To say the Maine Photography Show awards event on April 8 was extremely well attended would be an understatement.

There had to have been 100 photographers and art lovers filling the Boothbay Region Art Foundation (BRAF) to get that sneak peek of the eleventh annual show.

Juror Kathleen Clemons started out with just over 900 entries that were filtered and culled down to the 105 photographs adorning the downstairs and upstairs walls of BRAF. Twelve of the entries are in the student category. Clemons said every image in the show represents the “most memorable” and the entries possessing that “hang on the wall” factor.

With the exception of the student category, Clemons looked for good use of light, strong compositions in which everything in the frame is serving a purpose, all distractions were eliminated and all of the images had to use light appropriate to the subject(s).

Clemons chose Lauren DelVecchio's “Flora and Fauna,” as Best In Show. The image, Clemons said, spoke to her the first moment she saw it. And through each culling of photos, it impressed her more.

“Right from the beginning it was the one that just stayed with me. Every (culling) round it was still the image,” said Clemons. “This is an extraordinary portrait. From the lighting to the amazing headdress, the attention paid to the smallest detail is impressive. The expression is one of hope, of survival, of strength.”

The student entries really wowed Clemons, who is also a photography instructor. Student entries had to demonstrate good use of light and strong composition.

Of the First Place winner “Seeing Through” Clemons said the image was “brilliant, full of mystery and mood ... liked the play of light and shadow and the use of shallow depth of field.”

Clemons said all of the student entries were very strong; their work — excellent.

“Some of the student work would have done very well in the adult categories. There are some really strong images that could have been right up there for the grand prize,” Clemons said.

And the winners are ...

Student category:

First place: Arianna Coan-Prichard, “Seeing Through”

Second place: Katie Sprague, “Wavering”

Third Place: Natalia Gosselin for “Through the Looking Glass”

Honorable Mentions: Katie Han, “Sky's Blanket” and James Lynch, “Brooklyn Bridge”

Color category:

First Place: Benjamin Williamson, Brunswick for “Spring Point Sea Smoke”

Second Place: “Low Tide Popham Beach,” by Alan Borror of Cape Elizabeth

Third Place, “Yi Village Elder, Yunnan, China,” by Meredith Kennedy

Honorable Mentions: Michelle Barter's “Puffins;” Kristin Dillon's “Untitled”

Black & White category:

First Place: Rob Smith, Harpswell, “Silent Cacophony”

Second place: Don Seymour of Yarmouth's “Dory in the Fog”

Third place: Charlie Widdus, Gorham, “Abandoned”

Honorable Mentions: “Salesman;” by Dorothea Eiben, Mount Desert and Linda Cullivan of Scarborough with “Cloud Shadows”

Photo Impressionism category:

First Place: “Feathered Crown,” Felice Boucher

Second Place: “Autumn's Joy,” Caroline Samson

Third Place: “Ice on Ice” Michele Frost

Honorable mentions: Michael Cempa, “Cadillac Red;” and Susan Wright's “Crazy Ride”

Selected by MPS Committee: Best Printing Award – Jim Newton for “Trout Stream, Nova Scotia” and the 2016 MPS show catalog cover: Eva McDermott, Boothbay, for “Spirits of the Forest.”

This year's MPS awards included a retrospective of the work of Bob Darby, an MPS committee member and photographer who died last year. The collection is on the second floor. A video tribute to Darby can be viewed on Youtube: https://youtu.be/IdL66-0E31o.

To see all of the winning images, visit www.mainephotographyshow.com.

Videos of all 105 images in the show can be viewed on Youtube (accompanied by lovely music): https://youtu.be/MvT-3RPStK4.

The 11th Annual Maine Photography Show at Boothbay Region Art Foundation runs through May 6. The Art Foundation, located at 1 Townsend Avenue in Boothbay Harbor, is open Thursday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.