Jim Taliana believes the success and growth of the Maine Photography Show has everything to do with the quality and accomplishments of the jurist.

This year, the Boothbay Region Art Foundation recruited photographer Jay Stock of Ohio to serve as juror. He’s won dozens of awards for his work, and is known internationally for his landscapes and portraits — mostly in black and white, although he is not averse to working in color.

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"Early Morning Cosmos" by Kathleen Clemons of Harpswell won first place in the color category. Juror Jay Stock selected 100 images from more than 600 that were submitted for this year's show. Eighteen images eventually merited individual honors.

Committee Choice Award winner "Starflower and New Bud" by Thomas Martin of Bridgton.

"Antelope Canyon" by Peter Lehman of Thomaston, the third-place winner in the color category.

"Street Sweepers, Katmandu" by Bonnie Brinegar of New Portland, third place in the "working people" category.

Stock selected 100 images from more than 600 that were submitted for this year’s show, which is on display through May 8 at the Boothbay Region Art Foundation gallery in Boothbay Harbor. The juried show is open to residents across the state.

Past jurors include Cushing digital photographer John Paul Caponigro; Portland Museum of Art curator Susan Danly; photographer Joyce Tenneson; Anne Havinga, curator at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; and Elizabeth Greenberg, a photographer, artist and educator.

This is the sixth year of the show. The Boothbay Region Art Foundation awarded more than $1,000 in prizes last week.

“I knew that if we got good enough judges, people would take notice. And that’s what has happened. We’ve always tried to get the best possible judges we could think of, and we’ve had good success because of it,” said Taliana, one of the show’s co-founders. “Jay is one of the most decorated photographers in the country. He’s got tremendous credentials, and it was a real coup for us to get him.”

For that, we can thank LeeAnn LeFleur, who chairs the Maine Photography Show committee. She took classes with Stock, and reached out to ask him to participate in this show.

The show includes four categories: color, black and white, student and a themed category, working people. Given the current state of employment in the country, the working-people theme is particularly appropriate this year, Taliana said.

Taliana helped launch the photography show a few years after moving to Maine from Michigan.

“When I was arrived here, I observed that attention to photography was so much less than painting and sculpture. I felt it was underdone, and maybe under-appreciated,” he said. “Photography seemed be a second-class art, but I didn’t believe that. I wanted to create a show to elevate the stature of photography and to celebrate the work of photographers across Maine. Now we have a major show every year.”

In fact, museums across Maine have paid close attention to photography for many years. Bruce Brown, curator emeritus at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport, has long championed photography, and both the Portland Museum of Art and the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland have dedicated time and resources to photography. Similarly, the University of Maine Museum of Art in Bangor also specializes in photography.

But those institutions generally do not open their exhibitions to anyone. The Maine Photography Show is wide open. Anyone can enter — professionals, amateurs and students. That is its distinction.

Staff Writer Bob Keyes can be contacted at 791-6457 or at:

bkeyes@pressherald.com

Follow him on Twitter at:

twitter.com/pphbkeyes

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