FOUNDER

Bill Wishner / Visual Hunter founded Pasadena Photography Arts in 2012. He has been a photographer for more than 40 years. Through the years he has been involved in projects relating to the visual side of the jazz world. He was the co-editor of the 40 the anniversary book for the Monterey Jazz Festival (Monterey Jazz Festival: 40 Legendary Years / Angel City Press, 1997).

More recently his photography has been focused on the urban environment…the art of the city wall. In addition to multiple exhibitions he published two photography books so far in his wall series…Artifacts (Acuity Press, 2018) and De/Faced (self- published, 2020).

In 2008 he founded f8 Pasadena Salon, dedicated to the art and aesthetics of photography. He has written personal poetry and prose poems for many decades. Things Happen When You Travel (Volume I & II) were previously published as Amazon e-books and more recently as real books (Sagest Press, Pasadena CA 2022).

CO-DIRECTOR

Douglas Hill was born in London, grew up in New York and has lived in Los Angeles since 1968. He is a fine art and commercial architectural photographer, whose work has been widely exhibited and is in the collections of the Getty, the Smithsonian, and LACMA among others. He teaches photography at UCLA Extension and is currently co-director of Pasadena Photography Arts.

IG: @odouglas50

CO-DIRECTOR

Ellen Friedlander is a Los Angeles-based fine art and documentary artist who uses a variety of in-camera and post processing techniques to reveal the unpredictable, idiosyncratic, inscrutable nature of the human condition. Friedlander has exhibited her work internationally, including Hong Kong, London, Poland, Budapest, New York and Los Angeles. She has been featured in Lenscratch, The Hand Magazine, and on The Candid Frame podcast, Episode #499. Friedlander was a Winter 2019 Focus PhotoLA Top 20 and her piece titled Hiding IV was the winner and cover photograph for APA-LA OFF THE CLOCK 2020. During March-April, 2021, three of Friedlander’s photographs from her Betrayal: Shattered In A Moment series were in a group show at Austin Desmond Fine Art in London, as well as having her first solo show at The Photographer's Eye Gallery in Escondido, CA in which she exhibited her Extended Frame body of work. Friedlander has been an Advisor with Pasadena Photography Arts since 2019 and assumed the role of Co-Director in August, 2022.

IG: @emfphoto59

ADVISOR

Rollence Patugan is an American Photographer based out of Los Angeles, CA. Identity, diversity, and “being seen” are undercurrents of Rollence’s work. Having originally come from Baldwin Park, CA a small but diverse town in the San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles, Rollence wants his work to serve the underrepresented. Growing up in the 1980’s as an Asian-American of Chinese and Filipino descent, he did not see a reflection of himself nor his Latino friends in government, sports, entertainment, and the arts. Rollence felt he didn’t exist as an American. In his work, Rollence strives to reflect the ethnic diversity that has always been a part of his experiences and uses his voice through art to allow people to be “seen.”

“Love art in yourself and not yourself in art.”

– Konstantin Stanislavski

IG: @rollence_photo

ADVISOR

Debe Arlook's conceptual work explores personal growth and its interconnectivity between the physical world and consciousness through documentary and landscape projects. Her photo-based works blend traditional photographic methods with mixed media, text, in-camera double exposures, and digital enhancement.

Arlook solo and group exhibits are in galleries, museums, and photo festivals, including Lishui Art Museum, Photo London, Griffin Museum of Photography, Colorado University Anshutz, and Harvard Medical School/Boston Children’s Hospital. Her work is featured in All About Photo, Lenscratch, Frames Magazine, L’Oeil de la Photographie, Shadow & Light Magazine, and others. Her projects ‘foreseeable cache,’ ‘one, one thousand…,’ and most recently ‘Dreaming Yosemite’-working title, include FRESH 2024, FOCUS Photo L.A., 2023; Critical Mass Top 50, 2022; and CENTER Social Award Honorable Mention, 2022. Based in Santa Monica, California, she is a contributing editor for PhotoBook Journal, Pasadena Photography Advisor, mentor, and printer for fine art photographers. Arlook’s collaborative book, ‘Both Sides of the Table: Photography Portfolio Reviews Do’s & Don’ts,’ will be released Fall 2024.

IG: @debearlook

ADVISOR

Erica Martin is a lens based artist, and native of Los Angeles, California. She studied photography at Hampshire College, and then at the International Center for Photography in New York, where she worked with film and darkroom printing. Martin studied digital and medium format photography at the Los Angeles Center for Photography, where she received her Fine Art Certificate in 2014.

Martin photographs people in their surroundings, their rituals and the manifestations of their interior lives. Her work concerns recurring themes of identity, transformation, and the paradox of human existence captured at a moment in time. Her photographs show the fraying edges of polite society, and the vernacular secrets that most people pass by. In addition, Martin has created series of portrait works, often of alternative communities, exploring how her subjects navigate the world and find their tribe. In Martin’s portrait projects, her relationship to her subjects is the focus point, and the images reflect her presence behind the camera.

Erica Martin’s work has been featured on Lenscratch, Lensculture, and PDN Magazine, and has been shown at galleries and exhibitions in Los Angeles, New York, Paris and Milan.

IG: @ericakellymartin

ADVISOR

Lori Pond is a photographic artist based in Los Angeles, California. Her photography encompasses themes such as fear, good vs. evil, life and death, the impermanence of all things, and most recently, how our brain interprets “reality” in her series, “As I See It.” Her most well-recognized work is “Bosch Redux,” in which she replicated details from 15th century painter Hieronymus Bosch’s works using models, props and specially-made prosthetics to create and celebrate his oeuvre. She has delved into infrared photography, drone photography, wet plate collodion, and silver and gold leafing. She was a semi-finalist in the Critical Mass Awards in 2014, 2015, and 2017.

Her interest in photography has been lifelong, starting with using a Polaroid Land Camera for her junior high school newspaper. She has studied photography with such luminaries as Aline Smithson, JoAnn Callis, Richard Tuschman, and Dan Burkholder.

Her work has been shown at the Griffin Museum of Photography, Oceanside Museum, MOAH (Museum of Art and History), The Center for Fine Art Photography, and the Center for Photographic Art, to mention a few. Her work has been widely published, most recently appearing in “Shots” Magazine, “The Hand Magazine,” “The Sun” , “Analog Forever”, and “California Love—A Visual Mixtape”.. She has accumulated accolades and awards including a first place win in the Architectural/Interiors category of the Julia Margaret Cameron Awards in 2020 and most recently, a Merit Award at the Center for Photographic Art for her photograph “Someone Knows You’re Coming” from her work, “Learning to Walk in the Dark.”

IG: @loripondphotography

ADVISOR

Krishna Malhotra has been involved in photography since the age of 13, when he started with a Brownie 127, and was soon inspired by photographers like Raghu Rai, Andre Kertész and Bill Brandt.

He is a self-taught photographer, with no formal lessons in either school or through workshops, and stayed actively involved in photography through student and professional life.

Subject choice has never been consciously made. He shoots anything that catches his interest. As a result, he has done documentary, architectural, landscape and botanical photography, and also some portraiture. His work was first publicly shown in 2015.

IG: @kesho_malhotra

ADVISOR

Fred Brashear Jr is an internationally exhibited, photo-based artist and educator focusing on the relationship between humans and the natural environment. Though investigation and research, Fred connects the treatment of the natural environment to systems of social inequality and inequity. Since graduating from California State University, San Bernardino with a Master of Fine Arts degree, Fred has contributed to the mentorship and instruction of diverse student populations in the field of photography at various colleges and universities throughout Southern California. In addition to his teaching success, Fred has also maintained a consistent and successful professional art practice. Balancing a professional teaching and artistic career, Fred continues to research the vital relationship between humans and their environment, informing society of the necessary changes that need to happen for a possible sustainable future.

ADVISOR

Ian Wright is originally from Glasgow, Scotland but has lived in many other countries. Home is now, and probably always will be, California. A scientist and innovator by profession, he has a lifelong love affair with artistic endeavors mainly in music, art and especially photography. He sits on various biotechnology, educational and art organization boards and has had his work exhibited in the US and Europe. In 2023 he was the first recipient of the Pasadena Photographic Arts Award for his project To Be A Dancer. He most recently had fun working with the Media Coalition for the Bombay Beach Biennale. His love of a good story is the essence of his work.

JUNIOR ADVISOR

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Dax spends his time exploring the city and its surrounding nature with his dog, staying active through hockey, hiking, and trying new hobbies with friends—while capturing candid moments along the way. He has worked with a wide range of clients, including musicians, clothing brands, travel destinations, live events, and performing artists. Throughout his career, Dax has achieved notable milestones such as being published, curating a photography exhibition, and being featured in a group exhibition.

IG: @daxxleee

DIGITAL MEDIA CONSULTANT

Alexi Butts graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Scripps College in 2020 with her BA in Studio Art and French. The pandemic shifted the course of her post-graduation plans and she found a niche for freelance digital marketing consulting. In addition to working as a freelance artist's assistant and social media consultant for Pasadena Photography Arts, Alexi acts as a full-time creative partner to her Mother’s photography business (Ellen Friedlander Photography). Her personal experience as a studied artist allows Alexi to relate to her clients artistically in order to best guide them in our digital world.

IG: @Alexi0741