Creative Techniques Photography by Carla Steckley

Are you looking to create something different and unusual with your camera? Carla Steckley will present a program on Feb. 1 that will help you to do just that. Among the techniques explained will be two types of montages or sandwiches. The first uses unrelated images and the second identical images reversed over each other. All kinds of multiples will be discussed including double exposures with a dominant object. One of her favorite techniques is the “dreamscape” that has brought her numerous awards. The resulting photo is surreal and very saturated. By using what she calls “shooting through” you can give your images a soft ethereal look. With extreme narrow depth of field you can produce a pleasing photograph that calls attention to only one tiny part of the image. The list of ideas goes on. Her purpose is to provide detailed information so you can go out and create these images for yourself. Please join us on Feb. 1 for what promises to be an informative and stimulating program.

Carla’s background includes a degree from the New York Institute of Photography, black and white courses from Northern VA. Community College and numerous workshops from well-respected photographers. Her photos have been on the covers of Missouri Magazine, in The Washington Times and on the New York Institute of Photography’s web site.

Her images have won numerous awards with 11 best photographs of the year. In a seven year time span, the Northern Virginia Photographic Society and our own VPS awarded Carla “Photographer of the Year” 22 times for competing in monochrome prints, color prints and slides. 94 of those honors were first place awards.

Her image “ Potomac Tributary” was on exhibit at the Smithsonian’s Museum of Natural History in the fall of 2004. She has been exhibited at the Washington Cathedral, the Barry Gallery at Marymount University in Arlington and the Jo Anne Rose Gallery in Reston. In July of 2004 she presented, the “Art of Infrared Photography” at the University of Massachusetts for the popular New England Camera Club Council. She is a frequent guest speaker at photo organizations in D.C., Maryland, and VA. Most recently, 16 of her images were sold to a corporation in Bethesda.