Congratulations to Baltimore's Dottie Campbell, a fine-arts photographer based in Hampden who was named one of four winners in this year's International Photography Contest sponsored by National Geographic Magazine. Campbell's clever image of a tree reflected on the hood of a glossy black automobile won in the landscape category in both the international and English-speaking divisions of the contest from among 148,203 images submitted to the judges.

Describing Campbell's winning entry, the magazine wrote on its web site: "This year’s landscape winner is a surprising composition of a scene in Moab, Utah. The photographer, a resident of Baltimore, Maryland, captured a swirl of spring cottonwood trees and other shapes reflected in a shiny black Buick. The judges were impressed with how the image stretches the definition of landscape photography and departs from the traditional and the predictable. They hailed the photographer’s sophisticated eye, her ability to mix color and texture, and her skill in arranging the elements in a creative and imaginative way. She turned the car into a camera lens, its curves reflecting the landscape. A mundane scene is made extraordinary by the photographer's willingness to look beyond the expected."

Campbell's winning digital image, which earned her prizes in the form of a new camera and lens and an all-expense paid trip to Washington, D.C., will be published in the May issue of National Geographic Magazine.

Congratulations again to the artist, and we look foward to seeing more of her work when it's shown later this year in the gallery at John Hopkins University's Montgomery County campus.  

(Photo courtesy of Dottie Campbell)