Photographer

CAROLYN GEORGE D'AMBOISE, 81 Photographer, ballet and Broadway dancer Carolyn George d'Amboise, a photographer and former ballet and Broadway dancer married to New York City Ballet star Jacques d'Amboise, died Tuesday at the couple's Manhattan home after a long struggle with primary lateral sclerosis, a rare neuromuscular disease, her husband said. A native of Dallas, she started her career in Broadway musicals in the 1940s as Carolyn George. She joined the San Francisco Ballet in the late 1940s, and the New York City Ballet in 1952.

Charles Edwin Dennis Jr., former owner of a Severna Park detective agency, died of a heart attack Thursday at his Harleysville, Pa., home. He was 81. Mr. Dennis was born in Newport, R.I., and was raised and educated there and in New York City. He served in the Navy as a photographer's mate from 1944 to 1953. During his Navy days, he was an investigative photographer for the Armed Services Police in Washington. Before establishing the Dennis Detective Agency Inc. in 1960, he had been a commercial photographer and a chief special agent with the old Baltimore Transit Co. Mr. Dennis expanded his Severna Park detective agency to include branches in Ocean City and Rehoboth Beach, Del. He retired in 1999.

Richard Kirstel, an art photographer and teacher who later portrayed characters from Baltimore's history, died Wednesday of a heart attack at his home in Granada, Spain. The former Charles Village resident was 71. Mr. Kirstel was the subject of a celebrated 1970 local censorship case when the president of what was then Towson State University ordered his pictures to be removed from a campus exhibition because of sexual content. Born in the Bronx, N.Y., he joined the Navy and became a ship's photographer during the Korean War. Later settling in Chicago, he did work for Playboy magazine and made portraits.

Farming has been a way of life in Maryland since the first European settlers set foot on St. Clements Island in 1634. But it is a tradition and a lifestyle that has been disappearing from the landscape at an alarming rate in recent decades. Since 1970, Maryland has lost more than 36 percent of its farms and nearly 34 percent of its farmland. The state's farms and farmland have been vanishing at a rate that is nearly four times the national average. The same is true in neighboring states, especially Delaware, which has lost more than 40 percent of its farms over the past 36 years.

Later. That is the inevitable reply when I ask the kids to take out the trash, clean up their rooms or, while on vacation, pose for a family picture. They are so loath to pose that it's become a family joke. "This is so annoying," says 16-year-old Melanie, as she rolls her eyes. "This is taking too long," her brother, Matt, adds. In frustration, I've been known to stamp my ski boots in the snow or refuse to walk another step. What will I promise, they say, laughing, to get them to stop what they're doing long enough to get that perfect holiday-card shot -- on top of a ski mountain, clustered around a giant turtle in the Galapagos Islands, or on the boat they're sailing in the British Virgin Islands?

The lowdown -- See what happens when two worlds collide in Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990-2005, a new exhibit featuring more than 200 photographs from the photographer's personal and professional life. Leibovitz is known for her photographs of celebrities, politicians and historical events. If you go -- The exhibit is at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, 500 17th St. N.W., Washington Saturday-Jan. 13. Admission is $10-$14 and includes the Leibovitz exhibit, an Ansel Adams exhibit and general admission.

Photographer Jan Starr has a thing for the color white.Her thing is more about photographing white objects: window dressings, antique lace dresses, wicker furniture, pitchers, gloves, blocks of glass -- anything that can reflect soothing natural light through her lens.Her black-and-white photographs of white subjects are something of a trademark for Starr, who also serves as coordinator of the photography department for Howard Community College in Columbia.Her current show, "Reflecting on the Past and Present," features 41 pictures and will be on display at the college's Art Gallery through Aug. 20.Starr, 48, lives with her husband and her daughter, Jenna, 16, in Marriottsville.

For years, Charles J. Cignatta's "office" was the cockpit of chase planes high over the Chesapeake Bay, where he filmed the dips and rolls of aircraft going through their paces after emerging from the Glenn L. Martin Co. plant in Middle River.Mr. Cignatta, who spent a nearly five-decade career with the manufacturer of airplanes and spacecraft, died Tuesday of congestive heart failure at Franklin Woods Center-Genesis Eldercare. The Essex resident was 85.Armed with his heavy Speed Graphic or Aeroflex movie camera, Mr. Cignatta photographed Martin Co. projects, from World War II-era bombers and seaplanes to jets and missiles and even the installation of a nuclear power plant at the South Pole.

Hans Marx, a former Sunpapers photographer whose memorable sepia-toned images graced the pages of The Sun, The Evening Sun and the Sunday Sun Magazine for nearly two decades, died in his sleep Tuesday at his residence in Lewes, Del., where he had lived since 1965. He was 83.An award-winning photojournalist who was widely exhibited in his prime, Mr. Marx was once described by a colleague as "firing a camera with the accuracy of Jesse James."Mr. Marx, who used a Speed Graphic or a Leica camera, became a staff photographer for the Sunpapers in 1937.

Whatever else he may be, New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani is a great publicist for the arts.The world might never have noticed "Sensation," an exhibition of young British artists at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, had the mayor not denounced the show and tried to cut off its funding.Now Giuliani has threatened to arrest homeless people for sleeping on his streets, a bit of Christmas season Scroogery that could make a Washington photo show that might have passed unremarked suddenly seem relevant.

JUDI ANN MASON, 54 'Good Times' writer Judi Ann Mason, who wrote for the TV sitcom Good Times and other shows, died July 8 in Los Angeles of a ruptured aorta, the Los Angeles Times reported. The Louisiana native was in college when her first play was produced. She wrote more than two dozen others. Her screenwriting career began after her 1977 graduation with Good Times. She later held executive writing positions on A Different World, I'll Fly Away and Generations. Ms. Mason also co-wrote the 1993 movie Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit.

Baton Rouge, La. -When news broke that reality TV stars Jon and Kate Gosselin are separating, I thought about my own family's brief time as a media clan - and what it taught us about the stresses of living and loving in front of a camera. I'm talking about a weekend last year, when a national magazine hired me to visit New Orleans with my family and file a first-person travel story about our experiences. I was paid a handsome fee, and all of our expenses for a fun-filled weekend of dining and sightseeing were covered.

Peter Winants Sr., a noted equine photographer, author, amateur jockey, steeplechase expert and former longtime editor of Chronicle of the Horse magazine, died Monday of cancer at Sunnyside Farm in Rectortown, Va. He was 82 and had lived in Monkton. Mr. Winants was born in Baltimore, the son of Garet Winants and Frances "Dolly" Bonsal Winants, who rode horses and fox-hunted with the Elkridge-Harford Hounds. After his father's death, his mother married S. Bryce Wing, who was well-known in Maryland thoroughbred and steeplechase circles, in 1939.

COY WATSON JR., 96 Child actor became a news photographer Coy Watson Jr., who appeared in Mack Sennett comedies and other silent films before abandoning acting for a long career as a newspaper and television news photographer, died Saturday near San Diego of complications from stomach cancer. He recounted in his memoir, The Keystone Kid, how Mr. Sennett once blew up his family's porch for a scene in a "Keystone Kops" film, then rebuilt it for them, adding a new kitchen and bedroom. In addition to Keystone Kops movies, Mr. Watson appeared in films of such stars as Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. His last film was 1930's Puttin' on the Ritz.

The Antarctic: From the Circle to the Pole Chronicle Books, $40 Visual artists account for only a small number of the 2,500 Americans who work in the Antarctic during the short summer months, according to Guy Guthridge, who wrote the introduction to this impressive book. Photographer Stuart Klipper, then, is one of the lucky few able to practice his art in this barren land. Shot using a panoramic format, Klipper's exquisite photographs capture a frozen terrain of light and dark, sea and clouds, the blue of the ice and the hues of the rocks.

William L. Klender, an award-winning photographer whose images of life in Maryland graced the old Sunday Sun magazine for decades, died Tuesday of pneumonia at Ellicott City Health and Rehabilitation. He was 90. Mr. Klender, the son of a printer, was born in Baltimore and raised in Irvington. He was a graduate of Polytechnic Institute. Mr. Klender's interest in photography and film began early in his life, and by the time he was 16, he had made his first motion picture. "It was a black-and-white movie that featured his younger sister and scenes of home life.

CAROLYN GEORGE D'AMBOISE, 81 Photographer, ballet and Broadway dancer Carolyn George d'Amboise, a photographer and former ballet and Broadway dancer married to New York City Ballet star Jacques d'Amboise, died Tuesday at the couple's Manhattan home after a long struggle with primary lateral sclerosis, a rare neuromuscular disease, her husband said. A native of Dallas, she started her career in Broadway musicals in the 1940s as Carolyn George. She joined the San Francisco Ballet in the late 1940s, and the New York City Ballet in 1952.

Tor Martin Hylbom, a retired Sun makeup editor who was active in his church, died of a stroke Jan. 24 at Sinai Hospital. The former longtime Anneslie resident was 69. Mr. Hylbom was born and raised in Colorado Springs, Colo., and graduated from the Kent School in Kent, Conn., in 1958. He attended Washington and Lee University, and earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Colorado College in 1962. From 1963 to 1967, Mr. Hylbom, who was a graduate of the Army Language School at Fort Ord in Monterey, Calif.

Baltimoreans' photos filled a showcase window at the old Read's drugstore at Howard and Lexington streets for nearly 40 years. Photographer Leon A. Perskie opened here in 1934, as the celebrated pharmaceutical retailer was opening its doors at a new building. Little signs directed patrons to a third-floor studio, above Read's counters and balcony restaurant. Until I got a call from his son, I never knew that the man behind the caption "photos by Leon Perskie" took the last formal, official photographic portrait of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Photographer loses lawsuit against Reeves A Los Angeles jury decided yesterday that Keanu Reeves doesn't owe a photographer one thin dime. Alison Silva had sued Reeves, claiming the actor struck him with his Porsche in March 2007, causing him to fall and injure his left wrist. But after five days of hearing - including watching a video that showed the photographer using both hands to scale down a chain-link fence after getting video of Britney Spears - the jurors deliberated for three hours and rejected Silva's claim of $711,974 for medical bills, lost wages and punitive damages.