Jan Faul's black-and-white panoramic photographs of Civil War battlefields depict a deserted landscape- filled with history and memories of the American past. A light fog hangs just above the horizon in his image of a Civil War battleground titled "Table Rock, Devil's Den," and a small footpath disappears around a boulder in "Ricochet Rocks, Devil's Den." These evocative images portray nature as the sole survivor of war. As an anthropologist, historian, and self- taught photographer, Faul has brought his diverse experiences together to inform these powerful photographs. Masters of Photography™ is proud to present "Civil War Battlefields," and "The Southern Campaign" collections of work by Jan Faul.

For the past 20 years, Stephen R. Brown has traveled the globe in search of fascinating photographic subjects. His work has appeared in Smithsonian, LIFE, and Newsweek,and many other esteemed publications. Brown’s award-winning photographs have been exhibited at some of the most prestigious galleries in the United States, including the International Center for Photography and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. The Masters of Photography™ exhibition features some of Brown’s most extraordinary images of the Chesapeake Bay region.

As the Ottoman Empire slowly collapsed at the turn of the century, Dr. Fritz Wentzel captured intimate portraits of life in its Balkan territories. From the details of clothing to the gestures of conversation, these images offer a rare glimpse of everyday life in the region before World War I.

Jim Lo Scalzo has turned a passion for exploring distant cultures into an ever-expanding portfolio of images and words. His peregrinations have taken him from Cuba to South Asia, and most recently Antarctica. In each case he chronicles his treks in evocative photographic essays and travel articles. As a staff photographer at U.S. News & World Report, Lo Scalzo covers Congressional hearings on Capitol Hill, presidential primaries and summits, and U.S. national parks. His photographs have also appeared with articles on violent teen deaths in suburbia and on the pornography industry.

Organized by Dena Andre

The first exhibition in the Masters of Photography series, "The Curator’s Eye," these images document the multitude of personal shrines in the Kathmandu Valley from 1984-1985. The inspiration for this work derived from a desire to capture the constantly changing puja, the religious and cultural tradition of seeking spiritual connection by offering gifts to the Hindu and Buddhist gods. The shrines in the Kathmandu valley change daily as they are smeared with vibrantly colored powders and ornamented with flowers, objects, pictures------, and sometimes the blood of a sacrificial animal. Later, the elements wash away the offerings and ultimately erode the figures. It is a process in constant flux, and the camera is able to freeze a moment in the cycle as form emerges, fades,

Transformation of the shrines continues after exposure as the image is captured in the SX-70 emulsion, and again when it is digitized. Finally, the gem-like scale of the Polaroid changes when the icon becomes a large IRIS print. Transformation defines this project, from spiritual invocation to final rendition of the photographic image.

A trip to Nepal in the early 1960s first united Peter Grote's passion for photography and his fascination with mountain architecture. Since then, Grote has ventured among the peaks of the most massive mountains in the world, most recently undertaking an expedition into the Grand Tetons of Wyoming to document the colossal structures with a traditional large format camera. By patiently waiting for the perfect early morning fog, late afternoon sunlight, or clouds of a monsoon, Grote captures various aspects of the mountains' mystical beauty.

Masters of Photography(tm) is proud to present Peter Grote's collection of striking photographs, "Mountain Architecture."

Regina DeLuise’s photographs hang in some of the most prestigious art museums in the country, and her fresh, captivating images have won her a niche in the contemporary art world. DeLuise’s palladium photographs depict exotic landscapes, elegant portraits, and luminous still lifes. “Ian’s Shoes” becomes a tableau of shapes and textures, while her photographs of the human form are modern day interpretations of the classical figure. The combination of her trained eye and the palladium process she employs produces intimate and seductive photographs. Masters of Photography™ is proud to present “Regina DeLuise: Still Lifes and Nudes,” a collection of her ethereal palladium photographs.

Organized by Leah Bendavid-Val

Sam Abell has applied himself to the photography of cultural landscape. He explores ways in which places can be recorded purely, with images simultaneously shaped by his imagination. In one series of works, he photographed gardens worldwide, from Kashmir and Moscow to Marrakesh and Alaska. The gardens he has found are indoors and out, in cities, suburbs, and wildernesses. The images in this exhibition show more than conventional cultivated gardens; they are meditations on beauty and the enigmatic qualities of life.

From the dark Atlantic Ocean speckled with sailboats, to the dramatic surfacing of an alligator at dusk in the Everglades, Cameron Davidson’s journeys over Florida give us a unique look above the Sunshine State. Taking his camera hundreds of feet above the Earth’s surface in a helicopter, Davidson captures images that few of us will ever be able to experience first hand. Through his vision, these familiar scenes become conglomerations of vibrant color, abstracted shapes and patterns of minute details.

James P. Blair is best-known for the photographs that have appeared on the pages of National Geographic magazine for more than thirty years. But during this time, he also produced a body of personal work which related to his early schooling at the Institute of Design in Chicago where he studied with Aaron Siskind and Harry Callahan. Continuing in Siskind’s abstract style, Blair’s fascination with close-up images that isolate fragments of walls, signs, and graffiti from their usual frame of visual reference, produces photographs that convey emotional content through abstract form.

Organized by Janos Enyedi

While living in Madrid, Steve Eure created a body of work —close to a thousand images— that focused on the very structure of the city itself: the walls. Through this eight-month endeavor, he produced a portrait of the Spanish capital unique in its merging of the historical and the contemporary.

Masters of Photography™ was pleased to be the first to exhibit this work, which was also shown at the Embassy of Spain, 2375 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. from November 3 - 30, 2000.

Volkmar K. Wentzel was a staff photographer for National Geographic magazine for nearly fifty years. His work has taken him from Mozambique and Nepal to West Virginia and Wisconsin. In this month’s featured exhibit, Masters of Photography™ is proud to present Wentzel’s “Americana.”