<br />My wife and I travel extensively, especially to Turkey, her country. I have recently shot in India, China, Vietnam, Senegal, and Morocco.
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<br />I edit my images with Photoshop Elements 6.0. I print at home on a small Canon three-color printer. I write extensively for my local camera club newsletter about past and current great photographers. I have been in Group 32 for over ten years, since its inception. In the last few years, I have started to visit many of the other Digital Dialog groups each month.
Tom McCreary, APSA, MPSA
I am retired and enjoying my photo hobby. I have been taking photos since my college days, mostly slides at that time. I really fell in love with photography when I saw the magic of an image coming up in a B&W base hobby darkroom at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma in the 1960's. As soon as I could, I set up my own darkroom, and when I married Carol, we combined our darkrooms. Three young kids took too much time and money, and we both kind of got out of the darkroom and serious photography. After the kids were grown, and we got back into photography, it seems like digital photography was taking over, and we started scanning slides or negatives and printing them on an inkjet printer. We never set up a darkroom again, and when Carol passed away, I sold my Epson printer. Now just entering digital images for competitions, and getting photo books made for scrap books.
I am an active member of the Oklahoma Camera Club, and really enjoy the monthly competitions that we have both in prints and digital. However, since I have moved to Cape Girardeau, MO, I am still entering images but of course have not attended the meetings. I have switched from Nikon cropped sensor cameras to the Olympus 4/3 system. The much lighter weight of the telephoto lenses is the primary reason that I switched. I like the quality and ease of use of the Olympus cameras, and all of the features. I use Lightroom to view and Photoshop to edit my images. I think that taking slides helped me in my photography, because as you know, what you originally captured is what you had. Now, my digital capture at least usually gives me a good starting point to bring into Photoshop. I am having fun at trying new things in creative PDI.
Wes Odell
Photography has been in the family since the opening of Odell Photography in 1892, a portrait studio in a small town in Utah. Wes has been an amateur photographer for 79 years, having his own darkroom at age 12. He served on the faculty of the Photographic Society of America where he enjoyed "teaching novices the basics" in PSA Courses #1 and #2. His photo interests are in Mono, Vintage, Action, and now some Fine Art. He continues to be a Photo Contest Judge and a Mentor.
Wes is a retired software industry administrator and financial executive who after retirement taught Management and Marketing at Texas State University. Along the way, he was on the Environmental Advisory Committee to the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympics, won First Place in the North American Championship Regatta for 24 ft sloops (San Juan 24s), did an assignment for the U.S. State Department in the Republic of Armenia about the free market, was on the Executive Board of the Soldier Hollow Legacy Foundation, was President of the Wasatch Camera Club in Salt Lake City, Treasurer of American Portfolios (PSA), and a Faculty Member of the PSA.