Evan Prince

Evan Prince attended our Summer Intensive program in 2007 with the dream of making his way in the world of photography both professionally and creatively speaking. Since graduation, he has been doggedly and determinedly doing just that.

Afterward, he headed back home to Austin, TX and spent roughly three years working as a photo assistant/digital tech for several different photographers in the area as well as photographers from all over the country who were shooting in Texas. Working on shoots for magazines like ESPN, Texas Monthly, Fast Company as well as on ad campaigns for clients like Dell and Southwest Airlines gave him a great opportunity to learn about the business and inner workings of the photo industry. He then spent a year and a half working as an assistant in the Dell photo studio in Austin which gave him the opportunity to spend 5 days a week on set where he gained experience working with view cameras and digital workflow which piqued his interest in retouching.  At every step of the way he’s been very eager to learn everything he could about the photography world as he was constantly shooting, assisting and experimenting in Photoshop. Evan took the opportunity to soak up any and all photo knowledge he could get his hands on during this time period.

After the Dell studio work, he decided it was time to get out there and begin cultivating his own clients and photo projects. The realization came to him that one of the best ways to market his work and skill was through personal projects. Since then, he’s been very active shooting and pitching story ideas which ultimately has helped him to develop a unique style and workflow.

At some point he acquired an interest in photographing smaller pockets of American culture some may not consider mainstream, and to that end, he’s had opportunity to work with ballerinas, burlesque dancers, female bodybuilders, Star Wars costume clubs, and live-action role players to name a few. The latest of those projects was shot at a Star Wars convention in Orlando and ran as a story on NPR’s photo blog, The Picture Show.

He’s also been developing his own approach to photographing landscapes and has landed jobs this year working in both Chile, Denmark and covering many parts of the US.  At this point, he considers himself in the beginning stages of his career having just completed an initial trip to New York to formally present his portfolio to national magazines. However, as his background can attest to, he is enjoying the ride and has already seen and experienced amazing things through his love of photography. Due to his single-minded dedication to his creative endeavors and craft, the future can only lead to more fulfilling work and experiences. With his particular passion and vision, Evan is a great example of someone who is creating the future for himself.

To see more of Evan Prince’s work, visit his website at www.evanprincephoto.com. Also, visit his blog and Facebook page.

With determination as her key, after graduating last October she’s been extremely busy opening the doors to her future by building her portraiture business, developing her style and truly loving what she’s doing for a living in her hometown of Butte. During the last few weeks of school, she describes going into “melt down mode” thinking that no one would ever hire her as photographer, but reality has proven to be the total opposite! First and foremost, she was able to obtain a studio space that encompasses her photo business, an art gallery and her mother’s retail space that specializes in locally made and U.S. made products.  Her focus was in the portrait and wedding business, and the growth in these areas have become her bread and butter financially. The initial success of this side of her business has allowed Kinsey to focus on personal projects involving fashion and boudoir, both of which she loves very much.

These particular outlets have brought her to realize that helping women of all types with their self-image has become one of the most rewarding and unexpected outcomes. She works with “real” women, some of whom may have not felt at all good about their bodies, and has discovered a personal love for creating a safe and inviting space for them to reconnect with themselves during the sessions. Afterward, they often express how much better they feel about themselves when they see the images they have created there. As she puts it, “It’s a genuine realization of how truly amazing and beautiful they really are!” It’s not surprising to us that Kinsey has the ability to capture the beauty in people with her camera. Evident to anyone who has met her, the very light that she sees shining within her subjects burns brightly within her as well.

In addition, she was commissioned by a local hotel to do a display of local images that were hung in the lobby, dining area, and the main hallway. The purpose was to encourage guests to explore Butte and its history instead of just passing through.

The trials and tribulations of opening a new business has forced her to reevaluate it every couple of months and decide what is working and what isn’t. Through this process, she’s determined her goal is to operate a business that’s mutually beneficial for both her an her clients. By trying to give individual attention to everyone she works with and to get to know them, she’s tailoring her services to meet their needs. In this, she’s realizing it’s all about the experience she provides that impresses them, from the time they contact her for services to the time they receive their services, images, and products. This personal attention and focus on the experience has created a strong word-of-mouth market for her business. She doesn’t want just “customers,” she wants fans of her work.

With her business still growing, she feels she still has a long way to go to remain viable.  In her words; “RMSP gave me an amazing foundation for what I need to make a successful business, but my education continues. I still do workshops, read articles and shoot all the time, even when I am not being paid. It is very important to me to continually grow my skill set and stay current in an ever-changing market. I cannot wait to see where I am in a year. The last eight months since leaving RMSP have been amazing and rewarding, and I feel like I have grown so much as a person and as a photographer!” See what what we mean by determination?!

To view more of Kinsey’s work, visit her website at www.KinseyRoyPhotography.com.

See more of his stunning work on his website www.ethanrohloff.com or www.ethanrohloffaerial.com.

A Missoula resident and world-traveler, she came to RMSP after leaving a 20 year career as an advertising and marketing executive. Pam likes to say she “jumped off the corporate ladder” in a moment of lucid clarity. She had looked at the world through a viewfinder for as long as she could remember and wanted to finally turn a passion for photography into a career. From the very start, she focused her photography business on working with commercial and editorial clients. Her experience in the world of major advertising agencies in Chicago and San Francisco proved to be invaluable when negotiating with clients and being able to understand and deliver what they need in terms of images that entice, delight and communicate ideas.

Pam specializes in making images of animals, food and travel and our relationship to them.

Her client list includes: New York Times, Whole Foods, Le Monde (Paris), Black Star Beer, USA Today, Fast Forward Weekly (Calgary), West Paw Design, National Geographic Channel, Montana Magazine, College Board Review, AAA Living Magazine and Missoula’s own Good Food Store.

In her own words:”The light makes my heart race. It’s is the reason I photograph. I have a favorite quote that I learned in SI and it always plays in my mind when I’m photographing. Sadly, I can’t remember who it is attributed to, but the gist of it is that the strongest images take the fewest words to describe. I strive to make images that are about one thing. Not one thousand things.”

In 2006, Pam and her husband, Rob Whitehair, founded Tree & Sky Media Arts, a documentary filmmaking and commercial photography company. Pam handles all the photography projects and she produces and shoots for film projects. Pam finds that the principals of lighting and composition she learned in SI translate to her work with HD cinematography.

In 2008, their company produced and distributed the award-winning feature documentary film, “The Little Red Truck” to theaters in 50 major cities across the US.

“True Wolf,” the latest documentary feature film from Tree & Sky Media Arts, has been picked up by a national distributor and will world premiere on May 31 and June 1 at the Seattle International Film Festival, then open at the Seattle Landmark Varsity Theater on June 22, 2012 and roll out across the country from there. View the trailer and read more about this film directed by Rob and produced by Pam on the official website: www.truewolfmovie.com

Recent Career Highlights and Favorite Moments:

• She spent 6 weeks photographing in India last year (2011). Half her time was spent teaching a private photography workshop and shooting for a non-profit organization in the Himalayas. The other half was spent on a solo personal journey to photograph the wildlife of India including tigers, monkeys, jackals and birds.
• Popular Photography invited her to join their team of portfolio review experts (2012)
• Her photos of Working Dogs for Conservation were published in a children’s book about dog heroes. (2011)
• She’s also taught several week-long horse-back photography workshops on a beautiful property at the edge of the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Western Montana through her association with a local ranch and women’s equestrian club.

In September of 2011, she re-connected with her all-time favorite teacher from 7th grade whom she had not been in contact with him in over 30 years and finally was able to send him a long over-due thank you for being the first person to introduce her to black and white darkroom photography. She wanted him to know that photography had become one of her favorite things in life.  At age 70, he had just purchased his first digital camera after shooting medium format film his entire life. In a case of student turned teacher, they spent 2 days in Yellowstone National Park where she was able to teach him step by step how to use his new Nikon D7000 by relating each menu item and dial to the world of film which they both knew well. By the end of their time together, he was beginning to see the camera as an increasingly familiar tool for visual expression and less as a digital monster set on this planet to baffle and frustrate. That she was able to translate the fundamentals of photography she learned in SI into such a meaningful exchange with her long-ago teacher turned student is perhaps the best gift she ever received from RMSP.

With such a distinguished and diverse career and life experience, Pam has succeeded in learning to utilize her past education and professional skills toward her passion for photography. We call that a winning combo!

To see more of Pam’s work, take a look at some of her recent images in the gallery below and visit her website at www.pamvoth.net.

In addition to taking photographs, she’s also been very involved in teaching beginning photography classes. Teaching has become a passion of hers and she loves helping new photographers learn the art and science behind photography. Her desire is for her students to know how to get a perfectly exposed picture right out of their camera without relying on digital post processing.

With her second child due this summer, Tonya is very excited to delve into food photography again, since she believes she’ll be around her home and kitchen a great deal in the coming months! She’s booked to shoot some wonderful weddings in 2012 and 2013 that she’s stoked about as well. I’d say she’s in for a very busy spring and summer for sure!

Another transition she’s in the process of making is switching from digital photography back to her original love of film. She misses shooting with it and feels that it’s an art form that has been dying as of late. Apparently she doesn’t like the thought of her own children not knowing what film is. Her love of the darkroom process and developing her own prints has never escaped her. She envisions the day when she can introduce her daughters to this process and see their eyes light up in amazement when a print materialize in front of them in the dark. Her overall goal is to help bring back the art of film as it has existed throughout most of the history of photography. A mighty lofty and worthwhile goal, indeed!

In her own words, “I am so grateful for my experiences at RMSP and everything I learned. I wouldn’t be the photographer I am today with out the expert instruction I received during my summer in Missoula. I am also grateful for the opportunity I have to pay it forward and help new photographers.” 

Since we cherish similar opportunities to pay it forward, she couldn’t pay us a higher compliment. We’re supremely proud to say Tonya is alumnus of our Summer Intensive course and that her dreams are being realized with a thriving career in photography. If she achieves her goals, we may be forced to dig out those enlargers and chemicals again to show the next generation how it’s done. Now, that’s something that makes us smile!

To see more of Tonya’s work, please visit her website and blog at http://www.tonyapeterson.com/blog/ or her Facebook page.

Well today on the blog, we are happy to give some credit to our good friend and RMSP graduate, Doug Ness.  Doug came to RMSP in 2009 after deciding to shift gears from a career as a bonds salesman to dive into the world of fine art photography. As you might remember from Doug’s Alumni Friday spotlight here on Paper Airplanes, his accomplishments were starting to rack up. Recently, we received an email from Doug announcing another pretty cool accomplishment. Doug has been featured in LENSCRATCH, an online blogzine created by Aline Smithson. I encourage you to give it a look, and while you’re at it, check out Doug’s website to see more of his work.

Way to go Doug!

LENSCRATCH website page

A 2011 graduate of our Career Training program, her drive and determination is beginning to make her a force to be reckoned with. What prompts me to say this, you may ask? Well, I’ll let her actions speak for themselves. Here’s a brief run-down of what she’s been up to since last November:

• For her client, Sports Photo, Inc. she shot the Houston Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day and Galveston Marathon in February.

• She shot two weddings including one on New Year’s Eve at the Four Seasons in downtown Houston – wedding was at the stroke of midnight. The other wedding was in San Antonio, TX.

• Shot family portraits at the Bayou Gardens in Houston.

•  Took product photos for Brown Paper Chocolates.

• Took photos for Recipes for Success, a foundation that was launched in 2005 by Gracie & Bob Cavnar to lead the way in hands-on nutrition education aimed at preventing childhood obesity and encouraging long term health. In just a few years, it has grown to the largest outreach of its kind in the nation, empowering over 4,000 children each and every month with its signature Seed-to-Plate Nutrition Education™ and other initiatives to change the way they understand, appreciate and eat their food.

•  Worked for lastnightpics.com at the “I love BMW 3 Series” unveiling party and her images were was just published in the current issue of 002Houston Magazine. Not surprisingly, she has signed on to be a staff photographer with lastnightspics.com.

• Her photo of the Esperson Building appeared in the January edition of 002Houston Magazine. This is particularly awesome because she used to work in the Esperson building just before coming to RMSP for SI last year!

• Will soon be taking headshots for the Montrose Counseling Center in Houston which provides services to the gay, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual community. MCC empowers their community, primarily gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals and their families, to enjoy healthier and more fulfilling lives by providing culturally affirming and affordable behavioral health and prevention services.

• Took headshots for local restauranteur who was nominated for a “hottest chef contest” on Eater.com/Houston.

• She also has shot two children’s birthday parties.

Phew! How’s that for getting out there and getting it done…all within the past four months! Originally a native of New York, all of this work has come to her by word-of-mouth in her hometown area of Houston, Texas. This is no easy feat in a major metropolis with lots of competition. And by the way, the Recipes for Success and Montrose Counseling Center work she is doing pro bono as a gift to these foundations simply because she believes in their mission & goals. Bravo, Karen!

She’s a natural born passionate photographer having started in the film era with a Kodak Instamatic in her adolesence and later progressing to SLRs. Not one to sit still – as you can imagine – she’s been a life-long wander-luster, having traveled the world with her camera and living for several years in the great Downunder of Australia. While there, she continued her art history studies at the University of Brisbane and completed her degree upon returning to the U.S. The calling of professional photography wouldn’t let her go, and after attending our Photo Weekend event in Houston in January of 2011, she made the life-changing decision to attend the Career Training program later in the year. Karen’s vision of photography is that of a treasure hunt that allows her to find the hidden gems in her environment over and over again wherever that environment may be.  Flora, fauna, people going about their daily lives, graveyards and junkyards are all her hunting grounds allowing the beauty of the world to reveal itself to her.

We’ll see where her path leads in a couple of years when we check back in with her. Karen is just starting out in the field and is creating a wonderful new career for herself. That’s inspiration all of us can use!

To see more of Karen’s work, check out her website at www.kazzaphoto.com and her business Facebook page. Also, some of her latest fine art work can be seen in the gallery below.

Fast forward to today. Martha’s adapted her style to the digital age and has been developing her own photography portraiture business in the Seattle area. Her focus is specializing in maternity and newborns, which dovetails nicely into also photographing older tikes. She has a wonderful way with people which truly shines through in her images. In the past year she’s been concentrating on her business model and has developed a new, more cohesive business strategy. Rather than have the families come to her, she now works with her clients in their own homes when the infants are less than a week old. Along with showing the clients the final work in her home office on a big screen television using ProSelect software,  she’s redesigned her whole process, which has positively changed the way she sells her work.

When it comes to her valuable customers, this is what she has to say to them on her website:

“Do any of these statements sound like you?:  ‘I’m  worried about looking good in my maternity portraits because I’m not exactly feeling like a hot mama right now. I care about the people who will be handling my newborn baby and his or her safety and comfort is important to me. I want our family portraits to focus on our relationships and our personalities. I know my two year old won’t sit still for posed pictures though! I want to end up with a few amazing images that I absolutely love and cherish, not 100 that are so-so. This is a big investment so I want to make our time, energy, and money count. It has to be right!’”

She is obviously aware of her clients ideas, concerns and expectations when it comes to their precious families, and has adapted a business strategy that caters to them. This is appearing to be a strategy for success!

Shortly after leaving RMSP for home, she began a personal project of shooting at least one creative image per day, having only missed just a few days per month. Over the five years, she’s amassed more than 1700 images! She manages to keep her personal work a priority in spite of the daily in’s and out’s of growing a business. Throw in being an avid runner and training most weekends for her second marathon, Martha is close to the top of her game…in art, business and life!

To see more of Martha’s work, please visit her website and blog. Also, she is currently having a “Best of 2011″ contest on her Facebook page.

Before RMSP, she attended college at Colorado State University and majored in interior design. After earning her degree, she worked in corporate interior design before building up the courage to take a risk on photography school. Realizing that a photography career involves a certain amount of risk, by the time she was halfway through SI, she discovered about herself that she probably wouldn’t go back to design as a career.  Not an easy decision, and even though design remains an important part of who she is, she determined that her true desire was to grow a business of her own in photography.  The rat race of corporate life didn’t work for her anymore and she realized she could only be happy serving people on a more personal level.

As a result, she’s been having a go at running her own portrait and wedding photography business in the Seattle area, her hometown. Directly after returning home after SI, she dubbed her fledgling business Love Song Photo (named after her favorite hobby growing up - making mixed tapes!) and has been slowly building her business since.  Aside from photography, she’s also working in retail for the first time in her life which is not an unwise decision for any photographer just beginning their own enterprise; doing the things one must do to get it off the ground while developing a client base. Her love of people and utilizing associated skills are serving her well in her own business. Although her current working life is a means to an end, as she puts it, “Ah, the glamorous life of a professional photographer!”

Heading into her second year of business, she sees now that it will realistically take another year or so before realizing her goal of becoming a full time photographer, but that doesn’t stop her from working extraordinarily hard.  A business doesn’t grow overnight and involves daily attention. Whether it’s building a website, continuous and effective marketing, updating a blog or networking, it’s all constant work. This doesn’t discourage Krista in the least and seems to suit her just fine as a labor she loves.  Her ultimate goal is to build a business that not only creates interesting imagery and tells people’s stories, but also one that is good to its clients.  Her clients are important to her and wants them to feel at-ease in front of the camera and truly enjoy the experience of being photographed. With the type of determination and sense of purpose Krista brings to the table, this business model will no doubt lead to a fulfilling career, one that she has been seeking.

In 2012, aside from shooting weddings, she’s looking forward to expanding her travel photography portfolio, photographing married couples, and exhibiting some of her personal work at local coffee shops or galleries. The gallery included in this post will give a you good idea of her sensibility and talent as an artist and storyteller with a camera.

A concluding remark from her sums it up best: “The RMSP Summer Intensive experience is funny; it takes you out of your comfort zone  and makes you re-evaluate your life. Once you rise to the challenges that the SI program presents you with, you start to feel more confident and more adventurous in general.  At least, that’s how I felt.  The greater the risk, the greater the reward, right?!”

Well, Krista, we couldn’t agree with you more! We congratulate you on your focus and desire to pursue a meaningful career.

To see more of her work, please visit her website at www.lovesongphoto.com and blog.

So with an MBA, a degree in graphic design, and rock solid photography skills, it seemed a new career in the advertising, marketing arena was a good fit. This year she opened a commercial studio in Carlsbad, CA specializing in still life product photography. She currently works primarily with marketing and branding companies helping fulfill their photographic needs, and will spend the upcoming year focusing on working more with advertising agencies.

As far as upcoming projects, she’ll be working with fellow RMSP classmates, Fatima Donaldson and Brenda Lindstrom on a large installation at LangeTwins Winery in Lodi, CA. This will be a three day Fine Art Show in February 2012.

And as if that wasn’t enough, she has a couple of personal projects in the works which she is passionate about as well. Earlier in 2011, she made an adventurous trip to Africa, which served to rekindle her long-lost travel bug. Even though her previous career was in the travel industry, she describes her Africa trip as being an “eye opener.” She is currently working on sharing her images from this trip in a multitude of ways. Another project Serena is working on with her photographer friends is creating a ‘My Photography Business’ E-book series. They are hoping to complete the series by the end of 2012. Very impressive!

When it comes to success stories, Serena’s couldn’t be more inspiring. To take the leap from an established career in order to pursue her many passions takes a certain amount of boldness and heart. Just the type of person we love to have join us at RMSP! We love helping people find their path in life and business as photographers.  Congratulations Serena! We hope your photographic journey continues for many years to come.

To see more of Serena’s work and learn about what she’s been up to, please visit her website, blog and Facebook page.