Member Bios
Group Admin
Dr Isaac Vaisman, APSA, PPSA
Dr. Isaac Vaisman, PPSA
I am a native of Caracas-Venezuela, born and raised there. I still am a semiretired physician (Radiation Oncologist) and a self-educated photographer since the mid-sixties. As a teenager I was the youngest member of the Foto Club Caracas. Winner of the first price in black and white prints in all three camera clubs of Venezuela, the same year. Did my own black and white processing and printing for many years, until I finished medical school and came to the US for postgraduate training in the 70's.
After a very long gap, started with digital photography in the early 2000's and more involved since I acquired my first digital Nikon D300 . I am a "Nikonian" by conviction. Have participated in many competitions and received several awards.
I joined the first Camera Club in Florida in 2008: Broward Camera Club, of which I was President for four years (2013 to 2016). Also was a member of the Pines West Camera Club, and currently I only attend the Coral Springs Camera Club that offers activities of interest.
I joined PSA in 2011. Completed the course of Image Evaluation a few years ago, and most recently (March 2021) the Advanced Photo Travel Course and was an instructor for a while. Appointed as 2nd Vicechair of the PSA Photo Travel Division in 2021 as well as Director of all the Photo Travel Image Discussion Groups. Now I am the First vice-chair pf the PTD.
I am an active member on five of the PID Digital Dialogue groups: 04 (General Photography), 58 (street Scenes), 59 (Sport), 72 (Nature +) and now group 15 (Birds). I am the administrator of groups 15, 58 and 72. I am also a member of the PSA PTD (Travel Photography) group 04 and the PJ (Photojournalism) of Human Interest group 5 of which I am also the Administrator.
Early in 2022 I obtained my ROPA distinction QPSA, and in October 2022 my ROPA distinction PPSA. I hold 3 stars in Nature Exhibitions, 3 stars in Monochrome Class, 3 stars in Color Class, 3 star in Photo Travel Exhibitions and 1 star in Photojournalism. On September 2024 I was awarded the APSA Certification.
Bev Caine
I began my interest in photography about 1977 when we were planning a trip to Europe and I threatened my husband, telling him if he fell over another bench while taking pictures I would leave him there. He suggested I take a course. I did, After my first course, I submitted a photo I took in Madeira to a local contest and took first place winning a week in Mexico, and the rest is history.
I am a semi-retired travel agent, living in Boynton Beach, FL., and my love of travel offers me many opportunities to enjoy my photography hobby. I also enjoy photographing people and flowers.
Pinaki Sarkar
I am engineer by profession and an amateur photographer (do not make money out photos). I love traveling around the world and going out in general with my camera and taking pictures. My Insta handle is pinaki.sarkar5. Usually, I post my photos there...
Bruce Goodman
After working for 40 years as a Human Resources executive in financial services ( 35 of them involving a daily 3 hour round trip to NYC) I retired in June 2018 to enjoy family, travel, cycling, and other hobbies. I bought my first camera in high school and was an active photographer in college for a daily newspaper, the university press , and the yearbook (mostly sports). Several years ago after dabbling with digital point-and-shoot cameras I finally bought an Olympus OMD EM1 (and EM1-Mark II). I mostly shoot with a 12-40mm f 2.8 and a kit lens 14-150.
In retirement I joined a local photo club and have been exposed for the first time to competitions and critique. I am trying to learn new skills, struggling with composition, and with post-processing (mainly with Lightroom and some with Photoshop).
follow me on Instagram @photosfrombrug and @madebybrug
Ed Taje
I started in my teens using Kodak Brownie camera’s more to get snapshots of things I was doing and general family events. In the late sixties I purchased a 35mm SLR and started with scenery pictures, family and various local events. With darkroom I developed black and white, along with ecktachrome ( E6) slide film, including printing the slides with Cibachrome. Work changes moving and travel resulted in a time away from continuing the learning process and not much was done with photography for about 20 years. During this period I as a work requirement was only taking robot images as they may have related to work requirements. After retirement along with my spouse I joined the Cowichan Valley Camera Club in the fall of 2018, and restarted with new digital equipment. At present I enjoy landscape particularly, but participation in the Camera Club has contributed to an increase interest in other forms and processes. I do very little editing , using Lightroom, Photoshop (which I have just started using), the Nic Collection, and two Topaz programs. I am working on expanding my knowledge of post processing. One project I have started is to scan my slides and negatives from the past to redo old film images. I have take the PSA Photo Analysis course, the CAPA (Canadian Association of Photographic Arts Judging course, and am enrolled in the History of Photography course through PSA. Currently, I am the President of the Cowichan Valley Camera Club.
Johann van der Walt
Johann van der Walt FRPS, Hon FPSSA, FPSSA, Hon CPA
I started photography during in the 1970’s with a Kodak Retina camera (which I still owned and sometimes use). Throughout my career as a computer programmer, my hobby, photography, played a very important role. As a hobby photographer, my slogan is "Programmer by Profession, but Photographer by Heart".
I am a past president of the Photographic Society of South Africa, a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society, an Honorary Fellow of the Photographic Society of South Africa and an Honorary member of China Photographers Association.
From 2014 until 2021, I was an official Fujifilm X-Photographer for South Afrika and am still a Fujifilm user.
From the 1970’s until 1999 I only photographed in monochrome and did my own development and printing. In 1999 I bought a film scanner and found myself gradually gravitated towards colour photography. For most of my photography "career" I concentrated on landscape photography, and, although it still forms an import part of my photography, for the past 10 years I have been concentrated learning the very difficult street photography genre. I call it "My Journey in finding the Art of Street Photography".
In 2018 I move permanently to Shenzhen China and find the opportunities for street photography plenty.
My current goal is to get one good street photo every year (and many not-so-good-ones).
Kathleen McCrary
My name is Kathleen McCrary and I live in Seattle. As a kid my dad's interest in photography rubbed off on me. I shot film for quite a while before finally going digital in 2006.
The primary subjects I'm interested in are architecture, candid images of people, transportation, and travel. I shoot pretty much anything that looks interesting or has some kind of challenging element such as difficult lighting situations or movement. I nearly always shoot available light, handheld. Occasionally I use flash for fill. I don't like to be encumbered with bulky equipment so I shoot exclusively with a Canon S95. I own a DSLR and a mirrorless camera but I rarely use either of them. I shoot everything in RAW format, manual mode.
I work on my images on an old Dell laptop using mostly Canon's Digital Photo Pro (an older version, which has an HDR tool I like). I also have the Nik suite and use Nik SilverFX (I think that's the name) quite a bit because I create a lot of monochrome images.
Which is why I'm very excited to be part of the Monochrome study group. I'm brand new to PSA so I am still learning my way around. I look forward to participating in Group #99!