Photographer Profiles

Konsta Punkka, aka “The Squirrel Whisperer,” is a 21-year-old Finnish photographer known for his amazing close-up portraits of animals reacting to his presence in their natural habitat. His unique approach to wildlife photography has earned him over 800,000 Instagram followers.

About four years ago, Alvanas, a photographer, filmmaker, educator, digital artist, and postproduction retoucher, was attending a week-long advanced printing workshop at John Paul Caponigro’s studio. “The first day of portfolio review featured lots of prints of grand vistas from big film cameras—4x5s and 8x10s,” Alvanas says. “I showed on the second day, but I digitally projected my images.”

Anuar Patjane Floriuk, popularly known as Anuar Patjane, has been scuba diving for 17 years. Much of his photography in the past has been focused on travel around the globe, but lately he’s been giving in more and more to his fascination with the sea. He’s been shooting underwater for five of those 17 years and finds the camera a natural extension of his inner being, helping him explore and fathom pelagic life, especially whales, and himself in the process.

I got the idea for this how-to story from something the Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist David Hume Kennerly said to me: “Believe me, the challenge of photography is not going to France for the first time and photographing the Eiffel Tower. The challenge is really seeing and then photographing the stuff that’s familiar and ordinary, stuff we see all the time but never really observe or give much attention.”

If we could describe Steve Bronstein’s trademark shooting style it would be: keep it real and keep it small. Bronstein is a wizard at breathing life into miniature sets and adding an air of believability to each one.
His mastery of perspective and scale is only a small part of that. He also knows how to make his lighting work for him to deliver one-of-a-kind masterpieces. And he has the most talented people working with him to ensure that each step in a project is taken on the surest footing.

Not too long ago I entered a PhotoShelter contest that called for entrants to submit a single photo they deemed their best travel image. I didn’t know if the one I sent was in fact my best, but I was certain it would get the judges’ attention. If you’re a regular reader, you might have seen it featured in my column in the November, 2014, issue: the image of trucks, sheep, and goats held up by a landslide in the Zojila Pass in Kashmir, India.