Above: Doug Menuez
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Libby Volgyes is an award-winning beverage and food photographer who splits her time between West Palm Beach, Florida and Hood River, Oregon.
She is known for her dark and moody style of food photography, her lively cocktail photos, and her evocative chef portraiture.
She enjoys traveling, walking her Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy, Talulah, and drinking espresso.
She is a FoodPhoto Festival 2019 Exhibitor and Finalist for Faces of Food, Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year shortlist 2019, 2020 Cultural Council of the Palm Beaches exhibitor, 2019 Top 50 Blogs Finalist in FoodPhoto Affair categories for Wine, Your Way and Published Work (2020-2021).
Todd Houser was raised in North Carolina but spent most of his professional life in Miami, Florida. While in school pursuing his BFA in Communication Arts, Todd worked as a photo assistant to expand his industry knowledge and play with real equipment. Todd moved on to work at Pinkhaus as a designer/art director while creating the in-house motion department. At Pinkhaus, Todd evolved into a concept-driven creative director before moving on to launch the South Florida go-to hot shop, Frank Worldwide, as the owner and creative director.
During all of these years as a strategic creative, Todd was not only directing photography and motion, but shooting as well. Now Todd has tabled his AD-hat and picked up his camera full-time. Out of the gate, Todd won four Graphis Photography Gold Awards from four submissions and continues to capture images that provoke thought and imagine stories.
âI approach 'things' from the view point that anything can be beautiful, from clean to crude, there is always an artistic possibility.â
A game-changer that sets Todd apart is, as a creative director and art director for over twenty-four  years, photography represents what he does best. He renders the complex to a simple concept: itâs distillation. His deep understanding of the entire creative process only serves to enhance the communication between agency/client and image creation.
Todd is motivated and inspired by capturing images that entice people to think, consider, and be entertained by what they see. It's what he wakes up everyday yearning to do.
Before delving into the commercial world,  R.J. Hinkle devoted thirteen years to photojournalism, working for a variety of newspapers,magazines, and wire services. With more than fifteen years experience as a commercial photographer, his diverse experience has allowed him to amass an impressive body of editorial and advertising work. With a slew of experience,  with everything from solo editorial assignments to  large-scale advertising productions with grip trucks, RV's, craft services and big crews, his easy, unobtrusive editorial style has garnered favor with editors, art directors, and marketing folks alike. Even his frequent work with children and animals hasnât deterred him from his passionate pursuit of great images.
Every dayâeven the extra twenty-four hours in a leap year, he produces creative and compelling product, people, and food photography.
R.J. has a degree in Photocommunications from Texas Tech University, where he serves on the College of Media & Communications' National Advisory Board. A Texas BBQ habitue, wannabe avid bicyclist, and culinary enthusiast, R.J. lives in Coppell, Texas with his beautiful, understanding wife, two above-average children, and his Tibetan Terrier Milo.
Michelle McSwain is a commercial portrait and lifestyle photographer based in Los Angeles, California. She's worked for brands such as Nintendo, Girl Scouts, JBL, Soundcloud, SPANX, Facebook, Wine Spectator, Barkbox, AMC Networks, and is also the creator of the patented mobile photo and video App, PABLO. She previously did photo editing and retouching work for the New York Times and Yahoo, Inc., which helped develop her signature style of bright light and warmth.
You can find Michelle on the hiking trails in southern California with her little family or sitting in the sunshine with a chilled glass of PĂ©t-Nat. With a knack for befriending almost anyone she meets, Michelle brings her own warmth and joy to all her projects, achieving her clients' vision with a fun and relaxed attitude.
She is available to travel globally, especially to anywhere with warm weather and good wine.
Ilanna Barkusky  was born and raised in the beautiful city of Vancouver, Canada, where she grew up surrounded by the mountains and the ocean. Her parents had her on skis and going on overnight trips in the outdoors at the age of two, which laid the foundation for her passion for an active life. In high school, she experienced the buzz of the winter 2010 Olympics, which sparked a fire for the world of sports and bringing people together. Shortly after graduating high school, Ilana moved up the highway to Whistler, where she pursued the start of a photography career, as well as a university degree from the University of British Columbia. As others around her began to rise in their respective sports, Ilana was always in tow with a camera, beginning to travel the world, and becoming introduced to the amazing world of creative collaboration.She has never forgotten the early rush that drew her in - working together with an athlete to capture and create an unforgettable moment in time. She is now based between Los Angeles and Vancouver, where she relishes  the opportunity to work with those who dedicate their lives to their sports.
Born and raised in the Midwest, John Amatucci founder of Amatucci Photography, has always been an artist. Starting with a disposable camera, John captured a story in the most simplistic or most complicated of scenarios.
Living on his own at a very young age, John began working at Fox Photo processing images. This experience allowed him to explore his talents even further. He purchased his first real camera at a pawn shop, and his eye for photography has never been the same.
Not only is John able to do what he loves for a career, but he also has the luxury of  working with others by combining his vision and theirs to tell a story through art. John is grateful that through his career as a commercial photographer, he has been able to explore rare parts of the world. One of the unique aspects of Johnâs career is his opportunity to experience behind-the-scenes many different business operations and the production process of many different products. Whether it is experiencing how a luxury cruise ship operates or how an airplane window is created, John values these experiences as much as he does his art.
However, when hiring John you will not only be hiring an incredible artist but someone who is adept at managing multiple aspects of a shoot. Between directing talent and strategically preparing his gear for travel, John is an efficient and competent producer as well. John is also one of the few photographers in the Midwest with a fully functional downtown studio, capable of bringing to life any concept a company or organization envisions. When it comes to style, John prides himself on his lighting techniques, making his work look naturally beautiful in any environment.
"At the heart of my work is a burning curiosity about the human experience and what we all have in common. I believe my role is not only to witness, but also to be a messenger. Be it documenting AIDs orphans in Uganda or shooting a global ad campaign, I want my images to have an impact on culture, our emotions, and collective conscience. Iâm after those milliseconds that reveal our shared humanity that maybe nobody else will notice, but I do."
Douglas Hayes Menuez (b. 1957) is an internationally renowned American photographer, director, and visual storyteller whose 40-year career spans the realms of photojournalism, commissioned work, documentary, fine art, multimedia projects, celebrity portraiture, and education. His methodology involves a traditional documentary approach that allows for an intuitive investigation of the subject. A deep exploration of the human condition is the driving concern behind all his work.
Doug began his career as a freelance photojournalist exploring such subjects as the homeless crisis, the Ethiopian famine, the Oakland drug wars, the Olympics, and the AIDS epidemic. In the mid-1980s he gained long-term, exclusive access to document the private daily lives of Steve Jobs and the tech industryâs most brilliant innovators in Silicon Valley during their infamous bid to change the world. His work has since earned numerous prestigious awards, has been exhibited extensively across the globe, and his inspiring books have generated hundreds of thousands of dollars for humanitarian efforts.
Doug's best-selling photo book, Fearless Genius: The Digital Revolution 1985-2000 (Sim & Schuster's Atria Books, 2014) has reached over 100 million people in seventeen languages across six countries, and an extensive archive of over one million of his photographs is housed in the Stanford University Libraries' Douglas Menuez Photography Collection.
For the past twenty years, Doug has taught photography workshops and served on the Advisory Board of the Center for Photography at Woodstock. He currently enjoys dividing his time between upstate New York and Manhattan.
Braxton Wilhelmsen grew up in Washington State and moved to Utah in his teenage years. Prior to shooting full-time since 2012, Doug studied illustration.  He's fascinated with the idea of developing the ability to see. Anyone who has attempted to look at something and draw it on paper is immediately confronted with the fact that seeing accurately is not a yes or no, can or canât: itâs a skill that can be improved and mastered. With a photograph, light is recorded accurately, but there is still so much available for interpretation and communication. Heroicism, dynamism, beauty, optimism, or their opposites, and more, are all available to see in the same subject, same location, and same camera.  He loves it.
