2024 Utah Symposium

Speakers: 

Gregory Heisler

Renowned for technical mastery and thoughtful responsiveness over a career spanning more than 45 years, photographer Gregory Heisler has been said to possess "the eye of an artist, the mind of a scientist, and the heart of a journalist." His enthusiasm, curiosity, and drive are manifested in his hands-on approach to every aspect of the image making process. 

Moving fluidly from the locker room to the boardroom, and from the soundstage to the Oval Office, he has photographed luminaries ranging from Denzel Washington to Derek Jeter, Bill Clinton to Bill Gates, and Mikhail Gorbachev to Muhammad Ali. In addition to his advertising campaigns, he is perhaps best known for his more than 70 cover portraits for Time, as well as his iconic covers and innovative essays for Life, Esquire, GQ, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, and The New York Times Magazine. 

Gregory is the Distinguished Professor of Photography at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, and a Canon Legend. His monograph Gregory Heisler: 50 Portraits is now in its third printing.

Joe McNally
 

Acclaimed, award-winning photographer Joe McNally is known worldwide as the quintessential “pro’s pro;” an extremely versatile, deeply experienced assignment photographer whose jobs have brought him to over 70 countries and counting. McNally is often described as: Authentic, empathetic and articulate, an exceptionally skilled technical photographer who pairs extraordinary camera know-how with a vivid imagination and an ongoing, vibrant creativity. Always curious, always adapting to the conditions at hand and the relentless advances in camera technology, he has photographed five cover stories for the National

Geographic (amongst an overall fifteen coverages), and seven covers of LIFE Magazine. He photographed the very first all-digital coverage for National Geographic, which was considered such a significant, watershed moment in the history of that venerable publication that the entire coverage has been incorporated into the archives of the U.S Library of Congress. In addition to inspiring editorial work, McNally has covered four Olympics (with number five looming in Paris in 2024) for such diverse clients as ABC Television, Sports Illustrated and TIME magazine. McNally is known for his penchant to get his camera in “a different place” and has twice climbed the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, in addition to climbing the Empire State Building four times.

He is that rare photographer who has successfully made the bridge between the commercial world and the editorial world, and is highly regarded by clients for his versatility, and willingness to be a team player. Joe McNally, a proud Nikon Ambassador, has an extraordinary ability to photograph simple assignments with intimacy and grace, as well as master movie-scale productions with large crews, tremendous pressure and countless moving parts.

Rod Mar

Rod Mar is an acclaimed sports photographer whose career spans over 25 years. Rod learned early in his career that for a photograph to make an impact, it must tell a story. That storytelling philosophy infuses all of Mar’s work, which spans a range of sports and clients from the National Football League to the Special Olympics.

Currently the team photographer for the Seattle Seahawks of the N.F.L., Rod also shoots for editorial and commercial clients worldwide including Sports Illustrated, ESPN, The Player’s Tribune, NBC Sports, Major League Soccer and others. He counts the Special Olympics as one of his all-time favorite events to photograph.

He has photographed every major sporting event in the United States as well as numerous Olympic Games. After developing his craft over two decades as a photojournalist at the Seattle Times, he embarked on a freelance career in 2009 and has not looked back.

Rod is inspired by a quote he heard from the late Frosty Westering, a small college football coach whom had the pleasure of photographing. “Make the big time where you are”, Westering would always say to this players. This sentence has stuck with Mar ever since, and it’s an approach he brings to every one of his photo assignments.

Rod is a member of the prestigious Nikon Ambassadors, a collective of professional photographers at the top of their respective fields. He is a popular and engaging speaker who has given keynote lectures and taught at workshops and seminars all over the United States and in Canada.

He has won many awards for his work, including first place in the prestigious Pictures of the Year International competition.

David McLain

I earned my chops the old-fashioned way by shooting feature-length assignments around the world for National Geographic Magazine. The stories varied but the mandate was always the same: work with every kind of person under any kind of condition and create timeless yet contemporary images for a client with the highest visual standards. My assignments took me to six continents and often required 200 days on the road each year.

As a photographer and filmmaker, I specialize in exploring big questions across a range of subjects by telling intimate stories about real people. I’ve shot seven feature stories for National Geographic Magazine, photographed the NYT best-selling cookbook Blue Zones Kitchen, shot for major brands like Sony and Apple, and was Director of Photography for the feature documentary Bounce, which premiered at SXSW. My primary tools are curiosity, an ability to listen, and deep empathy for people who inhabit different realities than mine. Attentiveness to others, to my craft, and to my clients are at the core of everything I do.

I live with my wife, artist Anne McLain, in a 220-year-old Maine farmhouse with a post and beam barn we share studio space in. Our two children, Finn and Myla, were born and raised in Maine and are amazing young adults, one an aspiring builder, the other studying in Patagonia. My family, my home, and Maine ground me and fuel the boundless sense of possibility and hope I bring to my work. I continually marvel at how endless the opportunities are. Now is the time to start exploring them.

Dan Winters

Dan Winters is widely recognized for his celebrity portraiture, scientific and aerospace photography, photojournalism, and Illustrations.  He has won over one hundred national and international awards, including a World Press Photo award, the Alfred Eisenstaedt Award for Magazine Photography, multiple awards from American Photography, Siena International Photo Awards, International Photography Awards, Communication Arts, the Society of Publication Designers, PDN, the Art Directors Club of New York and Life Magazine, among others. He was also honored by Kodak as a photo “Icon” in their biographical “Legends” series.  Winters’ clients include  National Geographic, New York Times Magazine, New Yorker, New York Magazine, TIME, Esquire, GQ, WIRED, Rolling Stone,Texas Monthly and many other national and international publications, as well as a host of advertising, publishing, music and entertainment clients.  He has 6 published books and has had multiple solo exhibitions of his work in NYC, Los Angeles, Savannah, Siena, Italy, Madrid, Spain and Sharjah, UAE. Dan is the subject of a one hour National Geographic TV documentary called “Dan Winters: Life is once. Forever”, part of their 2024 series called “Photographer.”