INSTRUCTORS

DAVE AHARONIAN, "I’ve been taking photographs since I was 12 years old, but it was only after attempting a career as a civil servant that I decided to plunge into photography as a full-time career.  I attended the Western Academy of Photography in Victoria as a student in 1999-2000.  I returned there to teach the course in Architectural Photography 4 years ago.  My commercial photography is primarily architectural photography and I split most of my work  between Vancouver and Victoria." 

Dave's Fine Art Photography has centred on themes of the West Coast landscape and the nude figure in the landscape.  For many years he has been intrigued with the Platinum printing process and finally, about two years ago, he learned how to print using this unique method.  "I am now fully converted to this beautiful way of making black and white prints."  www.daveaharonian.com

DON CRAIG, originally from California, Don has lived, and sometimes worked, in Mexico, Germany, and San Francisco. He has a B.A. in History from U.C. Berkeley, but makes his living as a graphic designer and part-time photographer. During a five-year stint designing software packaging for Adobe Systems in the early 1990s, Don also taught design production using Adobe products including Photoshop. Since 2003 Don has called Victoria home where he is currently teaching Adobe Photoshop Lightroom at Lúz Gallery. www.doncraigdesign.com

QUINTON GORDON, is an award winning photographer, educator, publisher and multimedia producer. Since 1990 he has focused his photographic work on portrait, fine art, and social documentary. His images have been featured in national and international publications including Canadian Geographic, Explore, Outside, and National Geographic Adventure, as well as in projects for corporate, government, aboriginal and non-governmental clients.

Quinton holds degrees in Art History, Photographic Arts, and Arts education. From 1996 through 1999 he taught in the Photography Department at Massey University's School of Design, in Wellington, New Zealand. He is a contributing photographer to PhotoSensetive, a non-profit collective of professional Canadian photographers working to raise awareness of international social issues. Quinton is the founder and co-owner of Lúz Gallery | for the Photographic Arts. www.quintongordon.com

LAUREN HENKIN, Born in Washington, D.C. in 1974, award-winning, internationally shown photographer Lauren Henkin grew up in Maryland. In 1996, after graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in architecture from Washington University in St. Louis, she moved home to Maryland and began working as an architect. During the next 10 years, she worked as the public programs manager for the Corcoran Gallery of Art, a book designer and creative director.

Henkin is a frequent reviewer, private educator, Photolucida board member, author of two artist books ( Displaced and Silence is an Orchard ) , frequent speaker on marketing techniques for fine art photographers, and active member in the photographic community. She has served as a guest critic for Portland State University’s School of Architecture as well as Lightbox Photographic and Lúz Gallery in Canada.  In addition, she recently started PhotoRadio, a blog presenting audio interviews with curators, gallerists, artists, publishers, educators and more.  Her work is supported in part by the Regional Arts and Culture Commission, located in Portland, Oregon. www.larenhenkin.com
 

ALLAN MANDELL, is one of the most admired garden photographers on the west coast of Canada and the USA. He approaches his work with an artist’s sensibility, which for him means paying close attention to his experience in the garden and letting that feeling become the subject of his compositions. Shooting gardens in North America, Europe and Asia, his work has appeared on the covers and in the pages of leading garden publications internationally for the past seventeen years.  He is the sole photographer of six books including Artists in Their Gardens, Garden Retreats, and Naturalistic Gardening, and he is a contributing photographer to over sixty books.www.gardenphotogapher.com

“A garden is a setting for what can be an intensely personal aesthetic and even spiritual experience, in fact this is the result of a well-designed garden.  Can this be faithfully represented in an image?  This is the goal of learning to see as a garden photographer.” 

** Allan is currently traveling and will return in Summer 2012 with more workshops **
 

DAVID POLLOCK, David's interest in photography began when he was shown a well printed B&W Silver Gelatin print by a friend who was attending Ryerson's Photography program. He has studied at Concordia University, Ryerson University and the Ontario College of Art. After working for 2 years as a Custom printer at BGM colour labs, he partnered with another former BGM employee to create a well respected Custom Lab in Toronto. After 12 successful years he moved with his family to Victoria and for another decade was owner/ operator of Precise Colour Processors. He has since joined forces with Prism Imaging where he continues his dedication to quality printmaking as partner and head tech.

David also brings his experience as a Photographic Artist to fine print making. Photographic printmaking technigues are  an almost invisible component of an images statement and are an essential tool for those who want control of their medium. www.davidpollockphotography.com 

LIZ RUBINCAM is a Toronto-born artist and educator who until recently was based in New York City.  She is now happy to embrace a slower pace of life in Victoria with her husband and young son.  She is a graduate of Ryerson University’s photography program and also studied documentary and photojournalism at the International Center of Photography in New York.  Her images have been published in The New York Times, Time Magazine and Marie Claire Magazine and she is a contributing photographer to Getty Images.  In addition to photography, Liz has been an avid bookbinder and collage artist for the past ten years.

Previous Instructors

JONI KABANA, picked up her first camera at the age of eight, during which time she made her cousins dress up and re-enact things they all despised so she could document them: eating liver at family dinner, getting sent to a corner for a time-out, performing mundane chores. Joni was never without her Polaroid Swinger, and she is still as much in love with the surprise of a still image as she was back then. She especially relishes the time she spends on the street, haphazardly, yet with deliberate focus, finding subjects in various settings to photograph. Although she is an accomplished commercial and international humanitarian photographer, her favorite assignments are of the self-assigned street roaming kind. www.jonikabana.com