Member Bios
Group Administrator
Tom Pickering
I'm a 60-something, born-again, computer geek, photographer, musician and one-time sword fight choreographer. I live & work (though now semi-retired) at web development and photography in Davenport, Iowa.
I've been capturing images, still & movie/video, for nearly 60 years now. I entered a dark room for the first time at age 13 and have been fascinated with the art of photography ever since. My first cameras were Kodak's - a Brownie and an 8mm movie camera. At the dawn of the digital photography age, I switched to digital and never looked back at film. I transitioned into professional photography in 2006, specializing in portraits, commercial and weddings, though I've since stopped shooting weddings to reduce stress.
Today, I am mainly a Nikon shooter, though I have been using my smartphone more and more. For lenses, I use a Tamron 60mm Macro, Laowa 25mm Ultra Macro, Nikkor 18-200mm, Tokina 100-400mm, Tamron 200-500mm, & Nikkor 50mm 1.8.
I use Adobe Bridge for the organization of my images, jumping into Affinity Photo, Photoshop CC, On1 Photo Raw 2020, Exposure X4, Topaz Studio, Luminar AI, and others. Though I aim for everything right in the camera, I shoot RAW (& JPEG), so will always apply post-processing to some extent to all my images, especially my more artistic endeavors.
Formerly a vice president of the Quad Cities Photography Club, I have also served as a competition judge and projectionist there, as well as teaching various Photoshop skills. I am now the PSA Director of Study Groups, a judge for various PSA clubs & councils, and an instructor of PSA's Intro to Photoshop course, and PSA's Macro Photography Mentor. I am the developer and webmaster of the PSA PID Digital Dialogue Study Group website, the PSA PTD Image Discussion Groups website, the PSA PJD Image Discussion Groups website, and the PSA ND Image Discussion Groups website, as well as one of the administrators and a participant in several of the groups.
Jo-Ann Rolle
Jo-Ann Rolle is the Dean of the School of Business at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn New York.
Jo-Ann loves to read, write and photograph images. She recently co-edited, "A Handbook on the Future of Work & Entrepreneurship for the Underserved."
Kieu-Hanh Vu
(La biographie en fran ais suit.) I am currently a Systems Analyst working in Washington DC. I learned to use Photoshop via a Computer Graphics course in college back in 2002 and was very interested in the power of Photoshop tools before starting to learn about photography. I started in photography by joining Vietnamese Photographic Society (VNPS) in 2006, using point-and-shoot camera, and slowly moved to SLR digital camera - Canon EOS 30D. I currently use Canon EOS 50D to capture my images. Photojournalism and nature photography are my main interests. I have been a member of Northern Virginia Photographic Society (NVPS) since 2008. I learned about PSA via VNPS and I am looking forward to improve my photography skills through this program.
J'ai d couvert la photographie d une mani re non-conventionnelle. J'ai pris un cours informatique graphique au coll ge et t tr s int ress par la puissance des outils d Illustrator et Photoshop que j'ai appris pour appliquer mes comp tences. Je me suis jointe au Vietnamese Photographic Society (VNPS) en 2006, et je suis membre de la Northern Virginia Photographic Society (NVPS) depuis 2008.
Mes int r ts sont principalement la photographie de nature et le photojournalisme. Quand je prends une image, je suis int ress e par les gens et leurs histoires, et les th mes de la vie car ils sont toujours plus importants pour moi que le processus de la photographie elle-m me.
Je travaille Washington, DC, en tant qu analyste de syst me. J'utilise la photographie pour me d tendre et r duire le stress de mon style de vie tr s occup e. Comme le fran ais n'est pas ma langue maternelle, j'esp re que l'adh sion ce groupe m'aidera am liorer mes comp tences en photographie ainsi que mon fran ais.
John Grossman
Bio Coming Soon . . .
Quang Phan
As a child I enjoyed painting and architectural drawing. My hobby is also electronics. My personality is very much like my dear father, who always likes to carry the camera when going out on the street or while visiting the landscapes. After graduating from high school in 1976, I bought my first old camera, the Canon A1. I officially took part in professional classes for 1 year. I know how to develop black and white pictures very rudely because the tools are so simple and creative.
After graduating from college, I continued to take pictures, then studied for 3 years and joined the Photography Association of Washington Area. I worked with the members and served as a class leader for several years. I take part in teaching photography lessons and especially the Light Painting Photography subject. The device I am using is Sony A7RIII and Sony A9II. In addition, I study and teach Yoga, I love to take pictures of Yoga poses combined with Light Painting outdoors.
Jan van Leijenhorst
I was born in the Netherlands and now live in the Chicago area. I am retired: was an international banker and lived in several countries in Asia and Europe.
I started to take photographs at a young age with my dad's Kodak box camera, but I did not become serious about it until my early twenties when I took a correspondence course at the New York Institute of Photography. I had a darkroom and printed and enlarged my (b/w) photographs). In the years that followed I shot mostly slides (some of which I had digitized recently). I had a Canon camera with several lenses that I sold a few years ago.
I entered the digital age some 6 or so years ago, I took a Photoshop course, bought a (Olympus) DSLR and have been a "serious" amateur photographer since. I belong to a local photography group where we critique each other's images once a month. I photograph mostly landscapes and flowers, but am trying to develop a more personal style. I am interested in photography that goes beyond traditional images in particular abstracts and impressionistic images. But I have not done much work in that area yet.