Best in Show winner “This reminded me of Diane Arbus” by Kashif Javaid, chosen by judge Susana Raab.

Tickets are still available for opening night of the ninth annual Exposed DC photography show, brought to you by the venture formerly known as DCist Exposed. This is their second year untethered from the mothership and their first at a new venue.

Though the show is the highlight of their year, Exposed DC operates year-round to support and foster a local photography community open to the amateur shutterbug and the seasoned professional alike. Photographers Jennifer Wade and Sanjay Suchak work with former DCist staffers Heather Goss, James Calder, and Meaghan Gay to maintain resource guides, provide regular updates and features on the Web site, and organize monthly happy hours for local photographers.

For the second year, Exposed DC is featuring Best in Show awards. This year’s winners were selected by a panel of judges that include photojournalists, fine arts photographers, and photo editors. Lauren Stockbower has worked as a newspaper photographer, picture editor and instructor, and is currently an adjunct professor at NOVA and freelances as a picture editor. Corcoran grad Cynthia Connolly is an old-school Washingtonian who worked for Dischord and booked shows for the much-lamented d.c. space, and published Banned in DC: Photos and Anecdotes from the DC Punk Underground. Randall Scott owns a contemporary fine art gallery in Baltimore. Susana Raab photographs Washington’s East of the Anacostia River communities for the Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum. And Evan Vucci is an award-winning Associated Press photographer based in Washington.

But the real focus of the show is on up-and-coming photographers. This year’s Exposed exhibition features 42 photographs chosen for a personal vision of the D.C. area that goes beyond politics and tourist traps to look at the vibrant community in which we live.

Heather Goss, former managing and arts editor at DCist and Exposed DC founder, writes that “Exposed is very excited about the new location this year at 1358 Florida Avenue NE, Capital Fringe’s new headquarters. Fringe is a natural partner for us—two groups dedicated to seeking out and providing space for new and experimenting local artists, so we’d been keeping an eye on them when they decided to open a permanent home. Our guests on Thursday will get one of the first looks at their new space; they’ll walk in via the new black box theater, and view the exhibit in the first floor bar and lounge, and upstairs in the huge rehearsal room. (About 6 years ago, we organized an exhibition in this building when Industry Gallery moved into it, so I knew it was a big and very cool, raw-looking space.)”

According to Goss, this year’s photographs “offer a fantastic look back at the latest chapter of Washington, D.C. Our five Best in Show winners, chosen by distinguished local photo editors and photojournalists, are excellent examples of finding perfectly composed moments out of things we experience every day—a stylish young woman waiting for a bus, performers dancing in a plaza, a bored museum guard watching over eclectic art. The photos show our well-known celebrations—the cherry blossoms, the National Mall fireworks—from unique points of view, and followed some of the events that shook D.C. last year, like the death of Marion Barry and loss of the Corcoran.”

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Exposed DC’s opening reception is Thursday, March 12, 6 to 10 p.m. at 1358 NE, Capital Fringe headquarters at 1358-1360 Florida Avenue NE Tickets are $14 in advance and are available here. $20 at the door. Exhibition Program with the 2015 winners will be available for $10.