Beth Buelow is a photographer and artist who lives in West Michigan.

There's an assumption many photographers make that in order to create great photos, you need to be in an epic location or have an objectively amazing subject. It's likely true that those types of images were part of what got us excited about photography in the first place. But as popular locations become more crowded and vulnerable, and our feeds are oversaturated with “the usual suspect” subjects, we're challenged to question the assumption and seek out new horizons. Instead of relying on photographing iconic locations and subjects, what if we focused on creating more personally iconic images? Beth's talk will give us new ways of looking at the world and finding ways to move through those blocks that prevent us from seeing the full potential in everything around us.

Growing up on Long Island (Bethpage), NY, Mitch felt lost in his late teens. Worried about his future direction in life, his father gave him an old Argus rangefinder to fool around with. Little did he realize what an important gesture that would turn out to be for him.

After doing some research and seeing the images of Minor White and Ansel Adams he quickly became addicted to photography.

Mitch will share with us his journey exploring American landscapes and how he sees our amazing planet.

We were attracted to have him as a speaker by the imagery he has produced, but it should be noted that his work has been recognized with 15 highly prestigious international photography awards.

Freeman Patterson is a true icon in the pantheon of renowned Canadian photographers. His work has been included in several National Film Board books such as the Year of the Land and Between Friends.

Freeman Patterson of Shampers Bluff, New Brunswick, Canada, has had a career in photography and visual design that spans more than 60 years. He has taught innumerable workshops in Canada, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Israel, France, the United Kingdom, the USA, and other countries. He has authored 15 books, five of them on photography and visual design; his most recent, Embracing Creation, was published in conjunction with the opening of his large retrospective exhibition at New Brunswick's Beaverbrook Art Gallery in September 2013-14. Freeman is a recipient of the Order of Canada (1985), the Order of New Brunswick (2013), the Photographic Society of America's highest award, The Progress Medal (1990), and is an elected member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Art.

The presentation will take the form of an interactive discussion of B.D.'s images and the key concepts, etc. he has explored in his long career.

B. D. Colen began his life in photography at about the age of 12. By the summer of 1963, he was covering the historic March on Washington as a photo intern for a weekly newspaper. Two summers later he was the sole photographer and reporter for a weekly newspaper in Maine. Colen assumed he would spend his life as a working photographer, but in the fall of 1966, on his first day at George Washington University, in Washington, D. C., Colen's life took a major turn when he asked an editor of the college paper if photographers were needed. 'They are,' he was told, 'but what we really need are people who know how to write news stories.' And Colen then took a detour that lasted until the early 1990s. His reporting career included 13 years with Newsweek where he covered national medicine and health care, and was the co-leader of a Pulitzer Prize winning reporting team.

In 2016 Colen, who is now technically retired, moved to London, Ontario, to start a new life with a new wife. Colen continues to photograph, though now his subjects are more likely to be the three dachshunds and a cat who share house space with Colen and his wife, and the landscape of southwestern Ontario.

Our lives change, so should our photography - Following up on Lori's successful TCC presentation about the business of art, Lori will now take us on some of her photographic journeys, and talk about the value of changing your photographic goals and vision as your life and the world changes.

While Lori's first loves are travel and landscape, she will pretty much photograph anything that catches her eye, from architecture to zoo animals, and everything in between. It's the act of photography that brings her joy, rather than the subject matter. Photography gives her an escape hatch into a quiet universe, where the only thing that matters, in that moment, is the space and time between Lori and the object of her attention.

She is always on the lookout for echoes of lives lived, narratives that have been left behind in urban and ancient landscapes. She finds intimate abstracts by getting close up with nature. But what interests her most, in our increasingly noisy universe, is finding ways to photograph silence. Everything around us makes noise; the traffic, the phones, email. Even when you think it is silent...the refrigerator hums in the background. She creates art that gives you a space to listen to the silence, to see it for yourself.

Tony Sweet is an internationally acclaimed fine art nature photographer and photography instructor. He is known for his stunning and surreal nature and landscape photography and for his expertise and artistry in infrared, long-exposure, panoramic, abstract, and flower photography. Tony is praised for his incredible range as a fine art nature photographer, shooting stark black-and-white and infrared landscapes as well as otherworldly, color-soaked, long-exposure and infrared nature scenes in his Surreal Landscape style. Tony's long-exposure and infrared nature photographs seem to stretch time, crafting gorgeous scenes that contrast light and dark, fluid motion and static subjects. His newest project, The Color of Water, explores how this colorless fluid takes on the infinite colorations of nature. Tony Sweet is a Nikon Legend Behind the Lens and has been published internationally. He is the author of five books on fine art nature photography.

Stephen Orlando is a photographer and aerodynamicist based in Kitchener, Ontario. During his engineering studies at the University of Waterloo, he received a Master's of Applied Science in aerodynamics. He is a self-taught photographer and specializes in capturing movement with long exposure photography and LED lights. This has been an ongoing project since 2014 called Motion Exposure. Stephen's photos showing paths of objects like canoe paddles and violin bows are inspired in part by the streamlines of fluid flow he sees in his day-to-day work. An avid canoeist and kayaker, many of his photo shoots take place in remote locations in the Canadian wilderness. Stephen is also inspired by photography pioneers Harold Edgerton and Gjon Mili as well as artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude. His work has been exhibited in the United States, Korea, Italy, Taiwan, and at home in Canada.

Jennifer King is an internationally acclaimed nature and fine art photographer with a passion for teaching and inspiring photographers around the globe. She draws on her fine art and design background to bring a fresh perspective to nature photography. She is honored to have been named the first woman ambassador and master photographer in the field of nature photography.
Jennifer has built a respectable reputation with award winning photography, and is one of the premiere black and white photographers in the country. She was also recognized as the #1 Wildlife Photographer in the US in 2024.
Jennifer is a Moab Master Photographer and noted as 1 of 15 Amazing Women to Follow (by 500px). She is also the founder of PHOTOGRAPHY for the FIGHT AGAINST BREAST CANCER (pfabc.org), an industry wide organization bringing together the biggest names in photography to raise money for breast cancer research.
You can find her photography, video tutorials and interviews in Nature Photographer's Network, Outdoor Photographer Magazine, Shutter Magazine, Camera in the Wild, Photography Talk, Smoky Mountains Journal of Photography, Our State Magazine, VIA Magazine and more! She also speaks at yearly summits for organizations across the world.

Randall has been making photographs for over 45 years, initially in the nature/landscape genre, eventually evolving to run a commercial photography business focused on interior and exterior architectural clients. Since 2015, after closing the business, he focused solely
on photographing subjects and projects that are of personal interest. These consist largely of street and documentary subjects. He has also been active in lecturing about photography, to a wide variety of Ontario camera groups. These presentations sought to stir up and challenge traditional notions on photography, bringing to light the work and importance of master photographers. A recent book publication: How to Create Meaningful Photographs (2023) has come out of these presentations and has led to a 6-week class with the same title at Trent University Continuing Educational Program. Randall has also published two photographic monographs in 2024, Transitory Inhabitants (Toronto’s financial district 2016 -2020) and Torontonians (Photographs on the streets of Toronto). I believe the camera’s strength is its ability to capture fleeting moments, to stop time and create a sense of curiosity in the viewer. If a still image is to be successful it must illustrate
something missed and something fleeting. Chasing this fleeting moment of uniqueness allows me to better savor life.
A father of four children, Randall and his wife Catherine live on a rural property near Lakefield, Ontario, Canada.

Sara is a former creative marketer and New Yorker who became a statistic in the economic downturn of 2008. With the loss of her career came a loss of purpose and identity and a relocation to South Jersey. She picked up photography as a pastime and found that it quickly became an obsession. Photography became her redemption during the rebuilding. It gave her a creative outlet and opened new social and professional opportunities. A few years later and she is now a photography and post-processing educator, frequent exhibitor, and the recipient of numerous local, national and international awards. Sara is a former President and current board member of the South Jersey Camera Club, spearheading the design of innovative programs to enrich and inspire its membership. When not immersed in the creation of photographic imagery, Sara is often found dabbling in some other artistic pursuit in whatever medium calls her that day.

Conservation photographer and Filmmaker, Kristi Odom, has worked in some of the earth's most remote locations to help document stories that will help protect our planet's biodiversity. She is an internationally awarded photographer, an associate fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers, a Nikon Ambassador and a motivational speaker.
She believes strongly in the power of photography to help create positive change and ultimately help protect the planet's wildlife. A photographer and filmmaker, her work focuses on connecting people emotionally to animals and celebrating those who fight to protect the natural world.
Her accolades include over 60 international photography awards. She also was included in National Geographic’s 2021 collection for Best Animal Photos and her work has been exhibited at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Her work has appeared either online and/or in print for the following clients: National Geographic, Washington Post, New York Times, Forbes, Rollingstone, NIkon, Microsoft and Outside Mag.

*** Note Saturday Presentation ***

Born in Italy and educated as engineer, Roberto Pazzi found his true passions in travelling and photography remote cultures. His immersive approach to photography has earned him acclaim from both critics and peers alike, having been recognized in several prestigious international competitions. Roberto's work has reached the pages of renowned publications all over the world, offering glimpses into the captivating diversity of our planet. He also publishedHUMANKIND, a premium limited-edition volume presenting a curated selection of his most remarkable works in large format. Currently based in Spain, Roberto partners with Nomad Photo Expeditions, organizing and leading photographic expeditions to the farthest corners of the world.

Peter Andrew Lusztyk is a Toronto based freelance photographer whose goal is to turn ordinary or overlooked things into something that causes the viewer to pause and examine the inherent beauty of them. He counts The Atlantic, CTV News, Esquire Magazine, Globe and Mail, Le Monde, The National Geographic, Politico, The Royal Canadian Geographic Society and Wired Magazine among his many editorial clients. He holds several awards, including AACE Applied Arts Photographer of the Year 2013, Applied Arts Annual Award 2017 and Magenta Foundation Emerging Photographer Award 2016. Apart from his editorial and commercial work, Peter teaches photography at Sheridan College.

Shelley Niro is a member of the Turtle Clan, Bay of Quinte Mohawk Six Nations Grand River Reserve. Niro is a practising artist, concentrating on painting, photography, and film. Niro was the inaugural recipient of the Aboriginal Arts Award presented through the Ontario Arts Council in 2012. In 2017, Niro received the Governor General’s Award for The Arts, The Scotiabank Photography Award, and the Hnatyshyn Foundation Reveal Award. In 2022, Niro was presented with the Paul de Hueck and Norman Walford Career Achievement Award from the Ontario Arts Foundation. Niro is an honorary elder in the Indigenous Curatorial Collective.

Patricia is a photographer and videographer who holds a BA, BFA, and MFA. Over the years, she transitioned from being an exhibiting artist to photographer, all while working for 20 years as a Script Supervisor in the film industry. Her journey from sculpture to conservation photojournalism was far from linear; instead, her path was shaped by the intersection of opportunity and circumstance.

Today, Patricia is an award-winning Conservation Photographer and filmmaker. She was recently awarded the grand prize and title Bird Photographer of the Year, becoming only the second woman to receive this honour.

Additionally, Patricia has earned recognition for photojournalism in prestigious competitions such as Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Nature Photographer of the Year, and Nature's Best for her documentary film work. Her work has been published in The Guardian and BioGraphic. She is a confident, engaging public speaker promoting ethical photography practices and inspiring others to find their mission.

Don Komarechka is a Canadian nature and macro photographer now living near Varna, Bulgaria. From auroras to pollen, insects to infrared, much of Don’s photographic adventures reveal a deeper understanding of how the universe works. Exploring the world that we cannot see with our own eyes has been a common thread in Don’s career as a professional photographer. Don teaches workshops in the areas of nature and macro photography, as well as photographic editing and creative compositions. “Photography is about sharing your unique view of the world with others – without using words. Helping others accomplish the same goal is extremely rewarding. I like to see the world through my camera in ways I normally cannot see with my own eyes. Seeing the world beyond vision is a gift that photography gives me.”

Note that this presentation is on Saturday @ 11:00am.

Peter is a full-time Canadian photographer and visual storyteller living in Toronto, Ontario. His work has been published in several magazines such as, Visual Wilderness, Luminous Landscape, Canadian Photo News, Graphic Arts Magazine and has been recognized for photography and printing excellence. Peter regularly leads photography courses and workshops for novice and enthusiast photographers across Southern Ontario as a Canon & Hahnemühle ambassador.

Join internationally acclaimed and 2025 World Top Ten Nature Landscape Photographer Dee Potter for an inspiring visual journey through his captivating cityscapes, dramatic landscapes, and compelling cultural portraits from around the world.

In this visually rich presentation, Dee takes you behind the scenes of his global adventures, sharing the stories, challenges, and creative techniques behind his award-winning images. You’ll see how he works a scene to go from great to extraordinary and learn what it takes to represent Team Canada at the World Photographic Cup. Dee will also share his “secret weapons” behind his most celebrated photographs and gain insight into how you can elevate your own photography through impactful storytelling and a clear, purposeful vision.