"This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it". Psalm 118:23-25

"A birth certificate shows that we were born; a death certificate shows that we died...Pictures show that we lived." Anonymous

My photographs visually celebrate the gift of each day. I enjoy capturing unique colors, tones, lines and textures of landscapes, cityscapes and abstracts I call "machine-scapes".

Working in digital, 35mm and medium formats, I've been fortunate to win more than 200 awards at national and regional photo salons. In addition, my work has been included in multi-media exhibits of Maryland artists at both the Governor’s House and the Maryland State House in Annapolis.

I've been invited to produce two solo exhibits, "This Magic Moment" and "Brand New Day". I've also produced two duo shows, "Silent Footsteps" in 2020 with painter and sculptor Charles McElfish, and "Double Vision" in 2006 with photographer Marshall Dupuie. Extra credit if you recognize the song references -- music is one of my other passions, and it always goes hand-in-hand (eye-and-ear?) with my photo activities.

I'm often invited to be a guest judge for photography clubs and competitions in the Baltimore-Washington area. In 2014, I was invited to be one of the jurors for the multi-media Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts in State College, considered by many as one of the top arts festivals in the nation.

For several years, I was commissioned to prepare photographic renderings of various historical scenes in the Frederick, Maryland, area to be reinterpreted in original paintings and limited edition prints by renowned national artist P. Buckley Moss.

In addition, more than a dozen of my images were selected for inclusion in a national electronic greeting cards website. My photos also were selected for Stephenson Printing’s award-winning appointment calendar, which showcased the work of some of the country’s top photographers and was distributed to more than 6,000 people in ad agencies and other sectors of the graphic arts industry.

I've been making images for 50 years. During that time, I studied photojournalism at West Virginia University, attended dozens of photographic workshops and classes, and learned composition and color interpretation techniques under the late Lowell Anson Kenyon, a renowned Washington-area fine arts photographer, photo curator, and educator. My other inspirations and "visual mentors" include Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ansel Adams, A. Aubrey Bodine, Brassai, Margaret Bourke-White, Dewitt Jones, and the painters Thomas Cole, Frederic Church, Andrew Wyeth, Claude Monet, and Vincent Van Gogh, among many others.

I'm the past president of the Board of Directors of the Allegany Arts Council in Cumberland, Maryland and continue to serve on its Board. I also am the co-chair of the Art Council's Photography Committee, helping to organize the annual Allegany National Photography Competition and Exhibition (ANPCE). The ANPCE attracts hundreds of entries from throughout the U.S. each April.

I'm a member and past president of the Frederick (Maryland) Camera Clique and a member of the Delaplaine Visual Arts Education Center and the Frederick Arts Council.

In addition, I curated an exhibit of A. Aubrey Bodine’s Western Maryland images in 2018. The initial opening of the Bodine show was held at the Graphicus Atelier Gallery in Cumberland and then moved to the campus of Frostburg State University, where 37 prints were on display at the Stephanie Ann Roper Gallery.

Previously, I was a member of the Latent Image Workshop, the Maryland Society of Photo Pictorialists, the National Institutes of Health Camera Club, and the Gaithersburg Camera Club.

Follow me on Instagram, @M.Heavner. Most of the images you see here and on Instagram are available as signed, limited edition prints and note cards. Please message me through Instagram if you would like pricing details.