As Forrest Gump�s mama used to say, life is like a juried art competition�you never know what you�re going to get. And so it is with the 4th Annual Bethesda International Photography Competition, which features work by more than two dozen artists.

Only two are D.C.-based: Bruce McKaig, who contributes one of his signature moody figure studies, and Bert Shankman, who produces a stunning image of a delicate, swirling, floral-looking seashell in grainy hues of orange and peach.

The outlanders are, on the whole, an impressive lot, as well. (Gabriela Bulisova�s Maria, Mother of a Chernobyl Liquidator, Belarus, 2004 is pictured.) Cathy Cudlin offers a charming vignette of a tourist standing in a way that echoes the pose of a nearby marble statue; Herbert Hoover (not the president) offers a sepia-toned portrait of a man who suggests a cross between The Godfather�s Michael Corleone and Seinfeld�s Kramer; Sharon Lee Hart documents several lifelike casts of human heads sitting on a shelf behind chicken wire, a creepy tableau that evokes the site of a genocide; Lynda Lester-Slack captures what from a distance look like three rising fighter jets spraying contrails but are in fact three coral-textured nodes shaped like sharp nipples; Rita Maas produces a fine pair of still lifes set on chalk-inscribed slate; Alexi Pechnikov offers a mesmerizing multiple exposure overlaying cobblestones and a street scene in black-and-white; and Gregory Scott offers a surrealist portrait that pays homage to Edward Weston�s famous sexualized green pepper.

But the most eloquent pieces are also the simplest: Elena Volkov�s foggy, horizonless seascape in delicate shades of gray and John Davis� eerily lit cloudscape, boldly shot through by the bright-orange twist of a roller-coaster track.

The show is on view from 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, to Wednesday, April 6, 2005 at Fraser Gallery, 7700 Wisconsin Ave., Suite E, Bethesda. Free. (301) 718-9651. (Louis Jacobson)

Louis Jacobson

� Copyright 2005 Washington City Paper