DEBRA BOYLAN
FARRAH BRANIFF
JEROME CROWDER
JAMES DILGER, JR.
LINDA GILBERT
GERALDINE GILL
RUTH HEIKKILA
CHARLOTTE RANDOLPH
ROYCE ANN SLINE
CAROL STEVENS
DAVID VAUGHAN
LINDA WALSH
RODNEY WATERS
DAVID WILLIAMS
DOROTHY LAM WONG
Debra Boylan is a seven year resident of Houston and has studied photography at Rice University
with Carol Vuchetich and Fraser Stables. She has exhibited in numerous local shows and travels
extensively in search of new images. This is her first time exhibiting during Fotofest.
Professional portrait photographer Farrah Braniff received her B.F.A. in Photography from the San
Francisco Art Institute and a M.Ed. in Counseling from the University of Houston. She has taught
photography at the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, Episcopal High School and The
Emery Weiner School. Farrah's current project is a photo documentary about sexual assault,
inspired by her volunteer counseling of domestic violence and sexual assault survivors at the
Houston Area Women's Center. She maintains a professional photography studio in Houston,
focusing on portraits of families, children and babies. She has two boys, Sayer, 2, and Finnian, 6
months.
Although categories seem arbitrary, I call myself a visual anthropologist: one who studies culture
through still images or video. I work with photography. Over the past decade, I have focused my
research on the processes of urbanization and migration in the Americas, particularly among
Aymara-speaking migrants living in the Andean cities of La Paz, Bolivia and Puno, Perú, with whom I
live for extended periods of time (often 6 months to a year). While I consider myself a serious
photographer, I use photography in research as a methodological tool: not as documentation, but
as a subject for discussion and reciprocal gift giving. Photography offers glimpses of Aymara
migrants’ lives: aspects of their personalities, families, and issues of urban survival that I would not
otherwise have. As a photographer and ethnographer, my goal is to explore and demonstrate the
similarities we share as people from different cultures, not sensationalize our differences.
JAMES DILGER, JR.
James Dilger is a native Houstonian. He started with a camera in 1988, and began attending
Continuing Education photography classes at Rice University in 2001. Current interests include
night photography and landscapes in black and white.
LINDA GILBERT
Oboist Linda Gilbert performs regularly with the Houston Ballet and Grand Opera Orchestras. A
Fulbright scholar, Linda studied in Amsterdam before receiving her doctorate at the University of
Southern California. She maintains a teaching studio in Houston. An author and editor, Linda
provides professional editing services to individuals and is writing her second book, focusing on
safe stretching for musicians. Her writings and photographs are published in various journals.
Certified nationally as a yoga therapist, instructor and rehabilitative specialist, she teaches yoga
privately and at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music.
As a photographer, Linda is drawn to the interaction between living beings and the environment.
She finds beauty in open landscapes and the subtleties within them, most recently in southeastern
Idaho. Her FotoFest contributions include images that reflect the light, color and use of land in this
part of the country. She is the photographer for Mercury Baroque Ensemble.
GERALDINE GILL
Geraldine Gill was born and raised in New York City. Several years ago, with encouragement from
her family and a brand new Nikon, she began to pursue in earnest her longtime interest in
photography. Geraldine travels extensively worldwide, and is particularly interested in documenting,
through portraits, people in their environment in the countries that she visits. She has studied with
Joe Englander and Fraser Stables. Her work was accepted in the Houston Center for Photography
2004 Juried Member Show, and currently hangs in private and international corporate collections.
She works predominantly with black and white film, and uses traditional printing methods.
RUTH HEIKKILA
Originally from Austin, Texas, Ruth Heikkila has lived in Sugarland for over thirty years. She studied
traditional photography at the Glassell School and has been taking photographs since the 1970s.
Ruth is drawn to a variety of subjects, from portraits to intimate landscapes. She views landscapes
as art pieces, discovering their abstract qualities as captured through the camera lens. Ruth is
married and has three grown children and three grandchildren.
CHARLOTTE RANDOLPH
Charlotte Randolph has found fulfillment in the liberal arts - music, art, and literature - throughout
her life. She studied piano as a child in Oakland, California, and continues today. After her children
entered school, she completed a degree in art history and a Master's in English at University of
Houston, which launched a brief career teaching writing. She worked awhile in the business world,
but since retirement in 1993 she has enhanced her interest in the visual arts by taking photography
classes at Rice University, the Glassell School of Art, and the Southwest School of Art & Craft.
Charlotte photographs mostly landscapes, and the images are shot fairly close up. She hopes they
convey affection and respect for one's surroundings. Photographers she admires include Harry
Callahan, Annie Liebowitz, and Richard Kline. Her photos appear in American Orchid Society
publications, and they have won awards in juried exhibits.
ROYCE ANN SLINE
Royce Ann Sline is a native Texan and finds herself always searching for the image that the casual
passerby never sees. Her broader body of work, “The World Beyond” series evolved over the last 6
years and is based on an ongoing desire to explore the layers of our world as seen through the
camera.
Royce Ann admits that she has many interests including riding carousels from around the world.
This passion is fed not only by riding carousels, but photographing them.
She also enjoys exploring everyday life and how it tells a story. This work is being exhibited during
Fotofest. In addition to traditional black and white photography, Royce Ann enjoys exploring the world
digitally, never manipulating the images, only enhancing them. Royce Ann has exhibited work in a
number of juried shows across the United States. Her images are in several private and corporate
collections.
CAROL STEVENS
Carol Stevens has spent the last 20 years photographing urban and rural landscapes in the United
States. She uses many types of film cameras. As the digital world encroaches on the organic,
Carol is shooting Kodak Browning 127s and Holga 120 cameras to recreate the pictorial view of the
great masters of the 19th century. Carol has participated in numerous art shows in Houston,
Galveston, and Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
DAVID VAUGHAN
David Vaughan’s path in fine arts has been an alternate one of documenting his personal life’s
walk. This autobiographical work focuses on real-life relationships, with archetypal overtones that
transcend the mundane. Various themes characterizing different aspects of the human experience
range from a friend in the Texas hill country, to partners in the construction business, to photos of
women in the intimate space of their dressing table. His very personal life chronicle speaks to the
universal - that with which humans collectively identify.
LINDA WALSH
Linda Walsh's photographs for Fotofest are selected from two ongoing projects. Her photographs
of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, taken over the past two summers, extend her work on
America's last wilderness. Although the Arctic Refuge has been a hotly contested landscape since
its inception in 1960, the fight to maintain its integrity as an essential, intact ecosystem has
accelerated greatly in recent years. Walsh's photographs depict the fragility of this landscape as
well as its beauty. Her second project documents the work being done by farmers and ranchers in
Texas who use sustainable agricultural practices to enhance the health of the land and the food they
raise.
Walsh lives and works in Houston, Texas and has had solo exhibitions at the Koelsch gallery, the
Women's Institute of Houston, and the Houston Center for Photography. Her work is in many private
collections and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
RODNEY WATERS
Pianist and photographer Rodney Waters is the Artistic Director of Mukuru: Arts for AIDS, a concert
and art series launched by AIDS Foundation Houston to raise money for HIV prevention programs in
the Houston area. A longtime advocate of using the arts to raise money and awareness for social
causes, his FotoFest 2004 exhibit "Seeking Refuge" featured portraits of refugees resettled by
Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston. His contributions to FotoFest 2006 explore the issues
facing people living with HIV/AIDS.
As a pianist, Rodney has toured internationally and performs regularly with the Houston Symphony
and numerous chamber music organizations. His recording of the Sonatas for Violin and Piano by
Charles Ives (with Curt Thompson, violin) was released worldwide by Naxos and was received with
critical acclaim by the New York Times, Strad Magazine, and Gramophone. More information about
Mukuru and AIDS Foundation Houston can be found at www.mukuru.org.
DAVID WILLIAMS
I started photographing the world around me and began experimenting in the darkroom around
1965 in the Philippines. After a few years, marriage, raising a family and seeking to understand
myself shifted my attention away from photography.
In 1998 the opportunity to travel more freely renewed my passion for photography. Since then I have
continually increased my skill and my vision through workshop studies and many rolls of film shot
across North America.
I started the manipulating of images with a computer while a writer, creating illustrations for
technical manuals. This combination of computer technology and photographic vision joined
naturally within me to carry beyond what I could capture with the camera alone. In 2004, I formed
Imagination’s Light and now seek to employ the combination of skills with the maturity of many
years to support the expanding spiritual awareness of all of mankind.
DOROTHY LAM WONG
Dorothy Wong’s interest in photography began in 1998 at the urging of her husband, also an avid
photographer. Her interest soon became a passion, discovering that she could see and convey the
beauty and sensuality of simple, everyday objects, including flowers, fruits, a favorite corner in a
home, the interplay of light and shadow, even gummi bears. Her photographs often evoke feelings
of tranquility, peacefulness and warmth.
Dorothy’s work has been featured in exhibitions organized by Photographic Society of America,
Houston Center for Photography, Beaumont Art League, Texas Art Museum (Port Arthur), Houston
Chinese Photographic Society, and 4W. Her photographs have been published in Houston Press
(2003) and in the 10th Anniversary album of the Houston Chinese Photographic Society. Her solo
exhibits include Michaeline’s Restaurant (2004), Crossline Galleries (2005), and currently, Potters
Guild/Gallery in Rice Village.
A recently retired psychologist, Dorothy now devotes much of her time to photography.
