The Explorers of Light concept came out of Canon USA in the mid 1990s as a broad-ranging initiative for photographic education and inspiration. Today, the group is comprised of more than 50 of the most influential photographers and cinematographers in the world, each a master of the their creative specialty. The Explorers share their photographic passions and technical expertise with eager audiences of photo professionals, hobbyists, and enthusiasts in a variety of personal appearances, seminars, and gallery showings through the United States.
Examples of the Explorers' work may be found in their contributor bios below, as well as numerous museums, galleries, and publications.
Explorers of Light use Canon EOS photographic equipment, and many print with Canon large format printers. Most recently, many of their public presentations have been enhanced with their use of high resolution Canon REALis projectors.

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Sam Abell
Sam Abell's thirty-year career has been dedicated to achieving artistic expression through documentary photography.
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Harry Benson
Harry traveled to America with the Beatles in 1964 and decided to stay and became the most published photographer in Life Magazine before its demise and currently photographs for major magazines including Architectural Digest.
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- 6,561
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Clay Blackmore
Clay Blackmore is one of the most passionate professional photographers in the country today and a true innovator in the world of wedding photography and portraiture.
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Simon Bruty
Based in Washington, D.C., Simon is a photographer with Sports Illustrated. He has traveled extensively to work on feature stories as diverse as soccer in Zambia, golfers in Greenland, badminton in Indonesia, and haute couture in Paris.
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Joe Buissink
Joe Buissink photographs weddings all over the world and has over the years been a favorite wedding photographer among many celebrities such as, Jennifer Lopez, Jessica Simpson & Nick Lachey, Brendan Fraser, Kelsey Grammer, Hillary Swank & Chad Lowe, Christina Applegate, Jenny Garth & Peter Facinelli, Christina Aguilera . . .
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Alex Buono
Alex has been the director of photography for the Saturday Night Live Film Unit for the past 9 seasons. He is a member of the Writer’s Guild of America, the International Cinematographer’s Guild and International Documentary Association.
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John Paul Caponigro
Born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1965 and raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico John Paul Caponigro attended both Yale University and University of California at Santa Cruz graduating with a BA in Art and Literature in 1988.
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- 5,376
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Russell Carpenter, ASC
The Oscar-winning cinematographer of "Titanic", Russell enjoys mixing his schedule with a blend of small independent films and commercials when not shooting larger mainstream pictures.
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Michele Celentano
Michele Celentano's passion for wedding photography continues to grow, even after fourteen years. Michele quickly became one of the most successful wedding photographers in New York after graduating from the Germain School of Photography at the Center for Media Arts in New York City.
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Rodney Charters, ASC, CSC
Currently, Charters is the DP on the highly successful Award winning Fox series "24", which stars Kiefer Sutherland. On April 1 2004 Rodney Charters was invited to become an Active Member of the American Society of Cinematographers. This invitation to the ASC is a great privilege and honour, as well as a prestigious hallmark in his career as a cinematographer.
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Clint Clemens
Clint Clemens' work in advertising photography has consistently won numerous awards, including Andies, Clios, and an overall first in the Kellys.
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Bob Davis
Bob Davis believes that the power of photojournalism lies in its ability to tell a story, by documenting moments in time and reflecting them back to the viewer.
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Jim DiVitale
Jim DiVitale has been an Atlanta commercial advertising photographer and photography instructor for over 25 years. During the last thirteen years, Jim has specialized in digital photography and computer photo illustration for ad agencies, design firms, and corporations nationwide.
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Bruce Dorn, DGA
Bruce's early career with the camera took him around the globe shooting photo-journalistic and editorial assignments for United Press International, People, Conde Nast Publishing, Money, and Business Week magazines.
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Hanson Fong
Hanson Fong of San Francisco, California, is globally recognized as one of the premier wedding and portrait photographers in the industry today. With more than 30 years of experience,
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Stephen Frink
Stephen Frink is among the world's most frequently published UW photographers, and is a Canon EXPLORER OF LIGHT, the only marine specialist within this very elite group of photographers.
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Greg Gorman
Greg Gorman's work documents that peculiar obsession of the 20th century celebrity. His photography is timeless and not confined to has-beens, hot properties, and wannabes.
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- 3,366
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Lauren Greenfield
Acclaimed photographer Lauren Greenfield is considered a preeminent chronicler of youth culture as a result of her groundbreaking projects Girl Culture and Fast Forward.
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Darrell Gulin
Darrell Gulin was born and raised in Seattle, Washington and earned a Business degree from the University of Washington. Gulin has been photographing for over 23 years and has been actively marketing his work over the last 21 years.
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- 4,196
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Gregory Heisler
Gregory Heisler is a New York-based photographer whose technical mastery and thoughtful responsiveness allow him to creatively interpret an unusually broad range of subjects.
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- 5,135
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Shane Hurlbut, ASC
Shane Hurlbut, ASC is an accomplished cinematographer who graduated from Emerson College with a Bachelor of Arts in Film. The American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) nominated Hurlbut's first feature for Best Picture in the category of Motion Picture, Miniseries or Pilot Television.
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Vincent Isola
Vincent Isola has won numerous awards for his work and teaches digital photography, printing, and lighting techniques to photographers throughout the country.
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Stephen Johnson
Stephen Johnson is a landscape photographer, designer and teacher. He has been photographing since 1973.
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Adam Jones
Adam Jones has been a life long resident of Louisville, Kentucky. Today this internationally recognized photographer specializing in travel, nature, and wildlife.
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Lewis Kemper
Lewis Kemper has been photographing the natural beauty of North America, and its parklands for over 30 years. During his extensive travels, he has been to 47 states from Alaska to Florida. His work has been exhibited and published in magazines, books, and calendars worldwide.
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David Hume Kennerly
David Hume Kennerly has been photographing history for four decades. Contributing Editor for Newsweek Magazine, Kennerly continues to travel the globe to produce insightful images of important historic events.
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Douglas Kirkland
Douglas Kirkland was born in Toronto Canada. He joined Look Magazine in his early twenties, and later Life Magazine during the golden age of 60s/70s photojournalism. Among his assignments were essays on Greece, Lebanon and Japan as well as fashion and celebrity work, photographing Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Marlene Dietrich among others.
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Parish Kohanim
Parish Kohanim has been intimately involved with photography for over 30 years. Parish, who is a renowned commercial photographer, is now devoting his efforts towards his first love, fine art photography.
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- 10,464
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Vincent Laforet
Vincent Laforet, a three-time winner at the prestigious 2010 Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, is a director and Pulitzer Prize–winning photographer who is known for his forward-thinking approach to image-making and storytelling.
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George Lepp
George D. Lepp is one of North America's best-known contemporary outdoor and nature photographers. His passions for natural beauty, technical precision, cutting-edge technology, and environmental responsibility are revealed in his beautiful and compelling photographic images.
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Eric Meola
Eric Meola graduated from Syracuse University in 1968 with a B.A. in English Literature. His graphic color images have appeared editorially in various magazines, including Life, Travel & Leisure, Esquire, and Time for which he did three covers.
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Peter Read Miller
Peter Read Miller has worked for Sports Illustrated magazine as staff and contract photographer for over 20 years, with more than 85 covers to his credit.
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Arthur Morris
Arthur Morris is widely recognized as the world's premier bird photographer.
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James Nachtwey
In 1976, James Nachtwey started work as a newspaper photographer in New Mexico, and in 1980, he moved to New York to begin a career as a freelance magazine photographer. His first foreign assignment was to cover civil strife in Northern Ireland in 1981 during the IRA hunger strike. Since then, Nachtwey has devoted himself to documenting wars, conflicts and critical social issues.
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Sandy Puc'
An award winning photographer and proud mother of four, Sandy pours her passion into creating beautiful, timeless images.
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Denis Reggie
Denis Reggie is widely regarded as the top wedding photographer in the world.
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Seth Resnick
Seth Resnick has been published in the worlds most prestigious magazines.
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Jack Reznicki
Jack Reznicki is one of the best-known and most respected people photographers in the country.
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Rick Sammon
Rick Sammon is the author of 36 books, seven iPad and iPhone apps and the host of seven DVDs on digital photography. He also has his own podcast and leads photo workshops around the world. Yet, he still finds time to travel the world taking pictures.
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Ken Sklute
Ken Sklute of Tempe, AZ., has been working with his passions of photographing people and drag racing for over 32 years.
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Tyler Stableford
Aspen photographer Tyler Stableford has earned a worldwide clientele for his commercial and editorial photography.
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David Stoecklein
David R. Stoecklein launched his career as a photographer by taking lifestyle shots of skiing, hiking, biking, fishing, tennis, and golf. That work lead to assignments for well-known companies such as Timberland, Coca-Cola, L.L. Bean, Ski Magazine, Reebok, and Scientific Angler.
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Damian Strohmeyer
Damian Strohmeyer is a Boston based photographer who has been photographing people and sports for more than two decades. After stints at The Topeka Capital Journal and The Denver Post newspapers he has been affiliated with Sports Illustrated magazine for twenty years, the past eleven as a staff photographer.
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Eddie Tapp
Eddie Tapp is an award-winning photographer, lecturer, consultant and author on digital imaging issues.
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Gale Tattersall
I’ve shot well over 500 commercials, many award winning, for clients such as Coca Cola, Nike, Gatorade etc.... I then took over Season 3 of “House MD”, at various times the most highly viewed and popular TV Drama in the world. I am on my fourth season of House at present, having shot well over a hundred episodes.
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Michel Tcherevkoff
Michel Tcherevkoff is recognized as one of the world's preeminent conceptual photographers. In a career of more than thirty years, Michel has become internationally known for his unique ability to create visual metaphors for advertising, corporate, design and editorial clients.
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Joyce Tenneson
Joyce Tenneson is among the most respected photographers of our time, and has been described critically as "one of America's most interesting portrayers of the human character."
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Onne van der Wal
Once a professional sailor, Onne got his start in photography while sailing with the 1981-82 Dutch Whitbread Around the World Race Team on their winning boat, FLYER.
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Jennifer Wu
Jennifer Wu, a professional photographer for over 15 years, is best known for her nature and landscape photography. Before focusing on the nature's elusive beauty, she specialized in journalism and portrait photography, publishing hundreds of images in newspapers, including The Sacramento Bee.
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