Billy Calzada
Billy Calzada bridges still photography with multimedia as a print/web/video/photojournalist at the San Antonio Express-News. He also serves as a guest lecturer at high school, college and university classes and events, and volunteers in the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) Mentorship program.
Calzada has a passion for understanding how to survive in today’s journalism environment, and the impact of journalist’s work on the lives of their subjects. Calzada comes from a family of journalists, including his two brothers, Victor and Robert, as well as his wife, Alicia.
Referencing C.S. Lewis’ The Shadowlands, Calzada says, “As a photojournalist, I seek to experience the joys and the pain of those in my own ‘Shadowlands;’ to live and think and laugh every day.”
Bob Carey
Bob Carey's passion for photography began in high school and has spanned over four decades. His love for capturing moments in time lead him to a career in photojournalism, and for the past 12 years, he has dedicated himself to developing photographers.
As chair of the Department of Communication Studies at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, N.C., Carey shares his passion with students. He also serves as President of the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) and serves on the board of directors of Christians in Photojournalism.
Bill Fortney
Bill Fortney’s employment experience spans from high school football coach to public relations, but his work in photography earned him national recognitions. Currently Nikon Professional Services tech rep and Nikon’s liaison for the Nature Market, Fortney has produced two Runaway Best Sellers, America From 500 Feet and The Nature of America, and has just released America From 500 Feet II.
Bill founded Great American Photography Weekends with his wife, Sherelene, running more than 250 field events in every major national park as well as in Africa and the Galapagos Islands.
Stanley Leary
Stanley Leary converted his hobby of people watching and his compassion for people into a career. Leary honed his skills at local papers, colleges and the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Stanley is a prominent freelance photographer based in Atlanta, GA. He currently serves as Visual Consultant for Chick-fil-A. Stan is represented by the Black Star agency.
Stanley loves to share his expertise and teaches widely. He has taught photography and the business of photography at such diverse places as University of The Nations in Hawaii, Reinhardt College, Waleska, GA, Berry College in Georgia, Portfolio Center in Atlanta and at Dallas Baptist University. He has been a guest lecturer at World Journalism Institute and the Southwestern Photojournalist Conference in Fort Worth, Art Institute of Atlanta, the Atlanta Chapter of the ASMP and the Southeastern Photographic Society.
Leary’s work has appeared in Newsweek, Business Week, Sports Illustrated, Wired, Chicago Tribune, NY Times, World Book Encyclopedia, Information Week, Popular Mechanics, Technology Review, Atlanta Journal and Constitution, and many other publications.
Stanley is married to Dorie Griggs and they have three children.
Matt Miller
Whether skydiving at 12,000 feet or scuba diving at 100 feet below sea
level, Matt Miller will have a camera in his hand. Matt’s photography has
carried him to over 40 countries around the world, where he’s covered major sporting events, natural disasters, and unreached people groups. Blending formal training, personal experience, and a love of Christ, Miller teaches visual-storytellers to treat each assignment as an opportunity to invest in the people you meet.
Serving as Director of Photography/Videography for Southwestern Baptist
Theological Seminary and Southwestern News, Miller leads a team that blends still photography with multimedia. Matt views images as invaluable storytelling tools for advancing the Gospel. Miller’s work has appeared in countless magazines and newspapers worldwide, and his freelance clients range from local brides to major multinational corporations.
Scott Strazzante
Scott Strazzante, 44, was born and raised in the shadows of the steel mills on the far southeast corner of Chicago. The son of a tire dealer, Strazzante first became interested in photography when he started taking his dad’s Canon AE-1 to Chicago White Sox games.
After college, Strazzante began what has now been a 22-year career at Chicago-area newspapers, including The Daily Calumet, the Daily Southtown, and the Joliet Herald-News. In 2000, he was named National Newspaper Photographer of the Year by the National Press Photographers Association and the Missouri School of Journalism.
In 2001, Strazzante started work at the Chicago Tribune where he spends his time as a general assignment photographer.
Strazzante, a 6-time Illinois Photographer of the Year, has covered the Super Bowl, the World Series and the last three Olympic Games, but he is more proud of his photo columns- Heart and Soul and The Season- which chronicled the everyday triumphs and struggles of the high school athlete.
Strazzante was recently named Northern Illinois University’s Journalist of the Year, only the 2nd time in 37 years that the award has been bestowed on a photojournalist.
Strazzante was also part of the Chicago Tribune team that won a Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting for a series about faulty government regulation of dangerously defective toys, cribs and car seats.
In 2008, MediaStorm published Common Ground, a multimedia piece on Strazzante’s personal project on the transformation of a piece of land in suburban Chicago from rural to suburban. The 14-year-long project has also been published in the Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine, Mother Jones and National Geographic.
Strazzante lives in Yorkville, Illinois with his wife Anna and their 4 children.
Ashlie White
While working on her Bachelor of Art degree from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina, Ashlie White’s innovation and diplomacy secured funding for university students to travel to journalism workshops and seminars throughout the United States. After college, she traveled abroad to Ecuador and Spain before returning to the states and becoming a staff photographer at The Chattanooga Times Free Press.
White is currently the Director of Project Development for Adaptive Technologies in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her work has been honored by the College Photographer of the Year contest, East Tennessee Golden Press Card Contest and the Pictures of the Year International contest.
