Range Masters

Benjamin Von Wong's (he/him) work lies at the intersection of fantasy and photography and combines everyday objects with shocking statistics. It has attracted the attention of corporations, like Starbucks, Dell, and Nike, and has generated over 100 million views for causes like ocean plastics, electronic waste, and fashion pollution. Most recently, he was named one of Adweek's 11 content branded masterminds.

He is also the host of a Top 5% podcast called Impact Everywhere, and a creative advisor for the Sustainable Ocean Alliance and the Ocean Plastic Leadership Network.

The Shooting Range Admin highly recommends checking out his work, but finds his Daily Thoughts particularly wonderful.

The Art | The Unforgettable Campaigns | The Gram | Daily Thoughts

Cathie Calarco is a fundraiser, marketing expert, community builder, and entrepreneur. Her passions include supporting the local community and local businesses, which she has been doing for over a decade through her publications showcasing them and telling their stories.

Cathie believes that the key to a strong community is through connecting dots - building authentic relationships - which she does this through storytelling. Whether fundraising for the needs of the regional hospitals or helping a local business stand out, Cathie feels everyone has a story to tell. Humanizing your brand, business, or cause is the key to inspiring someone to take action.

Whether through photos, verbally, or in written word, when storytelling comes from the heart, it cuts through the distracted, noisy world and resonates with real people in real communities, and to Cathie that’s beautiful and powerful.

Website | Facebook | Instagram

It takes a certain personality to appreciate the details of a climate rarely inhabited by people. Curtis Jones (he/him) has spent most of his career saturating himself in the polar regions of the planet, dividing his residency between Newfoundland and Nunavut, Canada. Over the last decade, his adventurous lifestyle has taken him across the Gobi Desert by kite buggy, on a 2300 km unsupported traverse of the Greenland Ice Cap, Antarctica, and a lifetime of climbing and exploration worldwide.

Working for both the private and public sector, he has documented work for environmental initiatives, literacy, Canadian National Parks, climate change and tourism in the Canadian Arctic. Collaborating with world-class athletes, production teams, and local cultures and communities, he has built his career delivering a personal view of the raw, wild, and often untamed. His work has been seen in National Geographic Adventure, Canadian Geographic, The Globe and Mail, Huffington Post Canada and more. Between commercial clients, he is often seen leading photography workshops in the polar regions of the Earth, sharing his appreciation for adventure with others. A collector of interesting stories, Curtis is rarely seen far from a camera, tent, or a good punchline.

Hot Tip to this year's Challengers: Do your research on who you're shooting for... check out Curtis's Youtube and CreativeLive, and if you decide you are in love with his work, you might even consider signing up for this amazing workshop in August 2022.

Website | Instagram | YouTube | CreativeLive | Workshops

TSR is honoured to have Jessica Vandenberghe, P.Eng., M.Sc. (she/her) as one of our Guest Judges for Season Two.

A survivor of the 60s scoop, Jessica is born of the Dene Thá First Nation and raised in a very inclusive German family in northern Alberta. She contributes to Truth and Reconciliation, acting as a bridge to Indigenous communities, talks to Calls to Action implementation, and works on TRC awareness through her consulting company Guiding Star Consulting. She is a mother of two and is passionate about equity, diversity and inclusion.

Jessica has had an exceptional career based on her two engineering degrees from the University of Alberta. She has worked in the oil sands, mining, regulatory, infrastructure, consulting industries and now academia. She is an Indigenous Professional Engineer, Industrial Professor, and the Assistant Dean, Engineering Community and Culture at the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Alberta.

She continues to sit on many boards and Councils, walks in many governance worlds, and does her best to contribute to the development of well-rounded and ethically-minded engineering students who will ultimately build strong and vibrant communities within Canada.

Start getting to know Jessica's incredible outreach initiatives by reading her interview with the Women in Leadership Foundation and listening to her Podcast Unsettled:Journeys in Truth and Conciliation.

LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook

Maggie (she/her) is a multi-discipline photographer based in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. With a love for many genres of photography, from portraits and weddings to fine art and landscape, she has been working as a professional photographer for almost 10 years. Photography has afforded her the opportunity to travel internationally for weddings and workshops. Apart from running her photography business, she also teaches workshops, is a curator for Canadian Creatives, and is a regular contributor at Offbeat Photo. Never taking anything too seriously, she is inspired by real moments and emotions, but also the process of creating an image from start to finish. In addition to digital photography, she has a new found obsession with film photography and enjoys incorporating 35 mm and medium format film into her work.

Instagram | Facebook | Website

Maya is a model, makeup artist, and pageant competitor. Major Titles she has held titles throughout her pageant career include ‘Miss East Central Alberta World 2019’, ‘Miss Global Trinidad & Tobago 2019/20’, and ‘Miss Galaxy Edmonton 2021’, and she is especially proud and honoured to announce she is an official delegate for Miss Universe Canada 2022.

Maya's journeys have seen her travel both across Canada as well as to warmer locations (like Mexico!) where she has modelled for countless photographers and designers. Most recently, she has walked in Western Canada Fashion Week and travelled to Vancouver to compete at the ‘FacesWest’ modelling and talent competition.

In addition to her modelling and pageant career, Maya is a make-up artist who specializes in bridal and runway makeup. She teaches the makeup artistry program at Edmonton’s Cosmetology College.

When you can't find her walking the runway or competing for the crown, you’ll most likely find Maya in the outdoors, pursuing her fitness passions and spending time with her family and beloved pets.

Website | Instagram | Facebook

Shaped by their experiences as darker-skinned Black women from the Canadian Prairies, Faith (she/her) and kēr (she/her) started Nylut, an online directory, to bridge gaps experienced daily by Black, Indigenous, and Persons of Colour (BIPOC) individuals seeking professionals capable of addressing the unique wants and needs of the BIPOC community in service-industry.

Their name is inspired by the Nile River and its inhabitants, who view the river as both a life source and a means of connecting communities. As such, Nylut (pronounced nigh-lutt) has built a feedback system into their platform that allows clients to provide reviews on registered services providers to help ensure a diverse, targeted, consumer-driven database.

Launched in November of 2021, Nylut currently services SK and ON, but their vision is to connect BIPOC individuals with professional hair and make-up artists, skincare professionals, tattooists, and (obviously!) photographers from across Canada.

TSR is excited to see where Nylut is headed but they're a brand-spanking new company, so please get social - give them a follow and help spread their vision!

Website | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook

TSR is delighted that internationally-renowned photographer and digital artist Renee Robyn (she/her) has agreed to come back as a Guest Judge for Season Two, and we cannot wait to reveal the Match Brief...

Renee's passion for education has seen her teaching workshops around the globe as well as make multiple appearances on CreativeLive. She began her 23 year romance with photography as a model, but has spent the last 12 years focussed on being a photographer and digital artist. In addition to being contracted for professional photography, she does a tonne of mentoring, teaching, and presenting across Canada and around the world. Despite this hectic schedule, Renee still manages to find time to wax poetic about her love for her furbaby as often as her love for photography.

Renee is currently shooting like mad and editing pixels in a Herculean effort to put together an art book.

Follow her. Absorb her images. Enjoy her words. Become a fan.

Website | Instagram

TSR welcomes Ronald Lee (he/him) to the Panel!

Mr. Lee is a commercial photographer working between North America and China. Based in Vancouver, he is an educator and hosts a community of photographers of all levels. His favourite subject matter to shoot photos and videos for are creative lighting, portraits, beauty, products and dance.

Mr. Lee's impressive roster of bragging rights includes being one of only a handful of certified Google Trusted Independent Photographers in Canada.

Thank you for joining Season Two, Ronald - our Challengers seriously could not ask for a more well-rounded team of Resident Range Masters!

Website | Instagram 1 | Instagram 2

"When we share, we grow."

Spencer Wynn is a story teller at heart, and his career has taken him to extremes. As a college educator, Spencer is an animated professor, engaging his students in the discovery of creating images through story-based project work. He even organizes a "Midnight Run" for his students each semester where they spend an evening shooting the night sky north of Toronto. "I love my students - I am so inspired by their ideas and their thirst to learn," he says.

Using his skills as a visual journalist, designer, and photographer, Wynn prefers to live the stories he tells. “One can only truly tell a story of a people or culture if you have lived with the people or in the culture.” His personal work includes many trips to China where his love of the country's ethnic diversity has taken him to all regions of the vast country to live in caves, yurts, deserts, and at high altitude. He has joined in a hunting party while living with the Inuit in the Canadian Arctic, sailed up the west coast of Greenland and into the Northwest Passage to document fishing villages and environmental impacts, and has even laid on his stomach with a large huddle (herd) of walrus to photograph them. Additionally, Spencer took on a two-year documentary on the 30th anniversary of the Bhopal gas disaster in India.

Spencer is a creative person, always looking to push himself and his skills in order to stay current with technology and learn more about the diversity around him. TSR is thrilled to have a passionate educator and explorer on the Panel for Season Two.

Website | Instagram

Teri Hofford (she/her) is a Body Image Expert, Photographer & Author driven to help people challenge their body image biases & beliefs. Through curiosity, compassion, and creative education, she encourages people to move towards body acceptance and self love. Teri is the author of The Geode Theory: Chipping Away at Body Image and the creator of Body Image Bootcamp, a series of workshops designed to help folks who have been socialized as women to work through their body image issues. Teri's Confident Curves education shifted the narrative around bodies in the photography industry and since then, she has gone on to create 2 more educational platforms for photographers: The Boudoir University and Beyond the Body: Body Image & Mindset Education for Photographers.

You can join Teri's amazing online community, but if you're not ready to get social with "Tough Love Teri" just yet, grab the book and then head on over and dive in.

Website | Instagram | YouTube | Buy the Book | Learn

Two Mann Studios is Erika (she/her) and Lanny (he/him) Mann. Together, they bring a uniquely creative style of documentary photography to wedding celebrations all over the world.

These decorated veterans of the photography community come with awards as varied as "Fearless Photographer of the Year" to "International Wedding Photographer of the Year" but what The Shooting Range is by far most excited about is their dogged and unrelenting dedication to sharing their passionate love of all things light, love, and photography. Unlike the days where photographers hoarded secrets, over the past decade or so Erika and Lanny (through Two Mann U) have helped countless other photographers transcend the confines of typical photography in pursuit of elevated images "that communicate the essence of who you are, that tell stories beyond what you see, and that move complete strangers to stop and stare."

Please check out their phenomenal work at the links below, and (if you're a photographer) get yourself on the waiting list for their next round of Two Mann U...

Instagram | Facebook | Website