All images copyright by the individual photographers

	Red Dress By Jim Dusen This is an evocative image with a strong steampunk aesthetic, and there are several points worth noting. The dress is striking, with deep burgundy tones that evoke Victorian elegance, and the diamond-patterned bodice adds a playful, almost harlequin quality that feels unique. Details like the chains, buttons, and lace trim support a steampunk sensibility while staying grounded in historical costume design. The subject’s confident stance and turned gaze give a commanding presence, almost regal. The lifted hand adds energy and a sense of narrative, as though she’s mid-conversation or making a proclamation. The highlights on the satin fabric bring out its sheen, emphasizing the richness of the material. The deep shadows on the sleeves and folds add drama, consistent with a steampunk or neo-Victorian mood. This photograph captures elegance and authority beautifully, with strong costume work and dramatic presence. By Don Menges
	Bickering  By Dixon Handshaw This striking black-and-white photograph, Bickering, captures an intimate and humorous moment in the life of a nesting egret family. The mother bird, statuesque and calm, presides over the nest while her two chicks engage in a comical dispute, their wild tufts of feathers and open beaks embodying both youthful energy and sibling rivalry. The choice of monochrome intensifies the drama, highlighting textures—the sleek feathers of the adult against the chaotic down of the chicks—and sharpening the interplay of light and shadow in the surrounding branches. The composition is masterful: the adult’s long, elegant form anchors the upper left, while the nestlings’ animated expressions draw the viewer’s eye into the heart of the story. What makes this photograph award-worthy is not only its technical excellence—crisp detail, tonal balance, and framing—but also its narrative strength. It tells a universal story of family dynamics, humorously familiar yet set in the wild. Bickering invites viewers to linger, smile, and reflect on the timeless push and pull between nurture and independence. Congratulations, Dixon, for your Gallery Pick Award—your photo is a memorable image that fuses artistry with personality, giving the natural world both dignity and delightful relatability. By Marie Costanza
	Milky Way at Old Faithful Tom Knauss Tom Knauss has exhibited his photography often at Image City since moving to Rochester from Wyoming. He is a deliberate photographer, one who begins with a clear vision and then prepares meticulously to bring it to life. He studies the terrain, chooses the optimal time of day, and determines camera, lens, angle, and settings with precision. A photograph such as Milky Way at Old Faithful requires even greater foresight. The Milky Way’s galactic core can only be captured during a narrow window around the New Moon, and only during certain months. Old Faithful, though predictable, still demands exact timing—its eruption narrowing to a twenty-minute window as the appointed moment approaches. To capture both together, one must not only anticipate but also locate the perfect vantage point, in darkness and as Tom does here, early morning in winter, to align earth and sky. The resulting image is remarkable in its orchestration. Old Faithful’s eruption surges upward in a luminous diagonal, its steam plume echoing the vertical rise of the Milky Way. The two elements form a natural triangle, uniting terrestrial power with celestial grandeur. In the distance, the warmly lit Old Faithful Inn anchors the scene, offering human scale and contrast against the vast night sky. Tonal balance is exquisite—stars remain crisp, the galactic core luminous, while steam retains texture. The composition achieves what few photographs do: a sense of synchronicity between natural wonder, human presence, and the infinite cosmos.  By Dick Bennett
	Gehry Ducts By John Kosboth  Before commenting on the photograph itself, I want to call attention to the excellent way that this image has been presented.  One of the reasons for Galleries like Image City is to present photographs in a setting that allows you to appreciate them in a way not possible with looking someone’s cell phone. By presenting a framed image it allows another dimension in the photographers’ creativity to be explored and John’s selection of frame and finish “kicks” this excellent image up another notch.  This image is a study in tension and restraint, where geometry becomes choreography and light becomes language. The composition is taut and deliberate: rectangular blocks jut forward like architectural punctuation, while curved surfaces soften the visual rhythm, offering a counterpoint to the angular austerity. The photograph doesn’t merely depict structure—it orchestrates it. The tonal range is sublime. Deep blacks anchor the image with strength, while bright whites slice through the composition like shafts of clarity. But it’s the intermediate grays that give the photograph its soul—those velvety transitions that suggest texture, depth, and the quiet erosion of time. The grays are not passive; they’re active participants in the drama, shaping the mood with subtle authority. There’s a rhythmic intelligence to the layout. Each form seems to anticipate the next, creating a visual echo that guides the eye across the frame. The lighting is sculptural, casting shadows that feel almost architectural themselves—like negative space made tangible. The photograph leaves the viewer in a state of suspended interpretation. It’s minimalist, but not cold; abstract, but not inaccessible. It invites contemplation without demanding resolution. There’s a quiet grandeur to it—a sense that the image is both a fragment and a whole.  It lingers in the mind like the memory of a place you’ve never been but somehow recognize. The title Gehry Ducts brings the photo into a clarity, as it refers to one of the most creative architects working today.  John has selected a portion of one of his masterworks and created his own interpretation of a fragment of the whole. By Steve Levinson