Photographer Profiles

“My dad won a Nikon FM at a company-sponsored event when I was 12, and, the moment he handed the camera over to me, it was love at first sight,” Nels Akerlund recalls. Six months later, he’d built a darkroom in his basement and that love affair with photography has not abated. It carried him through the Rochester Institute of Technology, an internship with a White House photographer in the Reagan administration, and assignments for the National Geographic Society, The New York Times, and photo shoots worldwide. He shares this passion with his wife Anna, who is also his business partner and fellow shooter. Aside from weddings, Akerlund shoots architecture, food, small products, and of course portraits in his studio and on location. He and his wife operate a spacious, two-story, 2000-square-foot studio behind their home in Rockford, Illinois.

Philippe Halsman, in his book Halsman on the Creation of Photographic Ideas, talked about an ad he’d shot, where he had to show a car making a splash as it was driving through a water-filled trough. But rather than give it the traditional treatment of the day, he sought to make a real splash with the picture, so he lit it differently. Shooting at dusk, he positioned flashbulbs so they hit the “wings,” as he called them, from each side. Like Halsman, photographers specializing in automotive are finding ways of introducing unusual and unique twists to make the shot stand out. Peter Dawson is one such automotive photographer who takes a particularly keen interest in dealing with challenges outdoors, on location.

Jeffrey Totaro (www.jeffreytotaro.com) didn’t plan on becoming an architectural photographer. After graduating Drexel University in 1991, he became an architectural engineer. In his job, he found himself working alongside architectural photographers and was soon assisting them, until finally he found the allure too great and switched careers. Now he runs his own studio near Philadelphia.

Mark Katzman has been shooting professionally for over 25 years. Originally, he studied filmmaking at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In college, and for a short while thereafter, he found he could earn money by taking pictures of baseball teams.

Mention the name Jerry Ghionis to any wedding photographer and you will immediately see respect and admiration in their eyes. Jerry shot to prominence by winning the International Wedding Album of the Year Award at Wedding Portrait Photographers International (WPPI) a record eight times and was also named by WPPI as one of the top five wedding photographers in the world. With a style that combines fashion, portraiture, and spontaneity, his work is instantly recognizable. Sought after by wedding clients from around the world, Jerry has expanded his base to become a wildly popular teacher and lecturer and now even a product developer. I even hear he does a mean karaoke but I’ve yet to witness that!

On a Sunday morning not long ago I turned on the radio and by chance heard the legendary, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist David Hume Kennerly say that his iPhone had made him a better photographer.
 

If you’ve visited Shutterbug’s galleries, you’ve likely seen Douglas Croft’s splendid work. A specialist in nature, outdoor, and travel photography, Croft’s gorgeous images have received glowing remarks from fellow Shutterbug readers.