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^{BOARD OF DIRECTORS}

President
Jim Brammer is an award winning photographic artist and owner of State of the Art Images, a fine art, portraiture and commercial photography studio located near Los Angeles in Tarzana, California. Recently awarded 2009 Small Business of the Year by the Woodland Hills – Tarzana Chamber of Commerce, and the 2009 Readers’ Choice Award from the Daily News, Jim’s passion for the visual arts and many years of photographic artistry come through in every fine art image he creates. 
Jim and his wife Marcia believe strongly in giving back to the community. They are active members of the City of Hope Board of Governors and Jim is a speaker on the City of Hope Speakers Bureau. In addition to being an Honorary Trustee with the Professional Photographers of America (PPA) Charities, Jim sits on the Executive Board of Directors and is the official photographer for the Valley Cultural Center in Woodland Hills, California. He also donates his time and talents to the Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep (NILMDTS) Foundation and numerous other charities. Jim’s work may be viewed at www.stateoftheartimages.com 

Vice President - coming soon 
Secretary - coming soon 
Treasurer - coming soon 

Editor
Rae DeVito runs her South Bay photography business, "photobyrae... capturing personalities". She specializes in two and four-legged beings - anything with a face. When not doing portrait sessions, Rae shoots weddings and other fun events. She also loves shooting "ink and iron". Rae has a Bachelor's in Journalism degree with broadcast news concentration from the University of Texas at Austin. She is a member of the National Association of Professional Photographers. You can view her work at www.photobyrae.com

Membership Director
Marcia Gold, a native Angelino, is an award-winning wedding and fine art photographer and retoucher based in the South Bay area of Los Angeles. Specializing in post-processing for wedding photographers, Marcia has been a 'Photoshop diva' for six years, and uses her skills to transform mediocre and badly shot images into winners for her clients. Marcia is also actively involved in her community, and heads up her City's disaster preparedness program, a continuing effort that has won her a Woman of Distinction award from the California Senate, and a nomination as Woman of the Year from the California State Assembly, 54th District.
Marcia is also an active member of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals; Professional Photographers of California, and Professional Photographers of America. You can visit her photography website at marciagoldphoto.com or her retouching website at mango-photo.com

Print Competition Chairs
Irene Benavente, a native of The Netherlands, is internationally recognized for her distinctive, “painting-like” floral photographs. Inspired by her passion for flowers, and influenced by the floral tradition and pristine charm of her homeland, Benavente captures her vision of the full cycle of life, a vision replete with a sense of harmony and serenity. Each of her striking photographs is painstakingly created in her studio, using a traditional large format camera. 
Her purity of form has resulted in works that have won her many professional international awards in America, Canada and China. Her work has been published in the Loan Collection books, the PPA Showcase books and the WPPI books. She has received the FUJI Masterpiece Award 2006. She has been honored by the Professional Photographers of America (PPA) as “Photographer of the Year 2004 and 2005 silver, and 2006 Gold”. In 2008 she received her Master of Photography degree from the Professional Photographers of America. She was honored by the Professional Photographers of Los Angeles County (PPLAC) as “Photographer of the Year 2008”. And she just received the “Photographic Mastery” Award from the WPPI. Benavente’s artwork has been shown in galleries in the USA, as well as in China and Europe. Her website: www.irenebenavente.com

Communications Director (Webmaster)
Alicia Bravo is an award winning wedding photographer who has been photographing weddings and families since 2001. Prior to that she worked for two award winning advertising agencies; Saatchi & Saatchi and The Miller Group. There she gained experience in many areas, such as, commercial & portrait photography, print, radio & television ad campaigns, brochure and catalog design. She is an expert at photo retouching and image manipulation. As a freelancer, she contributed her photo retouching & manipulation skills to several print ads, resulting in an award winning ad for Chin Chin Restaurants in 2006.
She is a graduate of Cal State Polytechnic University, Pomona with a Bachelor's degree in Graphic Design; studying print & web design, art direction & video editing. She also studied many areas of art, such as, artistic and black/white photography, illustration, painting, sculpture, screen-printing, etc., which is important in photography. College is where she had a chance to explore photography and fell in love! Visit her website to view her work: www.aliciaphotodesign.com

Fundraising Director 
Jim Akers has always been a creative thinker. It seems that photography feeds his appetite for creativity, spontaneity, innovation and making lemonade out of lemons. He likes to capture the rare, unguarded moments particularly if the light is right.
Jim’s examples of capturing unguarded moments are when the sun shines through a leaf or petal to create a shadow or when light filters through a huge hallway of windows. He likes to capture people being people. Jim has taken pictures for many years but has only recently started to “make photographs”.
Jim recently was awarded 1st place for Photojournalism with a photo of last summers Getty fire. Jim has also published two books, Kenya-A Photographic Inspiration and Homeless in Santa Monica.
Jim is a member of Professional Photographers of California, Professional Photographers of Los Angeles County, Clickers and Flickers and SmugmugJim's work can be viewed at: jimakersphotography.com