My husband and I also run our own Creative Photography Conference, and we held our 3 rd event in May here in New England. At the end of July, I will be heading to the Southwestern Michigan Council of Camera Clubs conference in October to Mike Moats’ Macro Conference in Cleveland and next March to the PSA Southern California Chapter event. It’s been a busy spring and will continue into the fall! I recently did a seminar for the Photographic Society of Chattanooga called “Alternative Visual Artistry with Topaz & Textures”, and then a half-day hands-on workshop on Topaz products for the group. I’m still very involved with camera organizations at the local, state, regional and national levels. That’s when I joined a local camera club and really began learning “the rules” and then how to break them. We did that for about 13 years pretty regularly, but after ten years of photographing mostly cars, I felt the need to get back to some other kinds of photography too. We both liked the modified-style cars and when we met someone at a racing show that was starting a new monthly regional newspaper, we offered to contribute articles and photos. We had both grown up going to races – me at Riverside Park (MA) and Danbury (CT) with my parents, and Dave in Western NY.

My husband, Dave, and I began covering auto racing around 1991. Primarily I was still taking snapshots, but I was learning more as time went on. I purchased my first SLR in 1979 – a Minolta XG1 – which I loved. I also have a graphic design/typesetting background (pre-desktop publishing!). I have always had an interest in art, crafts, and photography – taking snapshots of family and on vacations back in the day.

Problems with topaz texture effects