Saturday, November 7 | 4:30 – 6:00 p.m. | Auditorium
Presentation Description:
Why does one image stop people in their tracks, while another of the exact same subject, taken from the exact same spot, barely gets a second glance? It’s not luck. It’s not gear. And it’s not the way the photo was processed.
It’s the why behind the frame, and it’s the one thing almost nobody takes the time to find.
Every photograph you make is the sum of a thousand small decisions — what to include, what to leave out, where to stand, what to wait for. Stacked together, across a whole body of work, those decisions become your visual vocabulary, and your visual vocabulary becomes your voice. Annalise Kaylor walks you through how to build that vocabulary into a voice that is unique to you, instead of chasing one lucky frame, and instead of copying the photo everyone else already liked just because it racked up engagement.
This session is for photographers ready to stop echoing what someone else is already saying and start creating a narrative of their own. If you’ve ever stood next to someone photographing the same scene and wondered why their image moved people and yours didn’t, this is where you find out.
Speaker Information:
Annalise Kaylor
Annalise Kaylor grew up an unapologetically curious and semi-feral kid in the Northwoods of Wisconsin — the kind of childhood that, in hindsight, was basically training for a life dedicated to exploring wild things in wild places. For more than a decade, that background has served her well, taking her to 41 countries and into some of the most demanding field conditions on the planet.
Annalise’s photography and visual storytelling have appeared in Audubon Magazine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC’s Discover Wildlife, and the Associated Press, as well as on PBS, the Discovery Channel, Great Big Story, and more. Along the way, her work has helped further the causes of conservation organizations and NGOs, including The Nature Conservancy, charity: water, Ducks Unlimited, and Habitat for Humanity International.
Her photographs now live in the permanent collections of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, the World Health Organization, and the United Nations, and have been exhibited across North America, South America, and Europe — including the Planet Ocean exhibit at Gasometer Oberhausen in Germany and the current exhibition at the Midwest Center for Photography.
One of the most sought-after wildlife photography educators, Annalise has built a reputation not just for teaching people how to get the shot, but for grounding that instruction in the biology, ecology, and behavior of the animals themselves. It’s an approach that has earned her a following among photographers who understand that better photography comes from a better understanding of the natural world.
When not in the field or teaching a workshop, Annalise can be found reacquainting herself with the Northwoods that raised her, dog Susan in tow, and spending time with the people who make the time in between trips just as worth showing up for.
