Steven Cohen

Peter Bennett

Born and raised in New York City, Peter picked up his first camera and took his first darkroom class at the age of twelve.

Peter spent many years working as a travel photographer, and in 2000 started his own photo agency, Ambient Images. In 2015 he formed Citizen of the Planet, LLC, devoted exclusively to the distribution of his stories and photographs that focus on a variety of environmental subjects.

Peter’s editorial work has appeared in many publications including the New York Times, Time, Newsweek, National Geographic, Sunset Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine, and New York Magazine. His prints hang in the California State Capitol, California Science Center’s permanent Ecosystem exhibit, and many other museums, private institutions, and collector’s homes. He has also worked with a numerous local environmental organizations over the years including FoLAR (Friends of the LA River), The Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Heal the Bay, 5 Gyres Institute, Algalita Marine Research Foundation, Communities for a Better Environment, and the LA Conservation Corps.

Peter has been an instructor for over fifteen years at the Los Angeles Center of Photography, and for years led their Los Angeles River Photo Adventure tour.

Bob Beresh

Los Angeles is where cinematographer and commercial photographer Bob Beresh will always call home, but having relocated to Barbados after living in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, he is truly a global creative.

Bob served two years as US Forest Service Artist in Residence to interpret and showcase the beauty of the Angeles National Forest. He is past Chairman of the Sierra Club Camera Committee, Angeles Chapter and a member of the International Society for Aviation Photography.

His fine art has benefitted nonprofit organizations and been sold at benefit auctions including the Leica Gallery Los Angeles. His first solo exhibition debuted in Los Angeles in October 2015.

Bob’s photos have been published in numerous automotive, aviation, entertainment industry, and luxury travel magazines, as well as the book, "The Art and Making of The Dark Knight Trilogy" by Jody Duncan Jesser and Janine Pourroy. Bob's work appears on the websites of Arizona Highways,

National Geographic, and the sites of his numerous corporate clients.

Previously, Bob worked for over twenty years in the motion picture and television business. He served business roles with Paramount, Sony, and Warner Bros. prior to starting his creative services company. bentriver.co bobbereshstudio.com

Bonnie Blake

Bonnie Blake is a fine art photographer based in Los Angeles with roots in Louisville, Kentucky and New York City. In contrast to her years collaborating as a motion picture camera operator on television, features and the TED talks, her still photography expresses her own observations about what, as Robert Adams wrote, “astonishes” her in the beauty of the natural world.

She uses a documentary approach as well as intentional camera movement to create traditional images as well as conceptual collages. Her belief that beauty can be an agent of change inspires her to express her concern about the destruction of these lands from climate change. She hopes to use her photography to propel action toward preserving these treasured places.

Her work has been exhibited at the Photo Place Gallery in Middlebury, Vermont, the Praxis Gallery in Minneapolis and the Duncan Miller Online Gallery. She was awarded honorable mention in the 2020 Creative Portrait Exhibit at the Los Angeles Center of Photography. Currently she has a photograph in the Unbound12! Exhibit at the Candela Gallery in Richmond, Virginia.

Alison Boyle

Photography has brought so many meaningful things to my life. It is fun, challenging, and most importantly, it fulfills my need to create. It is the reason I joined the Sierra Club Camera Committee (SCCC). The SCCC led me to cherished friends and my soulmate.

Creating an image where the light, the beauty of the subject and the right perspective are in perfect harmony is one of life’s greatest joys for me. Tide pools give me infinite marine life subjects and coastal locations to explore. This body of work is on a very small scale and very intimate. The beauty of the Sierra Nevada mountains leaves me filled with awe. This work is on the grandest of scale and challenges me physically when hiking to these other-worldly locations.

I am a UCLA Health retiree as of 2023. I had a fulfilling career as a licensed Clinical Laboratory Scientist spending time working in hematology, HIV research, molecular pathology, serology and virology. I’ll never stop being a scientist. Science informs my photographic subjects and continually motivates me to delve deeper.

I started out life as a Jersey girl but I was adopted just after college and consider myself a California girl now.

Instagram: @californiacominghome

Email: alisoniboyle@icloud.com

John Clement

John Clement began his career in photography in the early 70’s after graduating from Central Washington University with a double major in Geology and Geography. Since then he has earned a Masters of Photography from the Professional Photographers of America. He has received over 65 regional, national and international awards for his pictorial and commercial work. His photographs grace the walls of many businesses in the Northwest and has been published in numerous calendars and coffee table books. Clement has provided photographs for Country Music Magazine and Northwest Travel Magazine. He has supplied murals for the Seattle Seahawks Stadium and images for The Carousel of Dreams in Kennewick, WA.

Current projects include 17 – 4x8 foot glass panels featuring his landscapes in Eastern Washington for the Pasco Airport Remodel. Last year he finished a major project for the Othello Medical Clinic where almost 200 images were used to decorate the facilities. www.johnclementgallery.com

John Clement Photography (Face Book) Allied Arts Gallery in Richland, WA.

Thomas Cloutier

Thomas Cloutier has been with SCCC since 2001, and he has been contributing to Focal Points Magazine since that time.

Cloutier’s interest in photography coincides with his interest in travel and giving representation to nature landscapes. His formal education in photography comes from CSU Long Beach. At present Cloutier is a volunteer at CSU, Long Beach where he taught Water Colors and Drawing at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), designed for Seniors over 45. He also is a docent at Kleefield Contemporary Museum CSU Long Beach. He is Liaison for the Art And Design Departments for a scholarship program for students at CSU Long Beach, Fine Arts Affiliates, FineArtsAffiliates.org.

Cloutier at cde45@verizon.net

Steven Cohen

I am a past chair of the Camera Committee. I have been photographing for 40 years and i specialize in B&W film imaging. Recently I have embraced digital imaging and I also do digital printing. My Santa Monica at Night project is in the works and a book will be available soon.

Joe Doherty www.joedohertyphotography.com

Joe Doherty grew up in Los Angeles and developed his first roll of film in 1972. He has been a visual communicator ever since.

Doherty spent his teens and twenties working in photography, most of it behind a camera as a freelance editorial shooter.

He switched careers when his son was born, earning a PhD in Political Science from UCLA. This led to an opportunity to run a research center at UCLA Law. After retiring from UCLA in 2016, Doherty did some consulting, but now he and his wife, Velda Ruddock, spend much of their time in the field, across the West, capturing the landscape.

John Fisanotti

John Fisanotti was a photography major in his first three years of college. He has used 35mm, 2-1/4 medium format and 4x5 view cameras. He worked briefly in a commercial photo laboratory. In 1980, Fisanotti pivoted from photography and began his 32-year career in public service. Fisanotti worked for Redevelopment Agencies at four different Southern California cities.

After retiring from public service in 2012, Fisanotti continued his photographic interests. He concentrates on outdoors, landscape, travel and astronomical images (view here at http://www. johnfisanottiphotography.com). Since 2018, he expanded his repertoire to include architectural and real estate photography (view here at http://www. architecturalphotosbyfisanotti.com).

Fisanotti lives In La Crescenta and can be contacted at either: jfisanotti@sbcglobal.net or fisanottifotos@gmail.com

Beverly Houwing

Beverly Houwing loves traveling and photography, which has taken her to 80 countries and every continent. Most often she visits Africa since she loves spending time in remote wilderness locations where there is lots of wildlife and unique landscapes. Her images have been featured in numerous Africa Geographic articles, as well as in Smithsonian and the Annenberg Space for Photography exhibits. Her photographs have also been used for promoting conservation by many non-profit organizations, including National Wildlife Federation, National Parks Conservation Association, Crane Trust, National Audubon Society and Department of the Interior. Beverly is an Adobe Certified Instructor, so when she’s not out on a photography adventure she conducts training on their software programs and does freelance graphic design and production work.

Larry Miller

Larry Miller bought his first SLR camera in 1985 to document hikes in the local mountains. In fact, his first Sierra Club Camera Committee outing was a wildflower photo shoot in the Santa Monica Mountains led by Steve Cohen in 1991. Since then the SCCC has introduced him to many other scenic destinations, including the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve, the Gorman hills, and Saddleback Butte State Park.

Miller’s own photography trips gradually expanded in scope over the years to include most of the western National Parks and National Monuments, with the Colorado Plateau becoming a personal favorite.

Photography took a backseat to Miller’s career during the 32+ years that he worked as a radar systems engineer at Hughes Aircraft/Raytheon Company.

Since retiring in 2013, he has been able to devote more time to developing his photographic skills. Experiencing and sharing the beauty of nature continues to be Miller’s primary motivation.

lemiller49@gmail.com

John Nilsson

John Nilsson has a fond memory of his father dragging him to the Denver Museum of Natural History on a winter Sunday afternoon. His father had just purchased a Bosely 35mm camera and had decided he desperately wanted to photograph one of the dioramas of several Seal Lions in a beautiful blue half-light of the Arctic winter. The photo required a tricky long exposure and the transparency his father showed him several weeks later was spectacular and mysterious to Nilsson’s young eyes. Although the demands of Medical School made this photo one of the first and last Nilsson’s Dad shot, at five years old the son was hooked.

The arrival of the digital age brought photography back to Nilsson as a conscious endeavor - first as a pastime enjoyed with friends who were also afflicted, and then as a practitioner of real estate and architectural photography during his 40 years as a real estate broker.

Since retiring and moving to Los Angeles, Nilsson continued his hobby as a nature and landscape photographer through active membership in the Sierra Club Angeles Chapter Camera Committee, as well as his vocation as a real estate photographer through his company Oz Images LA. The camera is now a tool for adventure! www.OzImagesLA.com

Paul Reinstein

My father taught me photography at the age of 14, and I shot landscapes while backpacking until my early 20s, and then I hung it up.I even had my own dark room for a while.When digital arrived in my early 50s, it rekindled my interest.At first it was landscapes again, but after I captured a few birds, it occurred to me that I could ID the species.After about 10 species, I decided to join some bird photography walks, and after about 30 species, I wondered what it would take to get to 100.After retiring, it became my passion.My count is now around 525, and I travel locally and worldwide for wildlife photography.With degrees in biochemistry (half biology and half chemistry) and electrical engineering, I love being out in Nature and exploring photography technology.There are endless things to learn, an entirely new community, and good exercise too!Although I no longer have a presence on FB or IG, I do send out occasional emails with photos, or a link to my Flickr page to friends, and folks I've met along the trail.I hope it encourages people to value wildlife.

paulreinstein@me.com www.flickr.com/photos/preinstein54/albums

Velda Ruddock www.veldaruddock.com

Creativity has always been important to Velda Ruddock. She received her first Brownie camera for her twelfth birthday and can’t remember a time she’s been without a camera close at hand.

Ruddock studied social sciences and art, and later earned a Masters degree in Information and Library Science degree from San Jose State University. All of her jobs allowed her to be creative, entrepreneurial, and innovative. For the last 22 years of her research career she was Director of Intelligence for a global advertising and marketing agency. TBWA\Chiat\Day helped clients such as Apple, Nissan, Pepsi, Gatorade, Energizer, and many more, and she was considered a leader in my field.

During their time off, she and her husband, Joe Doherty, would travel, photographing family, events and locations. However, in 2011 they traveled to the Eastern Sierra for the fall colors, and although they didn’t realize it at the time, when the sun came up over Lake Sabrina, it was the start of changing their careers. By 2016 Ruddock and Doherty had both left their “day jobs,” and started traveling – and shooting nature – big and small – extensively. Their four-wheel-drive popup camper allows them to go to areas a regular car can’t go and they were – and are – always looking for their next adventure.

VeldaRuddockPhotography@gmail.com

Rebecca Wilks

Photography has always been some kind of magic for me, from the alchemy of the darkroom in my teens to the revelation of my first digital camera (a Sony Mavica, whose maximum file size was about 70KB) to the new possibilities that come from my “tall tripod” (drone.)

Many years later, the camera still leads me to unique viewpoints and a meditative way to interact with nature, people, color, and emotion. The magic remains. The natural world is my favorite subject, but I love to experiment and to do cultural and portrait photography when I travel. I volunteer with Through Each Other’s Eyes, a nonprofit which creates cultural exchanges through photography, and enjoy working with other favorite nonprofits, including my local Meals on Wheels program and Cooperative for Education, supporting literacy in Guatemala.

My work has been published in Arizona Highways Magazine, calendars, and books, as well as Budget Travel, Cowboys and Indians, and Rotarian Magazines, and even Popular Woodworking.

I'm an MD, retired from the practice of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Medical Acupuncture. I live in the mountains of central Arizona with my husband and Gypsy the Wonder Dog.