Have a question about APC, Rarefied Light, our various workshops and artist talks? Send an email to the board via akphotocenter@gmail.com
APC Board President – Bonnie Landis
Bonnie is an Anchorage based visual artist. Her practice explores the beauty of the natural world as well as abandoned and detached landscapes. She is drawn to motion and abstraction in the natural world.
Her photographs are in the permanent collections of the Alaska Contemporary Art Bank, the Anchorage Museum, the Alaska State Museum, and the University of Alaska Museum of the North in addition to private collections.
She has served on the APC Board of Directors since 2004 and is happy to contribute to the promotion of photographic art in Alaska.
APC Board Vice President – Gayle Neufeld
Love of photography runs in Gayle’s family, where it has been shared and enjoyed together through four generations. She got her first point and shoot camera while in grammar school, and she purchased her first SLR camera in high school, making the switch to digital in 2008.
Gayle considers herself very fortunate that her career as a biologist in Alaska has given her the opportunity to view nature at its very best. She is always amazed at our natural world and enjoys documenting her experiences through photography.
Board Member – Michael Conti
Michael Conti is a photographer, mixed media and video artist based in Anchorage, Alaska. He earned a BFA from the University of Alaska Anchorage, and an MFA from Lesley University College of Art and Design. In 2016 he mounted a solo exhibit at the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center. His video work has been shown at the Nam June Paik Art Center in Seoul, South Korea, ContainR at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada and won awards at the Anchorage International Film Festival.
He received a project award from the Rasmuson Foundation in both 2006, 2015 and 2022 and is a Connie Boocheever Fellow from the Alaska State Council on the Arts in 2011. He is head of photography and video art at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
Board Member – Loren Holmes
Loren Holmes is a former staff photographer at the Anchorage Daily News, where he was a member of a team that was awarded the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.
His work has been recognized with awards from the National Press Photographers Association, Alaska Press Club, Society of Professional Journalists, and Best of the West. A portfolio of his photography received an honorable mention in the 2016 NPPA Best of Photojournalism contest – Photojournalist of the Year (Small Market). His photography has also been recognized by Rarefied Light and Alaska Positive.
Loren is also a 4-time Pulitzer Center grantee, reporting on Alaska’s fishing industry. He holds a BA in philosophy from Carleton College and a MA in photojournalism from the School of Visual Communication at Ohio University.
Board Member – Matt Johnson
Bio & Picture to come.
Board Member – Young Kim
Young Kim was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska where he currently resides. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Public communications from the University of Alaska Anchorage and has recently earned a Master of Fine Arts in Photography from the Hartford Art School at the University of Hartford. He is currently owner and director of the Anchorage-based photography center, The Stoop. He loves when all his eggs are in a row and all his ducks are in a basket.
Board Member – J. Jason Lazarus
J. Jason Lazarus is an Alaska-based photographer and educator that creates handmade and narrative-driven photographic work utilizing a wide range of alternative and historical photographic processes. Lazarus has served as a photographic educator at the University of Alaska Fairbanks since 2005, teaching and developing a wide range of courses in digital, alternative and traditional darkroom photography. His alternative process work ranges from abstract Chemigram prints that discuss the complex historical legacy left behind by World War II to darkroom-printed Mordançage images that show a fragile Western American landscape decaying under the pressures of resource development, economic failures and climate change. Lazarus also spends the lengthy, dimly-lit winter months in Alaska creating unique portraits of its fragile tundra with his Fujifilm x100F digital camera, finding an uncanny beauty among its bleak northern latitudes, as seen in his series entitled “Resilient”.
Lazarus has exhibited his work at the Museum of the North (Fairbanks, Ak.), Portland’s Blue Sky Gallery, New York’s SoHo Photo, the Bathhouse Cultural Center (Dallas, Tx), Vermont’s Photoplace Gallery, and the Center for Fine Art Photography (Fort Collins, Co.), among many others. His work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at institutions of higher learning including Millikin University, University of La Verne, Oregon State University, University of Wyoming, and Black Hills State University. His work was selected for participation in the 2021 Pingyao International Photography Exhibition in China and the 2017 PhotoLA Art Fair in Los Angeles. Lazarus’ work has been recently published in Analog Forever Magazine, Seities, and the Hand Magazine, along with being featured and interviewed by Petapixel and Catalyst Interviews.
Jason has been a board member of APC since 2020.
Board Member – Petra Lisiecki
Petra Lisiecki is an Anchorage based photographer. Her background started in Architecture and eventually lead to Photography. She loves photographing in theatrical settings and the Ethereal.
Ralph Gibson writes of her work:
“Petra Lisiecki finds herself dwelling in that unusual visual place which exists only in photography. Best described in words one would define this dimension as floating between the concrete and the abstract…all done with light.”
Petra has been a board member of APC since 2012.
Board Member – Kevin G. Smith
Kevin is a free-lance visual artist specializing in fine art, environmental portraiture, architectural, and artwork photography. After graduating from UAA in 1986 with a degree in Advertising and Public relations he moved overseas to Germany where he spent 10 years playing semi-pro basketball and also worked as an advertising executive. He returned in 1996 and spent the next 5 years shooting for Chris Arend; one of the most respected names in Alaskan photography, before starting his own business in 2002. He started doing large scale photo-graphic art installations in 2006 after winning a % for art RFP for the Yupiit School District in Alaska.
Since 2006 he has done installations for 18 Alaskan village schools; Akiak, Akiachak, Tuluksak, Kalskag, Noatak, Deering, Shungnak, Kobuk, Kotzebue, Anaktuvuk Pass, Ruby, Mountain Village, Nulato, Emmonak,Huslia, Allakakat, Kivalina and Alukanuk as well as murals for fire stations # 3 and # 4 in Anchorage, the Machentanz Elementary School in Palmer, the Joe Redington Sr. Jr/Sr High School, Dena’ina Elementary School and the Mat-Su Career and Technical Center High School in Wasilla, Ryan Middle School in Fairbanks, the Harry J. MacDonald Center in Eagle River and murals and interior artwork for the “Top of the World Hotel” in Barrow and the Imaging Centers Medical buildings in Anchorage and in Palmer.