Seminar Series Registration is Now Open - Click Here

WORLD IN FOCUS
SCHEDULE, PROGRAM AND REGISTRATION INFORMATION

June 1 - July 20
World in Focus Photographic Print Exhibition

For 50 days, 92 winning framed images from the World in Focus 2003 Photography Contest will be publicly displayed at Seattle's Rainier Square Building (on the two lobby levels) at 1333 Fifth Avenue. The exhibition is presented courtesy of Rainier Square (Unico Properties) with free daily access from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.
 
June 6
3:30-6 p.m.
Photography Exhibition Opening Reception at Rainier Square.
6:30 p.m.
Opening Ceremony and Photography Contest Awards Presentation, Benaroya Hall.
7 p.m.
Keynote Presentation, Benaroya Hall.
 
June 7 & 8
World in Focus
Seminar Series at Seattle Center

SCHEDULE AT A GLANCE

Friday, June 6, Benaroya Hall Taper Auditorium:
 
6:30 p.m. World in Focus Opening Ceremony, Photography Contest Awards Presentation and Art Wolfe keynote presentation: "Edge of the Earth, Corner of the Sky," a multimedia presentation based on Wolfe's new book of landscape photography. (Click here for more details.)
 

Admission to the Benaroya Hall/Art Wolfe event is $20.
 

 
Saturday, June 7, Seattle Center (all seminars are in the Northwest Rooms' Snoqualmie Room, see admission rate schedule below):
 
9-11 a.m.: "Make a Difference with Your Photography," with Natalie Fobes and Phil Borges. (Click here for more details.)
 
12:30-2:30 p.m.: "WATER LIGHT TIME: A Look Beneath the World's Oceans," with David Doubilet. (Click here for more details.)
 
4-6 p.m.: "New Work from Alaska and the Arctic," with Robert Glenn Ketchum. (Click here for more details.)
 

 
Sunday, June 8, Seattle Center (all seminars are in the Northwest Rooms' Snoqualmie Room, see admission rate schedule below):
 
9-11 a.m.: Panel Discussion: "Influencing Social Change While Making a Living - The Business of Photography for Enlightenment." Moderator: Marita Holdaway. Panelists: Robert Glenn Ketchum, Jain Lemos, Ray Pfortner, Danita Delimont, Helen Cherullo and Russell Sparkman. (Click here for more details.)
 
12:30-2:30 p.m.: "Images That Speak for The Land," with Jack Dykinga. (Click here for more details.)
 
4-6 p.m.: "A Nomadic Urge: Photographs and Stories of Indigenous Cultures from Remote Corners of the World," with Nevada Wier. (Click here for more details.)
 

PROGRAM DESCRIPTIONS
 
FRIDAY, June 6, Benaroya Hall:
 
6:30 p.m.
World in Focus Opening Ceremony and Photography Contest Awards Presentation.
 
7 p.m.
World in Focus Keynote Presentation:
Art Wolfe: "Edge of the Earth, Corner of the Sky," a multimedia presentation based on Wolfe's new book, "Edge of the Earth, Corner of the Sky" (Wildlands Press, September 2003, Seattle)
 
The slide-illustrated talk, like the new book from which it is drawn, will showcase Wolfe's most stunning, ethereal and atmospheric landscape photographs. It looks at the drama and spiritual essence of landscapes on all seven continents, from Cappadocia to the Arctic, from the exotic translucent waters of the Grand Bahama Bank to the austere, haunting vastness of the Bolivian Altiplano. "Edge of the Earth, Corner of the Sky" represents the most profound expression of Art Wolfe's 25-year career and the most impressive of his 50-plus books.

The multimedia presentation includes slides, live narration and video footage accompanying Wolfe's entertaining accounts from the field, featuring anecdotes drawn from his nine-plus years of photographing for the new book.

Art Wolfe will be signing books after his presentation at Benaroya Hall on Friday, June 6. He will also sign books on Saturday, June 7, in the World in Focus Seminar Series hospitality room (the Alki Room) at Seattle Center, at scheduled times to be announced.
 

 
SATURDAY, June 7, Seattle Center:
(All seminars are in the Northwest Rooms' Snoqualmie Room.)
 
9-11 a.m.
"Make a Difference with your Photography," with Natalie Fobes and Phil Borges
 
The co-founders of Blue Earth Alliance, Natalie Fobes and Phil Borges have always been interested in educating the public about social, cultural and environmental issues through their photography. Fobes will use her "salmon project" as an example of how to organize, shoot, fund and publish a long-term documentary project. Borges will explain his approach of aligning with nongovernmental organizations and corporate partners to create and distribute his personal projects, including his most recent: "BRIDGES to Understanding," an online classroom program that connects children around the world through visual storytelling.
 
 
Fobes and Borges will be signing books immediately following this presentation in the World in Focus Seminar Series hospitality room (the Alki Room) at Seattle Center.
 
 
 
 
 
12:30-2:30 p.m.
"WATER LIGHT TIME: A Look Beneath the World's Oceans," with David Doubilet
 
Beneath the world's waters lies an alternative system of life where adaptation and survival have become an art form. This program will look at the brilliance of the coral reefs, the bizarre creatures of temperate waters, and the elegance and ferocity of great sharks. "WATER LIGHT TIME" is an extraordinary look at the work of David Doubilet, a diver, journalist and image-maker who is widely acclaimed as one of the world's leading underwater photographers.

Doubilet will be signing books immediately following this presentation in the World in Focus Seminar Series hospitality room (the Alki Room) at Seattle Center.
 
4-6 p.m.
"New Work from Alaska and the Arctic," with Robert Glenn Ketchum
 
A presentation of work from Alaska covering the Tongass rain forest, the North Slope, and Prince William Sound, and focusing on Southwest Alaska and Wood-Tikchik State Park, the subject of Robert Glenn Ketchum's most recent books. The Arctic portion of the lecture will discuss the effects of global warming and show representative landscapes from all Arctic countries in the world.

Robert Glenn Ketchum will be signing books immediately following this presentation. He will also serve as a panelist for the 9-11 a.m. program on Sunday, June 8, and will sign books immediately following that program. Both signings will take place in the World in Focus Seminar Series hospitality room (the Alki Room) at Seattle Center.
 

 
SUNDAY, June 8, Seattle Center:
(all seminars are in the Northwest Rooms' Snoqualmie Room)
 
9-11 a.m.
Panel Discussion: "Influencing Social Change While Making a Living - The Business of Photography for Enlightenment."
 
Moderator: Marita Holdaway
Panelists: Helen Cherullo, Danita Delimont, Robert Glenn Ketchum, Jain Lemos, Ray Pfortner, and Russell Sparkman.
 
This illustrious panel with diverse photographic backgrounds (a photographer, photography agents, a photography business consultant/educator, a photography book publisher and an online photography/multimedia producer) will discuss the challenges photographers face in making a living in nature, environmental and endangered cultures photography while tapping opportunities to influence policy decisions and social change with their imagery.
 
12:30-2:30 p.m.
"Images That Speak for the Land," with Jack Dykinga
 
A presentation of images from Jack's efforts to create national parks and biosphere reserves in the U.S. and Mexico.

Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Jack Dykinga blends large-format landscape art photography with documentary photojournalism. He is a regular contributor to Arizona Highways magazine. His six coffee-table books ("Frog Mountain Blues," "The Secret Forest," "The Sierra Pinacate," "The Sonoran Desert," "Stone Canyons of the Colorado Plateau," and "Desert: The Mojave and Death Valley") have all conveyed the message of wilderness preservation. His latest instructional book is "Large Format Nature Photography." He currently serves as a board member of the Sonoran National Park Project in an effort to create a new binational park on the border between Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. He and his wife, Margaret, live in Tucson.

Dykinga will be signing books immediately following this presentation in the World in Focus Seminar Series hospitality room (the Alki Room) at Seattle Center.
 
4-6 p.m.
"A Nomadic Urge: Photographs and Stories of Indigenous Cultures from Remote Corners of the World," with Nevada Wier
 
"A Nomadic Urge" is a personal talk about Wier's itinerant way of life, the creative urge of photography, and her views of cultures in collision with the modern world. She will share anecdotes from her travels, which range from the Pamir Mountains of Central Asia to Southeast Asia to the Blue Nile of Ethiopia, accompanied by images.

Wier is drawn to indigenous cultures where life is lived in the open, where little is veiled and everything seems sacred. She is in consistent search of vibrant colors, luminous light and powerful moments documented by her third eye - the camera.

She not only photographs remarkable and beautiful cultures but also documents their evolution as they collide with the modern world. She seeks to increase awareness of these distinctive cultures and of their irreplaceable part in the elaborate fabric of humanity.

"A Nomadic Urge" is also the working title of her upcoming book. Her presentation will be humorous and serious but, she hopes, ultimately stimulating.
 

WORLD IN FOCUS REGISTRATION
 
Friday evening, June 6 Opening Ceremony, Awards Presentations, and Art Wolfe keynote seminar at Benaroya Hall is a separate admission charge from the Saturday and Sunday programs listed below:
 

 Benaroya/Art Wolfe event:

 $20 admission
 
 
Saturday and Sunday, June 7-8 Seminar Series at Seattle Center:
 
All World in Focus Seminar Series programs run consecutively without overlap and have a 90-minute break between them to allow attendees to see all programs.
 
Admission for the Saturday and Sunday World in Focus Seminar Series includes admission to all activities (see below) in the hospitality room (the Northwest Rooms' Alki Room) and is as follows:
 

Any one program:

$50

--

 Any two programs:

$50 each

$100 total

 Any three programs:

$45 each

$135 total

 Any four programs:

$45 each

$180 total

 Any five programs:

$45 each

$225 total

 All six programs:

$40 each

$240 total
 
 
Seminar capacity is limited, and applicants will be processed on a "first-come, first-served" basis, so it is recommended that attendees register early to avoid being turned away from any desired program.
 
Online registration is quick, easy and safe, so we prefer that registrants apply online.
 
 
For those without Internet access, or if you have any other questions or needs, please call 206-292-9198, ext. 16.
 

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
 
Phil Borges
 
Phil Borges' personal projects have been the subject of more than 80 museum and gallery solo exhibits worldwide, and his award winning books have been widely distributed and published in four languages. Borges will explain how he went about building alliances with non-governmental organizations, like Amnesty International, the Tibetan Rights Campaign and Interplast (a health care NGO), and how these partnerships helped him create and distribute the exhibits and books associated with each organization.
 
Borges' riveting portraits are included in numerous museum and private collections. His books include "Tibetan Portrait: The Power of Compassion," now in its fifth printing, "Enduring Spirit" and "The Gift," which documents the work of Interplast, an organization that provides free reconstructive surgery for children in developing countries. Borges also was the second-honored PhotoMedia Photography Person of the Year for 1997.
 

 
Helen Cherullo
 
Publisher of The Mountaineers Books in Seattle, Helen Cherullo has been involved in publishing more than 500 of the titles produced during her 10-year tenure. Those titles have included books with a natural history and advocacy perspective by many highly regarded nature photographers such as Art Wolfe, Brad Washburn, Pat O'Hara and, most recently, Subhankar Banerjee. The Mountaineers also works with freelance photographers around the world to produce guidebooks, outdoor activity instructional guides, biographies, histories and calendars. Before becoming a publisher, her career focused on graphic production and printing management.

Cherullo is also vice president of the board of directors for the Publishers Association of the West, a community of book publishers and manufacturers. Born in Chicago and raised next to a forest preserve in the city's suburbs, she has had a lifetime passion for nature study and preserving wild places.
 

 
Danita Delimont
 
Danita Delimont is a niche photo stock agency owner based in the Seattle area, representing some of the finest travel and nature photographers in the world. In recent years, she and her staff have concentrated on developing electronic solutions for client needs. Before owning her own agency, Delimont worked exclusively for many years with renowned nature photographer Wolfgang Kaehler.

As the national president for the American Society of Picture Professionals (ASPP) from 2000 to 2001, she traveled throughout the country networking on industry concerns. As a member of ASPP, NANPA and PACA (Picture Agency Council of America), she possesses a rounded perspective and an acute knowledge of the issues facing photography professionals.
 

 
David Doubilet
 
Born in New York City in 1946, David Doubilet began snorkeling off the coast of New Jersey at the age of eight. When he was 12, he took up scuba diving and photography, using a Brownie Hawkeye in a rubber bag as his first underwater camera.

Today Doubilet is one of the world's leading underwater photographers. He has shot over 60 stories for National Geographic and has won honors including the Lennart Nilsson Award in 2001 and the Explorers Club Lowell Thomas Award. He is an honorary fellow of the Royal Photographic Society of London and was named a Contributing Photographer-in-Residence of the National Geographic Society in 2001.
 

 
Jack Dykinga
 
The work of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Jack Dykinga reflects the merging of photojournalism and large-format photography to produce the finest landscape photography available.

Dykinga's fine-art images are currently featured, along with the work of Ansel Adams and David Muench, in a traveling Arizona Highways magazine retrospective shown at the Phoenix Art Museum, the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, and the Museum of Northern Arizona.

Dykinga is a recipient of awards from the Art Directors Club of New York and Communication Arts. He has had cover stories in Outdoor Photographer, Popular Photography, View Camera and PhotoMedia. He has also been featured on NBC's "Today" show and CNN's "Earth Matters."
His photos have appeared in numerous publications, including Arizona Highways, Audubon, Harper's, National Geographic, National History, National Parks, Nature's Best, Outside, Sierra Club, Sunset, and Wilderness Society.
 

 
Natalie Fobes
 
Natalie Fobes was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1987 and is the recipient of PhotoMedia's Photography Person of the Year award for 2002, NANPA's Fellow award for 2003 and Blue Earth's "Natalie" award for 2003. She has won more than 200 other awards and grants, and her work is in many corporate, public and private collections. She has worked for a "who's who" of magazines including National Geographic, Geo, Audubon, Smithsonian and Travel Holiday. Fobes has had three books of her photography published, and her traveling museum exhibit on salmon has been seen by more than a half-million people.

Concerned that the number of magazines willing to commission documentary projects was declining, in 1996 Fobes co-founded Blue Earth Alliance, a nonprofit foundation dedicated to helping photographers pursue stories about endangered environments and threatened cultures.
 

 
Marita Holdaway
 
Marita Holdaway is the owner and curator of Benham Gallery in downtown Seattle. Inspired by the writings of Ansel Adams, Holdaway took it upon herself to find, promote and display fine-art photography in the Northwest. Her gallery's mission, to support emerging and mid-career artists, has made Benham the premier venue for viewing the rising stars in fine-art photography. The gallery staff reviews well over 1,000 portfolios annually and, with three separate exhibition rooms, curates about 30 shows a year.

Holdaway is a board member of Blue Earth Alliance, an advisory board member of the Seattle Art Museum's Photo Council, and a former board member of the Photographic Center Northwest, Youth in Focus, the Seattle Women's Commission, the Women's Business Exchange and the International Women's Conference. She is also a winner of the 1999 (Seattle) Mayor's Small Business Award.

In 1998 Holdaway was the third-honored PhotoMedia Photography Person of the Year, in recognition of her tireless support of photographers and the photography industry of the entire West Coast.
 

 
Robert Glenn Ketchum
 
In its centennial edition, Audubon magazine recognized 100 champions of conservation "who shaped the environmental movement in the 20th century." Included with such luminaries as John Muir, Rachel Carson and David Brower was photographer Robert Glenn Ketchum. In the past two years he has been the recipient of the Robert O. Easton Award for Environmental Stewardship and the Josephine and Frank Duveneck Humanitarian Award. He has also been named NANPA's 2001 Outstanding Photographer of the Year and was named the PhotoMedia Photography Person of the Year for 2000.

This January in New York, Ketchum was given the Lifetime Achievement Award in Photography and Conservation by the Aperture Foundation during a gala celebration of its 50th anniversary. This spring, Aperture will release Ketchum's newest book (his tenth), "Wood-Tikchik: Alaska's Largest State Park." Paired with the previously published "Rivers of Life: Southwest Alaska, The Last Great Salmon Fishery," the two books will be slipcased together in special editions, some containing original prints, to be used for conservation fundraising.

These diverse acknowledgments reflect Ketchum's unique 30-year career dedicated not only to fine printmaking and book publishing but also to the issues of natural resource management and habitat protection on which his work is focused. The combination of his powerful imagery and his personal activism has placed him at the forefront of American artists expressing their concern for the environment.

His work is represented in most of the major museum collections in the United States, and since 1968 he has had more than 500 one-man and group shows worldwide. In 1979 he was one of 12 photographers invited to participate in the first photography exhibition ever held in the White House and in June 1992 he was given a one-man exhibition at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro, representing American art at the UNCED/ "Earth Summit" conference.
 

 
Jain Lemos
 
Widely recognized in the industry as an accomplished picture professional, Jain Lemos has more than 15 years of photography editing and publishing experience. She has worked as a senior producer, editor, writer and photography-book packager for prominent publishers including HarperCollins, Chronicle Books and Pearson PLC. She is currently the U.S. marketing director for Lonely Planet Images, a stock agency specializing in travel photography.
 

 
Ray Pfortner
 
Ray Pfortner is unusual in the world of photography in having been a consultant, a partner in a stock photography agency, a photographer's representative, a photo editor, a book editor and an educator as well as a stock photographer. In his more than 30 years in photography, he has had the opportunity to work on more than 25 photography books and to work closely with such photographers as Jim Brandenburg, Frans Lanting, Galen Rowell and Art Wolfe. His own photography concentrates on environmental issues and is frequently used in campaigns to conserve sensitive lands, wildlife habitat, rural areas and historic sites. He now works as a consultant to photographers and stock agencies on marketing to magazines, book publishers and business practices. He frequently teaches and writes articles on the same topics. His primary interest is in coaching new talent.
 

 
Russell Sparkman
 
Russell Sparkman is the founder and CEO of FusionSpark Media. The company is responsible for developing www.oneworldjourneys.com, a web site presenting exciting and educational photodocumentary expeditions that connect online viewers to unique wilderness areas around the world.

Those stories have been inspired in part by talented nature and wilderness photographers whose extraordinary images, along with their commitment to conservation, have moved others to protect special wilderness areas and threatened species.

Sparkman began his career as a staff photographer at Northeastern University in Boston, where he also received a bachelor's degree in political science. He later served as an instructor at the Kodak Center for Creative Imaging in Camden, Maine, before moving to Nagoya, Japan, where he became a sought-after consultant, author and speaker on digital-imaging trends and technology. He is the co-author of "Essentials of Digital Photography" and is a founding member of the Multimedia Consortium of Central Japan. He also serves on the board of directors of Blue Earth Alliance.
 

 
Nevada Wier
 
Nevada Wier is an award-winning photographer specializing in the remote corners of the globe and the cultures that inhabit them. She is a Fellow of the Explorers Club, a member of the Society of Woman Geographers, and a photographer with Getty and Corbis. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including NG Adventure, Geo, Islands, National Geographic, Outdoor Photographer, PhotoMedia, and Outside. Her books include "The Land of Nine Dragons: Vietnam Today" (winner of the Lowell Thomas Best Travel Book of 1992 award) and "Adventure Travel Photography." She has been featured on National Geographic Explorer, Canon Photo Safaris (OLN) and the Travel Channel.

She teaches photography workshops for the Santa Fe Workshops, the Rocky Mountain School of Photography, and other educational institutions. She leads custom photography tours with Mountain Travel*Sobek.

Wier has guided the gamut of outdoor programs in the mountains, deserts and rivers of the world. She worked as a course director/instructor for Outward Bound for 20 years, and has been a boatman for AZRA on the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River and a professional ski patroller in New Hampshire. She has traveled and trekked extensively on expeditions and private explorations in search of unusual places and photographs.
 

 
Art Wolfe
 
Over the course of his 25-year career, Art Wolfe has worked on every continent and in hundreds of locations. His stunning images interpret and record the world's fast-disappearing wildlife, landscapes and native cultures, and are a lasting inspiration to those who seek to preserve them all. Wolfe's photographs are recognized throughout the world for their mastery of color, composition and perspective.

Wolfe's photographic mission is multifaceted. His vision and passionate wildlife advocacy affirm his dedication to his work. By employing artistic and journalistic styles, he documents his subjects and educates the viewer. His unique approach to nature photography is based on his training in the arts and his love of the environment.

Hailed by William Conway, president of the Wildlife Conservation Society, as "the most prolific and sensitive recorder of a rapidly vanishing natural world," Wolfe has taken an estimated one million images in his lifetime and has released more than 50 books.

In April 2000, Wolfe was awarded a coveted Alfred Eisenstaedt Magazine Photography Award. In 1998, he was named Outstanding Nature Photographer of the Year by the North American Nature Photography Association (NANPA). Also in 1998, the National Audubon Society recognized Wolfe's work in support of the national wildlife refuge system with its first-ever Rachel Carson Award. And in 1996, Wolfe was the first-honored PhotoMedia Photography Person of the Year.