Judge:

Arthur Vaughan

Art Vaughan has been active in photography for over 40 years. He worked for Western Electric, AT&T, Lucent Technologies, and Bell Laboratories for just over 31 years before retiring in October of 2001. Over a twenty-five year period he performed extensive work in Photomicrography for microcircuit development engineering departments at Bell Laboratories, especially in the area of new process development and microchip / microcircuit failure mode analysis. 

He served 9 years as president plus 16 years as print competition chairman of the Merrimack Valley Camera Club and has been awarded an Honorary Life Membership in that organization. He’s also a member of the Massachusetts Camera Naturalists and the Photographic Historical Society of New England. Since 2006 he’s been a Vice President of the New England Camera Club Council, where he’s presently the NECCC Print Competition Director, and "live" commentator for the "Best of the NECCC" Traveling Print Program. At the 2016 NECCC annual conference held at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst he was awarded an honorary membership in that organization. In 2019  the New England Camera Club Council honored him by dedication their annual U-Mass Amherst Conference to him.

Art’s photographic experience and interests include: anamorphic (Cinema-scope) photography, macro photography, stereo (3-D) imaging, color and black & white print making, and digital restoration of antique photographs, lithographs, engravings, and etchings. He’s served throughout New England and beyond as a digital image and print competition judge and lecturer. 

Having been interested in macro photography for years, he retired his film cameras and went “totally digital” after performing a series of macro imaging tests in the summer of 2007. As a die-hard macro shooter, he feels that one of the most valuable aspect of digital photography is instant feedback. He feels that not having to wait for film to be processed to see if you’ve blown a shot is VERY convenient, and a game-changer when it comes to experimenting with new equipment or techniques.

From the time he bought his first digital point & shoot camera, he’s been involved in "pop-up" flash macro photography using stacked lenses, optical components salvaged from broken or junk lenses, and specialized home-built pop-up flash light modification brackets and home-built flash diffusers. He really enjoy lens “hacking” and experimenting, and finding ways to “re-purpose” broken lenses and other optical components, giving them a second life as useful photographic equipment. Art confesses to being a blatant photo equipment store “window-shopper”, checking out pricy gear and accessories that might be good candidates for construction of home-made “basement workshop” versions. Being retired gives him a fair amount of time to enjoy photography, but not much cash to support it, thus his drive to stay involved “on the cheap”.
 
Art’s favorite shooting locations are along the shores of the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia & New Brunswick, and the upper Brazos River watershed area of north and west Texas. Both areas are wildly different from one another, and never fail to offer endless opportunities for both macro and conventional photography.