Photographer Profiles

The first time I met Craig La Mere was at an ice cream shop in Brunswick, Maine, at about 11 p.m. Really. It was the night before the Maine Professional Photographers Association conference was going to kick off. I was there as a print judge, La Mere as a speaker. I recognized him from his Moz (his studio name) logo hat, although he didn’t know who this stranger was who was accosting him.

The imaginative, dramatic photographs of Alexis Cuarezma showcase the skills of an imaginative master of dramatic lighting.

Tom Oldham has been shooting portraits for 20 years and is today widely known for his expertise in medium format photography, notably with Hasselblad camera systems. He began his freelance career at the age of 29, having worked as a technician at the Plymouth College of Art for a few years after completing his studies there.

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.”