Member Bios
Group Admin
Jessica Manelis
I have been creating art since grade school. At age 11, I began taking art classes every Saturday afternoon. Throughout high school, I continued drawing and painting in a variety of mediums and ultimately settled at Moore College of Art & Design in Philadelphia, pursuing a career in the professional arts.
While at Moore, I received many accolades from my instructors and won competitions where my work was featured in magazines. Upon graduation, I settled in to a career as a graphic designer. Finding that creatively stunting, I set out to pursue my true creative passion.
Self-taught, I fell into photography as a means of generating reference photos for future art projects. However, I found the photo process was more fun. Embracing the medium, my work has been exhibited in several group shows in Huntington, NY, Bethesda, MD, and Philadelphia, PA, most recently at The Philadelphia Sketch Club's Photography 2010 exhibit in October.
Currently I live with my husband, two kids and two dogs in southern New Jersey.
Like most photographers, I am always looking for that unique perspective or "special something" in an image. My work embraces various styles from clean crisp well-defined images with an interesting and vital point of view to compelling composition and fresh simplicity. My aim is to entice the viewer to look at the details to become aware of the color and form of the subject. Even when using textures to enhance a photo, the viewer is drawn in and the subject maintains its focus and import
Cindy Lynch
When I retired from being a school district administrator, I told a good friend that I wanted to take up photography when I retired. As a retirement gift, she gave me my first year's membership in the St. Louis Camera Club. That is when my new passion began. I found the people talented, friendly and so willing to share their knowledge with a beginner like me. I was both inspired and hooked. I had taken art classes my freshman year in college with thoughts of a career in art. However, I turned to education and had a very rewarding career. With photography, I found that I could develop my artistic side while also learning new technical skills. I love that photography keeps me learning and that my initial captures can turn into art in any number of different ways. There is always something new to learn. I enjoy our weekly meetings and competitions in the St. Louis Camera Club and have served on the Board of Directors, Print Committee and am now the Vice President.
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<br />At the same time I joined the St. Louis Camera Club, I also joined PSA. I have taken advantage of the many opportunities to grow in the art of photography. I completed two of John Fishback's online courses. I also participate in two PID Digital Study Groups:Fine Art and General, where I am the secretary; as well as three PID Digital Dialogue Groups: General, Monochrome and Macro. I love the feedback I receive and often submit my images to these groups prior to placing them in competition. I routinely participate in the PSA Interclub competitions through my camera club, as well as Print of the Month. For the first time, I won Print of the Month for October, 2016 with Ruby, an orangutan at the St. Louis Zoo. I have won Print of the Month 3 more times since then. I love to compete and frequently enter the International Competitions in PID Color and Monochrome. I am working on achieving my 5th star in Color and my 3rd star in Monochrome. I was fortunate enough to have won a Gold Medal for Jake in 2015. I have judged twice in PSA Councils Challenge and twice in Individual Creative Competition.
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Nelson Charette
"Embarking on my photographic journey in 1974, I was just 14 when I acquired my first 35 mm camera, marking the beginning of a lifelong passion. My transition into the digital realm commenced in 2004 with the acquisition of a Nikon D70. This marked the start of an evolving journey through several camera upgrades, during which I transformed my D70 into a specialized infrared camera. Additionally, I expanded my toolkit with a Nikon D5100, meticulously converted for full-spectrum photography. While infrared photography isn't my sole focus, it adds a unique flair to the work I proudly display at my camera club.
A significant milestone in my journey was in 2021, when I embraced the world of mirrorless technology with the Olympus EM1 Mark III, a 590 NM converted camera. This shift has been a revelation, allowing me to preview my shots with unprecedented clarity and simplifying focus adjustments. My preference for monochrome imagery often leads me to employ the 850 nm filter for its distinctive effect.
I warmly invite any questions and enjoy sharing insights from my expansive experience in the world of photography."
Mary Hinsen, BPSA
I live in Cromwell in the beautiful Central Otago area of New Zealand. I am a mother, grandmother, photographer, videographer and writer. My love of photography started as a child, when my father gave me my first film camera. I continued learning and experimenting through my school years, until study, work and children meant photography had to take a back seat. Through this time, however, I learned that art could take many forms. Design became my creative outlet, designing décor, clothes and food - creating something beautiful from something ordinary.
Now, as a photographer again, I particularly love to shoot people and food. I try to capture something special about a person, and to photograph food in a way that makes you really taste it.
I am always learning, of course! I am a member of the Queenstown Photography Club here in New Zealand, and also the New Zealand Institute of Professional Photographers. I joined the PSA to take advantage of a greater range of learning opportunities, and to get to know and learn from other photographers.
Bob Crocker
I'm a retired Groundwater Scientist now living in Wisconsin, my wife's home State. I've had a camera in my hand since I was a little tike, as did my brother. My father was in the military, so we traveled a lot when I was young, so I think this constant exposure to new environments fed our photo hobby. Unfortunately, most of these early photos were lost during many moves, several hurricanes, and bad storage.
I was getting rusty and frustrated with my photography until Digital came along. Digital photography renewed my interest and sparked me to improve and get serious with my image taking, so this group is a continuation of that growing/learning process. I was a Canon shooter for many years, now using the Sony mirrorless system; the a6500 is my current camera, and I use the Sony 90mm, 2.8 Macro lens. I used Apple's Aperture software for editing and catalogs until Apple discontinue the program. I pickup on Capture One Pro because I heard it is a good RAW processor (it is), it had similarities to Aperture, and Sony users got a discount. It's a great editor but I found it's cataloging feature confusing and too complicated. When the On1 people came out with their new RAW editor last year, I upgraded the plugins that I used within Aperture to their fully integrated, all in one program. More and more I'm using ON1 for all my editing and cataloging. I don't like Adobes subscription model.
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.
Andrew Carstensen
Photography has been in my family for generations. I use a Canon Powershot G-5 and a Fujifilm X-E3 mirrorless cameras. Interest are close-ups, macro, landscapes. Always open to explore new areas of photography,