This event is to give the winners of the 2022 Members’ Exhibition Viewers’ Choice Award a chance to show and talk about additional work from their portfolios. When the votes were tallied last year, we were so surprised to see that AZPA members Ann Newman, Betty Drake and Fred Ullrich ended in three-way tie for the award — so we will have the pleasure of a presentation from each! The range of work is quite impressive and will make an interesting night in this years’ Members’ Exhibition series of presentations.

This event is free and open to AZPA members and the public with RSVP here on Eventbrite.

About the Artists

Ann Newman bought a digital camera about seven years ago quite naively. Quickly, she realized that her photography gravitated toward patterns, textures, shapes, and details. As a writer, she discovered symbolism in intimate scenes and began using her photographs as imaginative writing prompts. For her, the appeal of abstract photography is the engagement in connecting deeply to thoughts and feelings. Viewing abstract art slows us down and allows an appreciation of what is in this present moment. Abstracts can open our perspective, encourage creativity, and foster empathy and optimism. Photos don’t always have to portray reality. Nor does life have to be perfect for us to feel joy.

Fred Ullrich studied photography at University of Wisconsin, Whitewater and at Arizona State University, Tempe. He holds a master’s degree in education from Northern Illinois University. Fred worked for nearly three decades at Fermilab, the world renown particle physics research laboratory where he served as manager of Visual Media Services. During this time, Fred honed his skills photographing and video recording on some of the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments associated with the U.S. built Tevatron Accelerator and the European-built LHC Accelerator at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. Fred has been published in Europe and the United States and continues to make black-and-white images that are exhibited and sold to fine art collectors throughout the United States. In 2103, Fred moved from the Chicago area to downtown Phoenix where he has established his fine art photographic practice.

Betty Drake started taking world-class photos with her Kodak Brownie at a very young age. When she graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1969, her mother wanted to give her a sewing machine, but she insisted on hiking boots and a Nikon FTn instead. Since that time, she’s dragged big, heavy cameras all over remote, unlikely places, used photography in her work and recording observations about the zany world we inhabit. AZPA has been a great motivation for her to keep exploring the world of photography and photographers, and to expand her creative horizons.

Images Above, left to right: Ancestral Light © Ann Newman, Rear Window Project © Fred Ullrich, Bird © Betty Drake.

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