For Timothy Faust, taking a photo means telling a story. 

A decades-long professional photographer, Faust has owned his Breckenridge business Timothy Faust Photography for the past 20 years. He offers a range of photo services from commercial work to weddings as well as sells prints from his personal collection of landscapes. 

Faust won Best Photographer in this year’s Best of Summit competition. 

“It’s special for me for the community to recognize what I’ve been doing here for the past decades,” Faust said. 

What gets him most excited about photography, Faust said, is its storytelling aspect. One example of that is wedding photography, which he’ll usually prepare for by speaking with a client on the phone or in person, sometimes multiple times. 

“When it’s about a wedding, it’s about allowing them to try to tell the story,” Faust said. 

After interviewing clients, Faust said he has a deeper understanding of what they’re trying to capture. By doing so, Faust said he is able to offer a tailored photography experience that ensures quality for his patrons. 

Outside of individuals, Faust works with larger organizations, ranging from architectural firms to nonprofits. Sometimes, his work takes him on the road, such as in September when he followed a group of cyclists riding from Oregon to New Jersey for cancer awareness. 

“I like photographing different stuff, because it keeps it interesting,” Faust said. “By changing it up all the time, it keeps it exciting.”

Faust charges a $5,000 flat rate for wedding photography. That can be paid in two separate installments consisting of a $1,500 down payment followed by the remaining balance, or else paid in monthly installments. Colorado weddings come with no travel fee, any required travel outside of the state will cost extra. 

The fee covers the full wedding day “from when you are done getting ready until the end of the reception,” according to Faust’s website. It also includes a custom 20-page photo album and free digital revisions. 

Other pricing for portrait sessions and commercial work differs depending on the service. More information on pricing and examples of Faust’s work is available on his website at TimothyFaust.com. 

This story previously published in the Best of Summit guide. See complete results at SummitDaily.com/best.

Captivating. Mystical. Transcendent. These words capture the dreamlike essence of Otherworldly, an exhibition highlighting the collection of a visionary, Deborah Turbeville.

Running from Jan. 16 to April 6, 2024, at The Image Centre on Toronto Metropolitan University’s (TMU) campus, Otherworldly represents beauty, emotion, and the ethereal as it invites viewers into the intimate world of the women featured. 

Renowned for her unique approach, Turbeville has drawn attention with her avant-garde compositions within the genre of fashion photography. Although the late artist may not be mentioned in mainstream films and media, her impact on the fashion industry is monumental and has likely influenced the visual aesthetics of several cinematic productions indirectly. 

Her photographs are most recognized by their grainy texture, black-and-white chromogenic print, and blurriness. Some of her work can also be seen as artistically reworked with the help of tape and scrape-like patterns. These elements add to the whimsicalness of her photographs as they allow for hauntingly beautiful visuals that transcend traditional fashion and beauty norms. 

Turbeville’s narrative and storytelling techniques in Otherworldly can be compared to the crafting of a visual poem, especially when focused on the women in her photographs. Each frame serves as a stanza that explores the resiliency, authenticity, vulnerability, and complexities that define the female experience. 

The dreamlike atmosphere that the women are photographed in and their averting gaze from the lens while maintaining their soft poses could imply a feeling of being out of sync with their environment.

It’s through these candid and exposed moments that we see the rawness of her subjects, presenting an inclusive and diverse view of femininity. This allows viewers to question and reconsider notions of beauty as she celebrates the unconventional standards of perfection by showcasing a myriad of “imperfect” compositions. 

Inscribed on the gallery wall text are the eloquent words of Deborah Turbeville, encapsulating the essence of her photographs as she describes them: “The photographs are like the women you see in them. A little out of balance with their surroundings, waiting anxiously for the right person to find them, and thinking that perhaps they are out of their time,” Turbeville said.

The concept of waiting anxiously for the right person to find them conveys a desire for connection and understanding while subtly hinting at the timeless challenges that women face when navigating societal expectations. 

Otherworldly reminds us that beauty does transcend time and that stories can be captured within a single frame. In an era where women are pressured to conform to what mainstream media believes a woman should look and act like, it’s refreshing that Turbeville’s legacy continues to challenge and utilize this authenticity as a source of strength in her fashion photography.

Lisbon’s Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation inaugurated yesterday an unprecedented exhibition in Portugalfeaturing photographs by Maria Lamas, described by its curator, Jorge Calado, as the country’s “most remarkable” woman of the 20th century and who, without being a professional photographer, managed to produce true “masterpieces” as part of her work.

“The Women of Maria Lamas” is the exhibition title that will be on show in the atrium of the Gulbenkian’s Art Library in central Lisbon between 26 January and 28 May of this year.

The display is an exceptional collection of 67 photographs selected by the curator and collector of the work “As mulheres do meu país” (The women of my country), which features portraits of women from the countryside, the mountains, coastal areas and the sea, on the docks, in the mines and the factories, but also working as teachers, nurses, postal workers, maids and servants, or as single mothers or prostitutes, among others.

Lamas is, according to Calado, “the most remarkable Portuguese woman of the 20th century” as a fighter for human and civil rights during the Estado Novo (New State) dictatorship and who “was always a woman of the left” throughout her life.

“Known as a writer and journalist, I don’t call her an activist, a feminist or a suffragette, because I know she’d hate that,” said the curator during a press preview. “She fought to liberate women, not as women, but as citizens and human beings. These are not women’s rights, but the rights of all human beings.”

This is the first time that Lamas’s photography has been exhibited in Portugal, and it is her first solo show, said the curator, explaining that in 2009, he had already presented eight of her photographs in Paris as part of an exhibition dedicated to women photographers from around the world.

“I wanted to do a more developed exhibition,” he said. “I had to wait 15 years.”

In 2016, Curado also presented nine photographs by Lamas with works from around the world at a major photography exhibition in Dubai.

His fascination with the writer’s work comes from a very early age when a 12-year-old Calado, for the first time, saw “As mulheres do meu país” – a book he later returned to in the 21st century, only to realise that the writer was also responsible for the majority of the 150 or so photographs in the book.

For Calado, what opened up before his eyes was something “extraordinarily modern” in which the photographer’s and her subjects’ empathy shone through.

“For her, there was no decisive moment; there was the decisive woman, owner of her body and her work,” said the curator, explaining that the photographs on display – which represent women alone, in pairs, threes or groups, sometimes captured at work or in tune with the surrounding landscape – make each one the representative of her profession and way of life.

This set of portraits also reveals a “contrast” between, on the one hand, female solidarity and, on the other, respect for women’s individuality, he added.

Throughout the exhibition, mainly comprised of full-length portraits and several small photographs, Calado chose to highlight “two of the best photographs, good for the opening of the exhibition.”

One is an image of a young mother from the Serra da Estrela mountain range, holding her son with his characteristic shawl, in a figurative set that reproduces the atmosphere of a traditional threshing floor at harvest time.

The other depicts a girl, also from the Serra da Estrela, sowing rye from her family’s small harvest.

At the beginning of the exhibition, there is a photograph of a child in the field, in which you can see the shadow of Lamas herself, in what Calado described as the author’s “only self-portrait” in the display.

According to the curator, Lamas was very interested in how women dressed, which said a lot about their situation. For example, he pointed to a photograph of an Algarve woman wearing a hat because she “worked from sun up to sun down.”

The exhibition has two subsections: one on the connection between women’s work and animals and the help they gave, and the other on groups of women working together, such as the portrait of a group of women in the codfish drying area in Gafanha, near Aveiro, which is why they called themselves “the grasshoppers” (since the Portuguese word for the insect is ‘gafanhoto’).

In Calado’s opinion, with these group photos, the author “is sending out a message: ‘Women of Portugal, unite’.”

The curator emphasised the quality of Lamas’s photographic work despite her not being a professional photographer and having little photographic material. After completing this set of pictures for her book, she “never photographed again,” he stressed.

“She had never photographed before; she used the most basic camera there was: a Kodak box, with just one button to press and no way of focussing,” she said. “These are photographs in which the percentage of masterpieces is absolutely extraordinary.”

Calado went so far as to make an association between Lamas’s work and the golden age of photography in the US.

Evoking the stock market crash of 1929 and the great drought – a period that gave rise to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s statement that he saw “one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished” – Calado recalled how the then president “set an example to the world” by calling on artists to make them aware of this situation and urging them to write novels, compose music and make films that showed this reality.

“Artists, in any society, are always the last to be called upon,” lamented Calado, highlighting how “Maria Lamas did the same: showing Portuguese women in Portugal.

“There is no photographer in Portugal who did this, and she didn’t know American photography, so it’s unique,” he stressed. “What’s more, she took the photographs and wrote the texts, which is also unique. Nobody in America did this.”

This is why, according to Calado, who said that he has always been interested in “women who have asserted themselves throughout history”, Lamas was a woman who was “always ahead of her time” and “above” conventions that tended to compartmentalise women into classifications.

“Maria Lamas was an absolutely brilliant woman, for me the most remarkable,” he said. “Sometimes people ask me: ‘What about Amália? Amália was a diva. I’m talking about women.”

The Gulbenkian exhibition also has an initial part in which Lamas’s personal objects, books that she wrote and translated and journalistic works are presented, as well as a portrait of her painted by the late Júlio Pomar in 1954 and a plaster bust of her, sculpted in 1929 by Júlio de Sousa.

The photographs on display are almost all originals, which were in her family’s possession.

The exhibition can be seen every day between 10h00 and 18h00. Entrance is free.

AL/ARO // ARO.

Lusa

He could be called Midland’s photographer.

Many area residents have likely come across a postcard or picture created through the lens of prolific photographer John Witherspoon Bald.

Known as J.W. Bald, he was responsible for capturing many important moments of the town’s early history as well as providing a great glimpse into life at the time.

Bald was born on April 7, 1868 in Parsonstown, Ireland and died in 1961.

According to Huronia Museum archives, Bald began his first photographic business in Penetanguishene.

In 1896, he purchased a studio in Midland on King Street with his photographic career beginning shortly after the introduction of gelatine dry- plate photography.

“This type of plate was commercially prepared and could be stored prior to exposure,” the museum notes. “This was a major improvement over the earlier collodion wet plates, improving the process and freeing photographers to take photographs practically anywhere.”

Bald would go on to record life in his community from 1890 until 1953 when he retired.

He was well known for portraits, landscapes and other commercial photographs.

He worked for both Midland newspapers, the Free Press and the Argus and also developed an extensive postcard business.

“Bald’s work is a complete record of the life, work and play of small-town Ontario,” the museum adds. “Business, ships, harbour life, industries, social life, hunting, tourism, sports, portraits, all subjects found in his work.”

The Huroria Museum has an extensive collection of Bald’s photographs, postcards and equipment.

The Nature Photography Contest has unveiled the winners and finalists of its first international award edition, created to remind us of what we have and must not lose.

“Uniting Environmental Commitment and the Beauty of Photography,” the competition aims to serve as a meeting point for photographers of all levels to share the wonders of the natural world.

“Nature photography is a great way to raise awareness on how crucial it is to protect our planet,” the awards organization explains.

The Nature Photography Contest is an online photo competition that is also working on planting a forest: “Each of the participants of our photo competition will become a tree and the winner of our contest decides in which country they will be planted.”

For this first edition, the contest was open to 10 categories: Natural Landscape, Wildlife, Funny Nature, Macro Photography, Underwater, Birds, Plant Life, Night World, Environmental Impact and Sharing the Planet.

The Photography Of The Year Award was given to the “Sea Lion in Los Islotes” image by photographer Glenn Ostle, along with a €1,000 prize.

“Ostle’s photo capture the exact moment when the sea lion seems to be posing for him in front of a school of fish that forms an inimitable natural backdrop,” the jury explained. ‘Not surprisingly, the naturalness of the animal and the complexity of the image perfectly illustrate the importance of our seabed and the care of its species.”

The next Nature Photography Contest will be open for entries on May 15.

Photo Of The Year

Photographer Of The Year

The Photographer of the Year award went to Alain Schroeder “for his striking images. that stand out for his commitment to the environment.” As part of the award, the Photographer of the Year will decide the country where the contest, in collaboration with One Tree Planted, will plant more than 400 trees.

Those funny animals

Monday: A spotted owlet emerges from a hollow within a yellow flame tree. This species of owl is characterized by its small size, primarily nocturnal feeding behavior and frequence in urban areas. Without a sharp eye, this spotted owlet would go unnoticed. These spotted owlets, somehow, have shown their adaptability, finding habitats within modified urban environments.

It was a memorable experience for the photographeer capturing a playful moment with this cub in Wilpattu National Park, Sri Lanka. The fact that the cub stuck out its tongue added a delightful touch to the photograph.

Its normal behavior of praying mantises, when defending themselves. They look like smiling dancers.

Salmon regret; no judgements; we’ve all been there. You’re standing in the middle of a massive school of sockeye salmon and you just get a little carried away. After all, it’s not my fault – I’m in full-blown hyperphagia. Now it’s time to find some soft grass and sleep off this salmon-induced food coma. This shot was taken at Alaska’s Brook Falls Camp.

“An unusually cheeky Red-Winged Blackbird swooped down and landed on the back of this Great Blue Heron several times,” the photographer recalled. “I had never seen this behavior before as herons commonly foraged for hours amidst the blackbirds in relative harmony.”

Some places require a little gymnastics to clean.

Wildlife

Stories in the sand: “The scorpion is widely distributed in India,” said the photographer. “Once the evening falls, they emerge across the dunes in Jaisalmer to feed.”

When lighted by faint ultraviolet light, they emit bright blue luminescence from their body.

“This curious little Arctic fox cub came checking me out for a while last summer in Svalbard,” said Piet van den Bemd. “Showing respect and acting calm, this little guy kept playing hide and seek with me and gave me some great possibilities to shoot wide angle.”

The wind was strong the day Patrice Quillard snared this shot at Ethiopia’s Simien Mountains National Park. “This weather inconvenience became an asset as it ruffled the long hairs of the larger Theropithecus Gelada male monkeys. This one was particularly annoyed by the violent gusts blowing over the highlands. With each squall his long hairs rose in all directions and I found the scene quite graphic.”

Tigress “Noor” of India’s Ranthambore National Park has raised many litters in her lifetime, including these two almost-adult sisters enjoying carefree play before the worries of adulthood

Amazing birds

A Puffin out for a stroll along a cliff in Iceland.

Short-eared owl, in late winter, Norway.

A flock of white egrets flies past a stand of bald cypress trees in the 9,300-acre Cypress Island Nature Preserve in Louisiana, a primordial swampy ecosystem that supports abundant wildlife, including one of the largest wading bird rookeries in North America.

‘I was in Uganda and stayed in a tented hotel set along the Nile River,” said June Greenspa. “A slow boat ride took us along Papyrus growth. Papyrus look like feathers emerging out of the water. Suddenly I saw this black bird flying along the length of the Papyrus.”

Macrophotography

The Dreamer: Morning dew and sun combine to spotlight a beautiful Philaeus chrysops female spider surveying her nest.

A Praying mantis peers out from behind of the leaf.

Small Goby fish, this one less than one-inch long, are commonly found on and around sea pens such as this one in the waters of Dumaguete, Philippines.

Life underwater

A larval Moray Eel circles when feeling threatened.

“The video I took of this turtle blowing bubbles went viral globally,” said Charlotte Piho. “Nobody seems to have seen a turtle deep in the ocean blowing bubbles. Showing that animals, just like humans, have distinct personalities and are vulnerable, this photo brings awareness on the humans need to protect our oceans and marine life.”

This photo was taken under the Arctic Ocean Polar Circle during an expedition of several underwater photographers. This creature was found at a depth of 15 meters attached to a seaweed due to its baby state. It’s about three centimeters and the species is virtually impossible to see anywhere else.

Natural landscapes day and night

“One of my favorite things when exploring Iceland is the incredible glacial river perspective seen from up high,” explained Marke Biegalski. “They’re called ‘braided river’ systems, as they often resemble an intricate jumble of intertwining patterns. These networks of river channels flow from the glaciers toward the sea, carrying vital nutrients in the form of sediment. When the flow of the rivers decreases, the sediment gets deposited on the river bed, leaving behind small temporary islands of dark volcanic sand.”

The photo was taken in Yuli County, Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture. Snowflakes descended to the ground like goose feathers, one after another. They gently fell onto the earth and onto the mountain peaks.

This was a “panoramic night photograph in which I could capture the arch of the Milky Way passing behind the natural arch called Es Pontàs,” said Marc Marco. “In the photograph, I could also capture a small cave in front of the arch.”

Plants

“This panorama shows the beauty of Chapada dos Veadeiros, a Brazilian national park that hosts a rich biodiversity and breathtaking landscapes,” said Marcio Cabral.

“The white flowers that stand out in the foreground are a rare species of Paepalanthus, a genus of plants endemic to the region. They were illuminated by a scurion lamp to create a contrast with the dark sky.

In the background, the Milky Way curves over the hills, revealing the colors and shapes of stars and nebulae. This pano was taken with a specialized camera for astrophotography, which allows capturing more details of the universe.”

In Spain’s Sierra de Baza, more than 2,000 meters above sea level, the genuine pinus sylvestris nevadensis stoically survive.

Sharing The Planet

The encroachment of human settlements into bushland in South Africa means that this young female leopard has no way to find her own new territory, cut off by miles long fence separating the wild from human population.

A mangrove forest surrounds the Graha Indah residential area in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, Borneo.

Indonesia’s abundant natural resources have attracted large-scale foreign investment for decades — drawn by loosely regulated mining, logging, and palm oil production that causes irreparable harm to its biodiversity.

Widespread deforestation is now the primary threat to the critically endangered orangutan that can be found only on the islands of Sumatra and Borneo. The question: Is it too late to save orangutans?