A Hard Life by Vella Kendall. First place winning photograph in the 2018 Beacon Celebration of Arts competition.

• Share

PRINT

Whether they’re exploring the world at large or right outside their window, the award-winning photographers of the Beacon’s Celebration of the Arts see the world through a different lens — both literally and figuratively.

Whether you’re inspired, entertained, enchanted or awe-struck, you will be sure to be touched by what they have seen and chosen to show us. The following winners were selected from among 208 entries.

First Place
Vella Kendall, Monkton, Md.

A retired nurse who worked for many years at the Johns Hopkins Hospital’s dedicated HIV unit, Kendall’s development as a photographer was sparked one day when she was asked to take photos of her colleagues on the night shift.

Since then, the 71-year-old has taken photography classes through the Community College of Baltimore County and Johns Hopkins’ Odyssey Program. But she says she is largely self-taught, “with help from my husband, who would have to change my lenses because I was afraid to!”

“I found photography was a great stress reliever from my job. I would come home after my shift and photograph flowers that my husband would plant for me,” Kendall said. “Then I noticed the little bugs on the flowers, and became fascinated with them, especially after enlarging [their images] on the computer.”

When her husband put up bird feeders and Kendall bought a telephoto lens to photograph the birds from a distance, she found she fell in love with wildlife photography. She continues to hone her technique, using as subjects her dog, backyard birds, flowers and local wildlife at Conowingo Dam and the national wildlife refuges.

Now, Kendall and her husband have a small trailer in which they travel around the country, photographing landscapes, birds and wildlife, as well as traveling abroad for culture and photographic opportunities.

Kendall has traveled to Africa three times, and that’s where she took the image that won her first place in the Celebration. She was visiting a small, rather primitive village in the countryside that had no running water or electricity. The family would trek to the local well for water to wash clothes and to cook with on the open-fire outdoor stove.

The woman whose face Kendall photographed was one of the family’s elders. “I felt [she] proudly showed her life on her face, and the depth of her soul in her eyes,” Kendall said.

Kendall’s photography has won many other awards, including First Place in Photography at the 2015 Baltimore County Baby Boomer/Senior Expo Art Show and Second Place in the Open Category at the 2018 Maryland Photographic Alliance Show. Kendall belongs to the Baltimore Camera Club (which is part of the Maryland Photographic Alliance) and to the Photographic Society of America.

 Second Place
Rich Isaacman, Edgewater, Md.

Rich Isaacman, 65, spent most of his career at NASA as an astronomer which, he said, feeds directly into two other loves: travel and photography.

“Astronomy, of course, is famous for its spectacular imagery. And astronomers also tend to travel a lot, since observatories tend to be located in remote places,” he said. “Of course, now we have many [observatories] in orbit as well, but we don’t get to travel to them!”

Isaacman attended graduate school in the Netherlands. After he earned his doctorate there in astrophysics, he spent three years doing a post doc in Hawaii. There he worked at an observatory at 13,800 feet atop Mauna Kea on the Big Island.

“Living in that spectacular place really sparked my interest in photography, and it became an integral part of my travels,” Isaacman said.

He began to become serious about photography in 2011, when a family event in Bangladesh made him especially appreciate the colors, people and rituals of such faraway places. Since his time in Hawaii, Isaacman has traveled to more than 50 countries.

“I try to capture the landscapes, ‘humanscapes,’ and street scenes that make such places exotic and special, and which often form our most crystalline memories of a trip,” he said. “In short, exotic travel and photography are very deeply intertwined for me.”

In the past six months, Isaacman has become interested in augmenting his usual travel photos with drone photography. When circumstances allow, he now shoots aerial landscapes in addition to his street scenes and ground-based landscapes.

Isaacman also writes a monthly travel column, accompanied by his photos, for a local magazine, South River Living, as well as a travel blog featuring his travel journal and photos, at https://richandalice.wordpress.com.

His blog has 500 followers in more than a dozen countries. He sells his photos at various local art exhibitions and online at https://rich-isaacman.pixels.com.

Third Place
Richard Weiblinger, Laurel, Md.

Richard Weiblinger, 70, has enjoyed a lengthy career in the sciences. A biologist, who also pursued graduate work at Johns Hopkins in public health, he has worked for decades at several government agencies in the area. He says he “will probably retire soon” and devote more time to his photography.

Never having taken an art or photography course, Weiblinger picked up a cheap camera about six years ago and starting shooting images of wildlife.

After “playing with that for several years,” he purchased additional equipment and moved into landscape and fine art images. “I’m totally self-taught, all seat-of-the-pants learning,” he said.

He’s traveled all over the U.S., Canada and Mexico, and maintains a website where he posts many of his favorite images. (See www.weiblingerphotography.smugmug.com.). A number of his images have been purchased, and are hanging in offices, conference rooms and hotels throughout the country.

Weiblinger said the process of photography allows him to transform everyday objects and images into art. “I use creative lighting to not only illuminate my subjects but also to give them a dream-like, surreal quality.”

His images have included colorful flowers, unique still lifes, maritime images and landscapes, both as individual photos and themed series. “When people see my work, I would like them to find a new appreciation of the world around them,” Weiblinger said.

“My current goal is to build on my prior experience and to challenge myself by refining my personal artistic style and creative qualities…Each person will view my images a little differently, and that is as it should be.”

Honorable mentions

Photographs from the following artists were awarded honorable mention:

Beth Altman, Washington, D.C.
Brad Balfour, Potomac, Md.
Margaret Ann Chambers, Upper Marlboro, Md.
Judith Ann Guenther, Springfield, Va.
David Allen Harris, Washington, D.C.
James Francis Hollan, Arnold, Md.
Philip Kanter, Pikesville, Md.
Addison Newton Likins, La Plata, Md.
Rodney Errol Mathis, Oxon Hill, Md.
Nan Thompson, Nottingham, Md.