Instructors
Keron Psillas
Keron Psillas Oliveira is a photographer, writer, instructor and mentor, with an extensive background in the print and publishing industry. Raised in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, where after nearly two decades in the printing and publishing industry, Keron became a professional photographer in 2006.
Keron teaches week-long photography courses, equine photo workshops, and maintains a robust mentoring program for students in the US and abroad. She is the former director of the Art Wolfe Digital Photography Center. Keron is a longtime assistant to and continues to teach with photographic legends Sam Abell and Arthur Meyerson. She co-leads photography tours in Europe and other locations with Charlie Waite, Arthur Meyerson, Strabo Tours, and other professionals. She creates and leads private tours (groups of 2-6) in Great Britain, Europe, Eastern Europe and South America.
Her published works include the highly acclaimed Forty Years Later, Meditation for Two, The Alchemy of Lightness, and Dressage for the New Age, with long-time collaborator Dominique Barbier. She self-published Four Days in Havana and Loss and Beauty; creating solace in a land of infinite sorrow.
Loss and Beauty; creating solace in a land of infinite sorrow, puts composites of her original photographs in conversation to illuminate the personal journeys of victims of the unspeakable horror that was the Holocaust. Having dedicated five years to completing the first part of Loss and Beauty, Keron is now fully engaged in the next phase of the project. Beginning in April of 2019, she traveled further into Eastern Europe to create images and essays that depict the plight of the inhabitants there from 1939-1942. This time period has become known as The Holocaust by Bullets. As always, she seeks to create solace in the face of darkness and sorrow.
Loss and Beauty won the prestigious Best of Show award for Photobook 2015. It was recognized by Karen Davis and Paula Tognarelli of Davis Orton Gallery and The Griffin Museum of Photography, respectively, as an exemplary photo essay and a finely crafted book. In 2019, Loss and Beauty received two Honorable Mentions in the International Photography Awards for fine art book and self-published book.. Keron has confirmation now that the full exhibition will be shown internationally, beginning Spring of 2023.
Keron released Cavalo Lusitano: The Spirit Within, in November of 2018 from Veritas Editions. It has already garnered important awards, including being an Rfoto Folio Selection for 2019 and being doubly awarded from IPPY as a monograph and fine art entry. This hand-crafted, fine art, museum book and portfolio includes work gleaned from 12 years of photographing the Lusitano horses in Portugal, Brasil, and the United States. Renowned for producing work of exquisite detail and quality, Veritas brings to Cavalo Lusitano the collaborative vision and skill of Marquand Editions’ Tieton Press to express the nobility of the Lusitano. Veritas is collaborating with master printer Stan Klimek to bring the fullness of Keron’s images to the limited edition, platinum/palladium prints included in this masterpiece. Handmade papers, a custom walnut case, and letter-press printing complete the vision for Cavalo Lusitano: The Spirit Within.
Concurrent with Cavalo Lusitano: The Spirit Within, Keron released a trade edition of her work titled: Lusitano: noble, courageous, eternal. This 96 page full-color edition is bold and seductive. The luscious color and her trademark sensitivity to light will pull you into not only the world of the Lusitano, but into a world that speaks of still mornings, natural rhythms and centuries of rich tradition. The photographer’s love of beauty, form, and nuance is illustrated on every page. Four essays, an introduction and foreword accompany 69 photographs. Lusitano received the Bronze Award in Publishing in 2019 from the prestigious IPPY awards.
Keron makes her home in the Ribatejo region of Portugal among her beloved Lusitano horses.
Arthur Meyerson
Arthur Meyerson is recognized as one of America’s finest color photographers. Since 1974, this native Texan has traveled throughout the world, creating award winning advertising, corporate and editorial photographs, as well as an extensive body of fine art imagery. A three-time winner of Adweek’s “Southwest Photographer of the Year” award, he is on Communication World’s list of top 10 corporate photographers and was named one of the 30 best advertising photographers by American Photo.
His awards are numerous including gold medals from the New York Art Directors Club, the Art Directors Club of Houston, the Dallas Society of Visual Communications and the prestigious Stephen Kelly Award for his work on the Nike advertising campaign. He was selected by Nikon to their illustrious Legends Behind the Lens list and was honored by the Houston Advertising Federation as the inaugural recipient of the Only In Houston award for individuals “whose creativity and passion for his art have brought recognition to the city of Houston”. In 2008, the Houston Decorative Center named him as the first recipient of photography in their annual Stars Of Design celebration.
Besides his commercial work, Arthur’s fascination with light, color and the moment continues and has culminated into an impressive body of personal work as well and in 2012 culminated in his highly acclaimed book, The Color of Light. His photographs are in the public collections of several major institutions and have been exhibited internationally. He and his work have been profiled in many publications including Communication Arts, Rangefinder, Camera Arts, Graphis, Digital Photo Pro, Zoom (France), Portfolio, Idea (Japan), Novum (Germany), Photo World (China), and Fotodigital (Portugal).
A photographer with a strong commitment to his profession, Arthur teaches photography workshops, does individual mentoring and participates in speaking engagements throughout the U.S. and abroad. He is a member of the Advisory Council for the Santa Fe Center for Photography as well as serving on the Board of Advisors for the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops and the Houston Center for Photography.
In 2012, Arthur published his highly acclaimed book, The Color of Light. His second book, The Journey, to the delight of collectors and peers, was published in 2017.
Robert H Clark
Robert H Clark is a fine art nature and landscape photographer. Born in North Carolina, he is a graduate of the University of Georgia and Georgia Institute of Technology. His love for photography began with his first camera, a Yashica Rangefinder, a present from his parents while in the 8th grade. A graphic designer, architect, landscape photographer, workshop leader and teacher, he works as a media designer, photographer, and manager for the National Park Service.
Though the primary focus of his work is landscape, Robert is an accomplished architectural photographer and loves to explore the relationships between the built environment and the landscape.
He is a workshop leader and guide and has photographed many iconic and less traveled locations from the American west to Iceland. He has had several one-man shows and his work can be found in private collections, interpretive exhibits and publications for the National Park Service, museums, galleries, and internationally for corporate clients. He has published articles on photography and the photographic process in Fuji X Passion Magazine, Fuji Love Magazine, and Medium Format Magazine.
Robert’s view of the landscape and how to photograph it has been tempered and inspired by many people. It was the iconic images of Ansel Adams that set the early stage for a life chasing light in the American landscape. His view of the landscape is big, wide, and expansive and he loves to work with the subtle light of early morning and late evening.
For him there is great challenge, and often great pleasure, in experiencing that moment when a landscape reveals something of itself that no other photographer has managed to see or capture. Robert’s goal is to continue to improve his craft – from image capture to the creation of a fine art print. It is a journey, like the vast landscapes he loves, that is endless.
Robert makes his home in the beautiful and rural landscapes of West Virginia.
Robert’s work can be found on his website at www.roberthclarkphotography, and Instagram at @rhclphoto
Mark Muse
I use the camera to explore. It is a reason to go to special places, a way to be immersed, a way to look carefully. I want the landscape and the way the light spills over it; the smells of the local foliage, and soil, and streams; the sounds of the wildlife, and the wind in the spruce… I want to bathe in this, like the warmth of the sun, to cleanse my spirit, to infuse my being. Acquiring some special images along the way is a bonus.
I work largely in the tradition of “straight” photography. I am not intellectual about what I do – my approach is completely intuitive, and not the least bit conceptual.
In post processing I am mostly concerned with how the image is presented and what it suggests, not so much with objective image content. While I often work the files heavily to get the presentation I want, I do not create or significantly alter image content. The most extreme situations are perhaps a panorama or other assemblage, where I stitch a number of frames together to make a single large and seam-less image; to perhaps remove some trash from within the frame; or, rarely, to combine multiple images into one.
The creative experience does not end with my making the print. You, the viewer, will bring your own experiences, sensitivities, receptivity, and subconscious to these images. I create the context, you create the story that occurs within that context. It is your story. Think of listening to music. It is the same.
I graduated from Ohio University in 1973 with a BFA in photography. The requirements of a young family and a developing career meant putting aside the camera for years. But the career that developed was in commercial printing and publishing, which kept me in direct contact with images in various ways, photo-mechanically and then digitally.
In 2003 I resumed making my own images. I have since participated in numerous regional group exhibits, two person, and solo exhibits. My work has been acquired for many personal and institutional collections, and has been published nationally and internationally. I live near Shepherdstown, West Virginia.
Tony Sweet
Tony is a Nikon Legend Behind the Lens.
After successful careers as a jazz musician/ educator, and professional magician, Tony settled on photography as his chosen means for personal expression. Over the last 30 years, Tony has become an in-demand speaker throughout the United States and Canada on Photography and creativity.
Tony and Susan Milestone conduct Visual Artistry photography location workshops in the United States, Canada, and Iceland. Tony maintains an active speaking schedule to photography organizations, industry trade shows and PPA schools across the continental United States and Canada. He also conducts Visual Artistry Creativity Seminars.
Tony’s photography is published worldwide in every medium and is represented by Getty Images. Tony’s images are also used by Nikon, Exposure Software, Singh Ray, Topaz, Lensbaby and others for national ad campaigns.
An interview with Tony on macro photography was published in The New York Times.
Tony has authored five books on the art of photography: Fine Art Nature Photography (’02), Fine Art Flower Photography (’05) Fine Art Nature Photography: Water, Ice, Fog (’07), Fine Art Digital Photography (’09) and HDR Photography (2011). He and Master Photo Workshops have co-produced four photography DVDs: Visual Artistry, HDR Made Easy, Visual Literacy and Flower Photography Artistry, as well as an iPhone instructional video series.
The first book in his Fine Art Nature Photography eBook series, “Creative Techniques and the Art of Self Expression,” was just released.
Kate Breakey
Kate Breakey is internationally known for her large-scale, richly hand-colored photographs including her acclaimed series of luminous portraits of birds, flowers and animals in a series called Small Deaths published in 2001 by University of Texas Press. Her other monographs include, Painted Light, University of Texas in 2010, a career retrospective that encompasses a quarter century of prolific image making.
Her collection of photograms, entitled ‘Las Sombras / The shadows’ was published by University of Texas Press in October 2012. This series is a continuation of her lifetime investigation of the natural world which in her own words is ‘brimming with fantastic mysterious beautiful things.
Sam Abell
I learned photography from my father, a teacher, at our home in Sylvania, Ohio.
After graduating from the University of Kentucky I worked for National Geographic as a contract and staff photographer for thirty-three years.
In 1990, my work was the subject of a one-person exhibition and monograph titled Stay This Moment at the International Center of Photography in New York City.
Since then I have published four additional collections of work: Seeing Gardens; Sam Abell: The Photographic Life; The Life of a Photograph and Sam Abell Library.
In addition, I maintain a career as a writer, teacher, and lecturer on photography.
Charlie Waite
Charlie Waite is firmly established as one of the world’s leading landscape photographers. His photographic style is often considered to be unique, in that his photographs convey an al most spiritual quality of serenity and calm. Waite’s photographs are held in private and corporate collections throughout the world and he has held numerous solo exhibitions at prestigious venues in the UK, Japan, and the USA.
With over thirty books to his name, Waite’s distinctive images are recognized around the world and his work has received wide critical acclaim over many years. A recent article in the Royal West of England Academy of art Magazine featuring Waite’s work commented, ‘Waite’s landscapes are rare perfections of light, color and composition, and offer the viewer a luxuriant portrait of a planet at peace’.
In 2000, Waite was awarded the prestigious honorary fellowship to the British Institute of Professional Photographers. He is also a sought after writer, public speaker, television presenter, and has featured in numerous photographic and broadsheet publications, DVD’s and television programs on photography.
Through his teaching and touring company, Light & Land, he continues to encourage lovers of photography to seek the enormous enrichment that can be found by engaging with the landscape, with the camera acting as a conduit and a device to express the individual’s response to their world around them. Waite particularly enjoys working with younger people as their uncluttered view of the world can bring some remarkable imagery.
Charlie Waite is also the founder of the UK’s incredibly popular Landscape Photographer of the Year, now in its 13th year.
Charles Needle
Charles Needle is an award-winning, Colorado-based fine art photographer, author, speaker and workshop leader with a unique eye for design and artistic interpretation. His popular “Art of Nature” creative macro workshops have attracted students nationwide.
In 2018, Charles earned an honorable mention in the Macro category of the 8th Annual International Mobile Photography Awards Contest. He was also a semi-finalist in the 2014 Nature’s Best Photography Winland Smith Rice International Awards photo contest. In 2011, Charles was selected as a finalist, among 15,000 entries worldwide, in the International Garden Photographer of the Year photography contest, sponsored by The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (London, England). This exhibition traveled throughout the United Kingdom.
A popular conference and camera club speaker for more than two decades, Charles has authored three cutting-edge instructional books: Tiny Worlds: Creative Macro Photography Skills (Amherst Media, January 2015), Impressionistic Photography: A Field Guide to Using Your Camera as a Paintbrush (March 2014), and Creative Macro Photography: Professional Tips & Techniques (2011).
An accomplished speaker, photography juror and teacher with international workshops in Monet’s Garden (Giverny, France for 20 years in a row, with exclusive private access), Keukenhof Gardens (Holland) and The Butchart Gardens (Canada), Charles is a FujiFilm USA Talent Team member and North American Nature Photography Association (NANPA) Showcase Award winner nine years in a row.
Charles’ photographs have selected for publication in Nature’s Best, Outdoor Photographer magazine, Nature Photographer magazine, Inner Reflections Engagement Calendar, The Chicago Tribune, SELF Magazine and are in private and public collections nationwide and abroad.
To learn more about Charles’ work, including his workshop and private lesson offerings, visit www.charlesneedlephoto.com.
Elizabeth Opalenik
I left home in 1969 to the sound of peace marches and my mother saying, “I knew you were different from the time you were two.” From the farm in westen Pennsylvania to the shores of Connecticut, I slowly started to evolve as an artist from former lives managing the accounting department for Continental Oil Company, managing jazz clubs and as “A MS-Placed Lady” in my construction/design company. In 1979, after a two week photographic workshop in Maine, I sold everything and never looked back.
I am a photographic artist, educator and freelance photographer traveling the world with my camera and I love it. Philanthropic projects keep me grounded and connected universally.
I believe that all good photographs are self portraits and know that my many former lives manifest themselves in my images. My heart is still in my darkroom working in the Mordançage process, but I use today’s technology when appropriate to explore all the creative paths.
My first monograph, “Poetic Grace: Elizbeth Opalenik Photographs 1979-2007” is available by emailing me. My photographs are collected and published internationally and all work is for sale. Mordançage images are unique, others are silver gelatin, platinum, handpainted or digitally printed in very limited editions on beautiful handmade papers. Prices range from $500 to $3500. Please inquire or contact the galleries that represent me.
Catherine Karnow
Born and raised in Hong Kong, the daughter of American journalist, Stanley Karnow, San Francisco-based National Geographic photographer Catherine Karnow seems destined to have travel and photography at the center of her life. She graduated from Brown University with honors degrees in Comparative Literature and Semiotics.
Her work has appeared in National Geographic, National Geographic Traveler, Smithsonian, French & German GEO and other international publications. A notable life project has been her 30 years photographing in Vietnam. In 1994, she was the only non-Vietnamese photojournalist to accompany General Giap on his historic return to Dien Bien Phu. And in 2013, she was the only foreigner to photograph up close the funeral of General Giap. For almost thirty years, Catherine has documented Vietnamese families and children affected with Agent Orange.
Her 2015 retrospective: Vietnam 25 Years Documenting a Changing Country opened at the Art Vietnam gallery in Hanoi, where it became the most visited show at Vietnam’s most prestigious gallery. Her deeply personal photo book of the same name is available in bookstores in the US and Vietnam. She is regularly profiled in the Vietnamese press. Recently a documentary on her “Destiny in Vietnam” aired on Talk Vietnam, a show seen by millions around the world.
Honey Lazar
Honey Lazar lives and works in Cleveland, Ohio. She studied at The Cleveland Institute of Art and is a lifelong workshop student. Selections of her work are in permanent collections at the Progressive Corporation, University Hospitals of Cleveland, and Southwest General Hospital in Cleveland. Her photographs have exhibited internationally.
Honey works on long-term projects for exhibition and publication with a focus on social justice concerns. She photographs to immortalize loved ones seen in her recently published, Loving Aunt Ruth: Recipes for a Life Well-Lived or her ongoing project, “They Come and They Go,” recording all who visit her.
Honey says she loves everything about photography especially the people she meets.
Sam Gregory
Sam Gregory is a landscape and fine art photographer based on the south coast of England in beautiful Dorset. Like many it was travelling that first inspired his love of photography, a desire to capture the differing landscapes he encountered around the world as a youngster fired by his curiosity and wonder of the natural world. Originally the image making process was about capturing a memory, but as the years went by the creative possibilities of photography began to take hold and a whole new world opened up.
Now his focus is on working with the landscape to explore its character and revealing some of its wonder, be it seen or unseen. Driven by a desire to show the natural beauty of the world in his own aesthetic, Sam believes there are image making possibilities all around us. Be it in your back garden, local woodland or beach. Fundamentally he believes that the best image making experiences and satisfaction comes from really getting to know a landscape and culture and then applying your skills to create a compelling visual narrative.
Sam shoots with film and digital set-ups and is comfortable using various techniques from ICM to long exposure and macro, and believes the image making process is multi-step with equal weight being given to each stage. From receptiveness in the landscape to cultivating a visual concept and creating images in the field. Finally finishing with post-processing, printing and presentation to fully realise the vision. You may also have heard Sam on ‘The Togcast – Photography Podcast’ which is the UK’s leading photography podcast. He also leads workshops and tours in the UK and further afield for Light & Land.
