Let's Kickstart your Creativity!

Guy Tal

It is such an honor to welcome back one of our most popular speakers, the proflic Guy Tal. Guy continues to reinvent his work and connection to the natural environment with his images but also with his words. He continues to produce even more deep and insightful work but is appearing less and less in public. So it is with great excitement that he will be presenting completely new materials that have not been shared in any other public forms.

In his words:

Poet Mary Oliver wrote, “In truth, the work itself is the adventure. And no artist could go about this work, or would want to, with less than extraordinary energy and concentration. The extraordinary is what art is about.” Similarly, in an interview about his work, artist Francis Bacon said, “It’s all so meaningless, we may as well be extraordinary.”

What does it mean to be extraordinary? It means being your own unique self, striving — and daring — to make the most of who you are and the opportunities available to you. It is what existential philosophers referred to as living authentically.

For those of us who are artists, being extraordinary means expressing our own uniqueness in our work. As it turns out, being yourself is not easy. It requires first learning who you are: your personality traits, your motivations, and your goals, rather than take for granted what others are doing or think you should do. But that’s only the first part. The second, often harder, part is finding the ways and the courage to, as Friedrich Nietzsche admonished, become who you are.

These are the themes for Guy’s upcoming book, Be Extraordinary: Philosophical advice for Photographic (and Other) Artists, due to be released in late 2024. Guy will share thoughts and insights about these topics and read parts of his manuscript in progress.

You can learn more about Guy and his work on his website.

Guy will be supporting Color Country Animal Welfare with 10% from the registration fees donated to their mission.

Length: 90 minutes

Cost:  $17 (or as part of the entire series for only $77!)

Colleen Miniuk

The corporate-America-escapee turned full-time outdoor photographer, writer, publisher, instructor, and speaker from Chandler, Arizona Colleen Miniuk is our 2nd speaker of the series.

Colleen’s credits include National Geographic calendars, Arizona Highways, AAA Via, National Parks Traveler, On Landscape, and a variety of other publications. After serving three times as an Artist-in-Residence with Acadia National Park, she authored the award-winning guidebook, Photographing Acadia National Park: The Essential Guide to When, Where, and How. She is also the author of Wild in Arizona: Photographing Arizona’s Wildflowers, Seeing the Light in Outdoor Photography, and The Current Flows: Water in the Arid West. She writes an online photography advice column called “Dear Bubbles” and leads photography workshops, women’s photography retreats (called “Sheography™”), and online sessions for camera clubs, outdoor organizations, and private clients.

Her presentation will be about. “Creating with the Creative Process: A Visualization-Driven Approach to More Meaningful Photographs.”

This presentation is bound to give you a major creative jolt! Join Colleen for an enlightening talk on how picturing your picture before you begin photographing can help you create deeper and more meaningful visual expressions. She’ll share what visualization is—and isn’t—and how it ties into the Wallas model of creativity. Hear how to approach your scenes with mindfulness, gather inventories, dry shoot, and critique your frames to gain even more ideas for your work.

You can learn more about Colleen and her work on her website.

Colleen will be supporting American Rivers with 10% from the registration fees donated to their mission.

Length: 90 minutes

Cost:  $17 (or as part of the entire series for only $77!)

Freeman Patterson

Freeman Patterson is almost photographic royalty. Hailing from New Brunswick Canada he has influenced countless photographers to see and interact with the landscape. Freeman is an elected member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Art and a recipient of the Photographic Society of America’s highest award, the Progress Medal. He was appointed to the Order of Canada in 1985 and the Order of New Brunswick in 2013.

Freeman 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.

We are honored to have him join us to talk about the The CALL of CREATIVITY.

Freeman begins his presentation with a talk about the nature of creativity and the ways to nurture and develop the creativity with which each of us was born. He includes stories of people who have used their creativity in difficult circumstances to benefit others, then follows this with a series of photographs (with commentary) that illustrate his main points and reveal how both the symbols in our art and the symbols in our dreams tell our life story.

Freemans presentation will be different. There will not be chat or Q&A during his presentation but we after he completes his presentation we will open up the chat for you to ask away and get your most burning questions answered.

FREEMAN PATTERSON C.M., O.N.B., R.C.A., M. Div. of Shamper’s Bluff, New Brunswick, Canada, has had a career in photography and visual design that spans more than 60 years. He has taught several annual workshops in Canada since 1973, in South Africa from 1982 until 2019, frequently in New Zealand between 1992 and 2016, and from time to time in England, France, Israel, Australia, and the United States.

Learn more about Freeman and his work on his website. 

Freeman will be supporting the Nature Conservancy of Canada with 10% from the registration fees donated to help their mission.

Length: 90 minutes

Cost:  $17 (or as part of the entire series for only $77!)

Bruce Barnbaum

Bruce Barnbaum remains a force within the black and white landscapes 53 years after he captured his first image and turned his focus from mathematics to photography in 1970.

Bruce just made his 80th trip around the sun and is more engaged than ever within the landscape with an upcoming book, Discoveries of a Lifetime, featuring over 150 Black and White images never previously published or exhibited, together with captions and essays, making it his Magnum Opus. (Defined as a large and important work of art, music, or literature, especially one regarded as the most important work of an artist or writer)

His presentation is Creativity Throughout Life. Discussion of creativity in the arts, sciences, business, with an emphasis on photography. This aligns with his prime photographic interests: of Nature, Man-made objects, Abstracts, Geometric Forms and brings his expertise in teaching workshops since 1972. You will find Bruce’s published photographs in the collection of museums, schools, individuals worldwide and lucky for us he will be with us live on the 23rd of January.

You can learn more about Bruce and his work on his website.

Bruce will be supporting Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) with 10% from the registration fees donated to help their mission.

Length: 90 minutes

Cost: $17 (or as part of the entire series for only $77!) 

Kai Hornung

From the words and images from some of the legends of the West in Bruce Barnbaum and Guy Tal we go to Germany for an insightful talk from Kai Hornung. Kai is a landscape and fine art photographer based in Hanover, Germany. His images showcase the beauty and diversity of nature and seamlessly blend intimate and abstract scenes with wide and dramatic vistas, best described as landscape photography art. Beyond his stunning, award winning work, Kai is known for sharing his expertise.

In this presentation Kai will take you on a creative journey through his life - from drawing dinosaurs to performing in a metal band on stage, through ups and downs in life, a successful business career, diverse arts and making a name in the photography world. Through his personal story, gain inspiration on shaping your own artistic voice and developing a unique style. In this presentation you will get to reflect on your own creative journey, build confidence in your own work and receive practical advice for improving your photography to make it more personal. Kai will help you with finding impactful compositions, how to understand your images as a stage in which you identify your main subjects and make them stand out. He will also cover do’s and dont’s of editing images so that they will bring your story and emotion across.

Drawing from a unique blend of experiences as a stage performing rock singer and consulting manager, he shares his knowledge through workshops, keynotes and articles. His one-on-one mentoring is not only rich in experience but also sprinkled with a fine sense of humor, ensuring his mentees find their footing in their own creative journeys. Kai’s images have garnered wide international acclaim, including winning several awards (Winner Photograph of the year 2020 in the “International Landscape Photographer of the Year Awards”, Shortlist Sony World Photo and many others) and been published worldwide in renowned magazines and online media outlets such as National Geographic, Elements and Condé Nast.

You can learn more about Kai and his work on his website.

Kai will be supporting German Red Cross Humanitarian Charity with 10% from the registration fees donated to help their mission.

Length: 90 minutes

Cost:  $17 (or as part of the entire series for only $77!)