Instructors
We strive to create and maintain working and learning environments that are inclusive, equitable and welcoming. If you are interested in becoming a photography instructor for us, please email a resume to edu@cpacphoto.org.
Debe Arlook
Debe Arlook is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, mentor, and certified Life Coach whose work connects photography with mindfulness. Inspired by the fluid, nuanced nature of perception, her work explores memory, meditation, and caregiving, inviting reflection on how we perceive ourselves and the world. She holds a BA in Visual Communication from American University and teaches at the Los Angeles Center of Photography. Co-author of Both Sides of the Table: Photography Portfolio Reviews Do’s & Don’ts, Arlook combines practical guidance, coaching, and reflective practices to help photographers align their creative vision. Her award-winning work is exhibited and published worldwide. She divides her time between Denver and Los Angeles.
Morgain Bailey
Morgain Bailey (she/they, b.1970) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work spans photography, painting, printmaking and public art. Her photographic roots are in the darkroom at Santa Barbara City College in the 1980’s. Her work includes documenting our environment and making portrait projects as well as collaborative and site-specific interactive public art installations and events. She has a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and her work is held in collections globally. She teaches workshops both in-person and online.
Vera Benschop
Vera Benschop is a photographer and book maker based in Denver, Colorado. She received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2017. The name of her imprint is Benschop Books. Beginning as a self-publishing project, it has grown over time to include collaborations with other artists, including A. M. Sweeney, Erika Oakvik, Earl Standerford, Vann T. Powell, Jason and Keeley Bruner, Steven Ford, Judith Hornbogen, Meadow Treadwell, Justin Schaffer, and more. Benshop Books are designed with the content in mind so that form follows function as an art object. Books and zines alike are printed and handmade in Denver, Colorado by Vera Benschop
Derrick Burbul
Derrick Burbul is a Professor of Art & Design at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, which he joined in the Fall of 2005. He received his Master of Fine Arts in Studio Arts from the University of Idaho in May of 2000. Derrick is an active artist who mixes historical and contemporary photographic processes to explore the relationship between humans and their environment. For years he has been working to reduce the carbon footprint of his creative activities. He started this journey in 2015 when he began sourcing frame materials from palette wood and then started exploring using expired and otherwise ruined photographic paper so they would not go to waste; he found alternative processes like lumen and lith printing allowed these materials to create new expressive elements to his work. During the pandemic he spent time recycling past unsuccessful photographs and worked to transform them into successful works through ripping and cutting, toning, and, then reassembling them into new works. Most recently, he has approached the chemical part of photography and worked to understand how to make natural paper and film developers out of organic matter like potato peels, grass, and other flora.
Christine Callahan
Christine Callahan is a native New Yorker and a member of the LGBTQ+ community. She earned her MFA in Advanced Photographic Studies from Bard College and her BFA from the School of Visual Arts. Her photographs are in the permanent collections of the Musée de l’Élysée, Lausanne, Switzerland, and the International Center of Photography, New York. She has exhibited her work widely, including at Aperture Foundation, New York; Cardi School of Art and Design, Wales; Context Gallery, Northern Ireland; Fototeca del Centro de las Artes, Mexico; Landskrona Museum, Sweden; LiShui Museum of Photography, China and Musée Batha, Morocco.
Christine has received grants from the British Arts Council; National Lottery Fund, Arts Council of Northern Ireland; ISE Cultural Foundation and the Director’s Fellowship, International Center of Photography.
Kimberly Chiaris
Kimberly Chiaris received her BFA in Photography from the Kansas City Art Institute. She currently lives in Colorado. Her interest lies mainly in personal story telling through hand made processes. She blends historical imagery with contemporary imagery in hopes of creating a visual conversation that transcends time as well as speaks into the future. Her practices often involve digital composites combined with analog and alternative processes that include elements of mixed media as well as hand made books. Her focus is primarily on themes of origin and identity and how trace memory, emotions, time and culture shape and shift our understanding of history.
Chelsea Chorpenning
Chelsea Chorpenning is a photographer focused on food, portrait, and lifestyle storytelling. She has worked professionally for more than 15 years, beginning in film and learning the craft through darkroom practice before transitioning into digital. Her experience includes photographing three published cookbooks, contributing to visual campaigns for restaurants and brands, and having work featured in Cosmopolitan and 5280 Magazine. She has trained at the University of Colorado, the San Francisco Art Institute, and the International Center of Photography. Chelsea’s approach centers on creating images that support a brand’s message, clarify ideas, and help people communicate their vision through visual storytelling.
Megan Coleman
Megan Coleman is the Head Framer at Fascination St. Gallery and Denver Custom Frames. Her background includes degrees in Photography and Art History from the University of Colorado Denver. Her background in the arts informs her approach to framing, with an emphasis on conservation and preservation for artworks and memorabilia. She has worked in a variety of roles throughout the art world and is currently deeply engaged in the art and practice of framing.
Todd Dobbs
Todd Dobbs is a Denver-based conceptual artist whose work bridges traditional and contemporary practices. He holds a BFA from the Ohio State University and an MFA from the University of Colorado. Currently, he serves as an Associate Professor of Photography at the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design (RMCAD). Through his practice, Dobbs explores the dynamic interplay between historical photographic techniques and emerging technologies, including AI, creating art that challenges conventional boundaries and fosters innovation. (Instructor for Veterans Workshop Series)
Angela Faris
Angela Faris is a visual artist whose work spans historic to digital photographic processes. Creating artwork that centers on humankind’s relationship with the natural world, she combines specific media to mirror the concepts behind each body of work. Her work is widely recognized and exhibited, and is held in collections including Kaiser Permanente, the James Crown Collection and the Smithsonian Archive. A career college and workshop educator, she brings a wealth of knowledge to students in historic, darkroom and digital media. She has real passion and skill for helping artists find their voice and advance their photographic practice. Angela is a professional portfolio reviewer, an educator for the CPAC Veterans Workshop Series, and she is represented by Michael Warren Contemporary Gallery. (Instructor for Veterans Workshop Series)
Eric Hagemann
Eric Hagemann is a Colorado based fine art photographer and photo educator specializing in monochromatic landscape and architectural photography. With more than a decade of professional experience, he has been exhibiting work in galleries since 2015 and has received international recognition from the PX3, Spider, ReFocus, and ND Awards. Eric brings over 10 years of teaching experience as a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University, where he developed and taught innovative engineering courses to adult learners. This work paralleled his 38-year engineering career in the Federal government, during which he rose to senior leadership positions and designed innovative solutions to complex technical and political challenges. Together, these experiences have shaped his ability to communicate clearly, simplify complexity, and support diverse learning styles. Eric is passionate about helping photographers strengthen their artistic vision and technical skills. He focuses on simplifying complexity, building confidence in personal workflow, harnessing technology effectively, and supporting students as they create meaningful, expressive work.
Mari Howells
Mari Howells is a visual artist and teacher based in New York. She is an adjunct professor at Pratt SCPS, NY where she teaches a class in visual literacy. She received a Masters of Fine Art in photography from The Royal college of Art, London, with a distinction in research, and a Masters of Fine Art in Theatre, from Columbia University. She is a classically trained cellist, pianist and guitarist and worked with the renowned composer Rahayu Supanggah in Indonesia. Her photography draws on her theatrical and musical background, combining aspects of both through the filter of photography. Her work was most recently exhibited at Cromwell Place, London, UK.
McCory James
McCory James is a professional photographer with over 20 years of experience capturing stories through his lens. His camera has taken him across all 50 U.S. states and to more than 30 countries, from bustling city streets in Hong Kong to remote villages in Kenya. Whether he is photographing the quiet dignity of a stranger, the grandeur of ancient architecture, or the awe-inspiring beauty of nature, his work is driven by a deep desire to give the viewer of his photographs a sense of place. He opened his studio in 2002, where he blends travel photography and fine art projects with wedding and event photography. Throughout his career he has exhibited his photography in galleries and businesses around the globe and taught and spoke in various venues.
Michael Jones
Michael Jones is a landscape photographer living in Colorado Springs where he hikes and backpacks throughout Colorado with a focus on the Front Range. His primary focus is on personal relationship with the land and black and white printing. Michael is an avid reader, cyclist, and musician; who is a regular contributor to On Landscape Photography magazine. He is also authoring a book on Personal Photography.
Eric Joseph
Eric Joseph is a photographer and Co-President / Chief Products Education, Sales & Support Officer at Freestyle Photographic Supplies. Eric graduated from California State University, Northridge in 1985 with a B.A. in Art, Specializing in Photography. With over 30 years of experience in the photographic industry, he has unique access to vast technical resources and always seeks to share important and accurate information with as many folks as possible. Eric has traveled across the United States leading seminars and workshops related to digital printmaking. The most notable of which is entitled, “The World of Inkjet Paper…The Print Matters!” Speaking at colleges, universities, commercial labs, photo clubs, art centers and professional photographic organizations, Eric teaches digital printmaking with an emphasis on empirical knowledge allowing folks to make informed decisions about their digital output and how to obtain consistent, reliable, repeatable and controllable results. Eric regularly teaches a hands on class called “The Fine Art of Digital Printmaking” at the Los Angeles Center for Photography and performs workshops for Canon Learning Centers in Southern California and Leica Akademie.
R.J. Kern
R. J. Kern (American, b. 1978) is an artist whose work investigates ideas of home, ancestry, and a sense of place. His portraits focus on intimate, interdependent relationships of people, animals, and landscape as a means of exploring how ancestry shapes identity and how myth intertwines with personal history. His camera has led him from an inquiry into his lineage in the farming communities of Scandinavia and Ireland to the examination of similar communities near his home in Minnesota. Increasingly, his attention has been captured by the next generation of young people, who may or may not be stewards of rural communities and economies in the future.
Inspired by master landscape painters of the 19th-century, Kern embraces the heightened expressivity of natural and artificial lighting techniques. To draw sharper connections between traditional and modern farming routines, he adopts both historical and current photographic processes. While illuminating the ephemeral beauty of youth, Kern probes the current realities of agrarian practices, aspiring to enhance awareness and interest in the changing face of American pastoral life.
Bree Lamb
Bree Lamb is an artist, educator and editor based in New Mexico. She is Assistant Professor of Photography at New Mexico State University, and holds an MFA from the University of New Mexico and a BFA from Pennsylvania State University. She is a Beaumont Newhall/Van Deren Coke Fellow, and is represented by Gallery19 in Chicago. Her work is held in permanent collections at the Colorado Photographic Arts Center, the University of Iowa, Arizona State University and the Southwest Center for Research. For the last five years, Lamb has been the Managing Editor for Fraction Magazine, an online venue for contemporary photography. She has reviewed portfolios at national and international events including Review Santa Fe, Medium Festival of Photography, Mt. Rokko Photography Festival, Month of Photography Denver, New England Portfolio Reviews, the Society for Photographic Education National Conference, and Photolucida. Lamb’s creative research questions social conventions, with particular focus on the complexities of identity, domesticity, and consumerism. Her work examines our shared desires to identify, connect, and indulge through images, as well as the inherent complications of contemporary vernacular photography.
Jennifer McClure
Jennifer McClure is a fine art photographer based in New York City. She uses the camera to ask and answer questions. The Leica Gallery in Boston presented her solo show “How Easily We Are Undone” in 2024. Her first book, You Who Never Arrived, was published as by Peanut Press in 2020. She was awarded CENTER’s Editor’s Choice in 2013 and has been exhibited in numerous shows across the country. Her work has been featured in publications such as National Geographic, Vogue, GUP, The New Republic, Lenscratch, Feature Shoot, L’Oeil de la Photographie, The Photo Review, Dwell, and PDN.
Mark Payler
Mark A. Payler is a Colorado-based photographer whose work explores the relationship between light, perception, and visual structure. Working across urban and natural environments, his photographs often examine moments when reflection, shadow, and color compress space and reveal unexpected visual relationships within everyday scenes.
His work has been published in the book A Day in the Life of America, featured in the 50th Anniversary issue of Popular Photography, and presented in Route Magazine, where a portfolio of his Route 66 photography was highlighted. Payler’s projects range from urban reflections and abstract landscapes to documentary studies of American places and culture. As an instructor, Payler encourages photographers to slow down, observe carefully, and develop a stronger visual voice. His teaching focuses on seeing light, understanding composition, and helping students translate their ideas into meaningful photographic work.
Mailyn Pulido
Mailyn Pulido born in Caracas – Venezuela in 1987. Discovered her connection with photography at an early age, but it wasn’t until 2022 that she decided to pursue it professionally. Her specialty is portraits, which she often complements with commercial product photography. As an instructor, she takes a practical approach, designed especially for beginners who want to move from automatic mode to full control of their camera.
Aline Smithson
Aline Smithson is an interdisciplinary artist, filmmaker, educator, and editor based in Los Angeles, California. Her practice examines the archetypal foundations of the creative impulse and she uses humor and pathos to explore the performative potential of photography. She received a BA in art from the University of California at Santa Barbara and was accepted into the College of Creative Studies, studying under significant California artists. After a decade-long career as a New York Fashion Editor, Smithson returned to Los Angeles and to her own artistic practice.
Mary Virginia Swanson
Mary Virginia Swanson is an author, educator, and advisor who has spent her career helping lens-based artists identify the strengths in their work, understand their audiences, and present projects in a professional and timely manner. She is the co-author, with Darius D. Himes, of Publish Your Photography Book, first released in 2011 and updated in a third edition by Radius Books in 2023. She is an active member of the contemporary photobook community and regularly serves as a portfolio reviewer, juror, and workshop instructor focused on helping artists bring projects to publication.
Brianna Tadeo
Brianna Tadeo (they/them) is a visual artist and educator whose practice explores the history and evolution of photography through a hybrid approach that blends traditional analog processes with digital experimentation. Introduced to the darkroom at age 12 in Philadelphia, their work is rooted in a material understanding of the medium and shaped by a hands-on engagement with old cameras and reclaimed materials. Tadeo holds a BFA from California College of the Arts and an MFA in Studio Arts from the University of New Mexico.As an instructor, Tadeo is committed to process-based learning and encourages experimentation while making photography accessible through alternative and historical techniques.
Jeff Tidwell
Jeff Tidwell is a Denver-based street photographer who captures the city’s essence through candid moments and human stories. Wandering from the lively 16th Street Mall to quiet historic corners, he finds beauty in everyday life. Influenced by renowned photographers like Saul Leiter and Daidō Moriyama, Jeff’s stark black-and-white images highlight reflections and intimate portraits. His work invites viewers to pause and connect with the diverse, vibrant narratives of Denver’s people and places, turning fleeting moments into profound reflections on the human experience.
Frank Varney
Frank Varney is a fine art architectural and street photographer with over forty years of professional experience. He has taught adult and teen workshops for CPAC, since 2016, and is the principal instructor for CPAC’s annual Veterans Workshop Series. Frank was a co-instructor for 9 years at the FirstLight Visual Narrative Workshops with Jay Dickman. He served as the Photography Department Chair for the Art Institute of Colorado for 19 years and has taught courses at Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design and Red Rocks Community College. Frank holds an MFA from Maine Media College, and a BA in Communications from University of Denver.
Kenneth Wajda
Kenneth Wajda is an editorial and commercial portrait photographer based in Boulder, Colorado. From Kenneth: “As a 30-year professional photographer, I have a job I consider one of the best and genuinely a privilege to have. On any given day, I get to document people and their world and create images that tell their stories, whether for a magazine, news article, advertisement or annual report.” Kenneth believes in the importance of making photographic prints, he shoots digitally for commercial shoots and film for personal projects, he teaches workshops, exhibits in galleries, and coordinates a local salon with other photographers.
Em Warnock
Em Warnock is a film photographer currently based in Denver, Colorado. They have been shooting film for 11 years, making work in a documentary style about identity, intimacy, the queer community, and mental health.
Jackie Webster
Jackie Webster has been making photographic works for more than 30 years, and loves all things analog and darkroom. A graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design, she continued her education over the years, studying historic processes at the George Eastman Museum, as well as at the Scully and Osterman Studio in Rochester, New York. Formerly an instructor at the Art Students League of Denver, she became a founding member of the Light Poets Guild in 2025. Named one of Colorado’s Top 100 Creatives in 2017, she has work in private and public collections around the U.S.
Paul Weinrauch
Paul D. Weinrauch is a passionate Architectural and Commercial Photographer based in Colorado. Paul’s passion became a purpose back in 1999 when he sold everything, traveled across the country for years and captured his entire journey through a lens. While the art of photography allows Paul to express himself creatively, his primary mission in life is to be of service to others. When he doesn’t have a camera in hand or is teaching, Paul enjoys going on long runs and cooking delectable meals. He also cherishes spending quality time with his loved ones and during the summer he can usually be found hiking 14ers with his children. (Instructor for Veterans Workshop Series)
Willy Wilson
Willy Wilson (she/her) is a Denver-based artist and photographer whose work explores materiality, transformation, and layered image-making. She studied fine art, fashion design, and lm at CU Boulder, Emily Griffith, and the Colorado Film School, and has taught workshops in photography and creative practice. A former vocational instructor at Emily Griffith, she brings years of teaching experience to her current work. Willy was named Photographer of the Year by the National Association of Portrait & Child Photographers in 2023, recognizing her ability to merge technical precision with artistic exploration.
Edie Winograde
Edie Winograde is a photographic artist based in Denver. She began working in photography as a teenager in rural northern California. She holds a BA in Environmental Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an MFA in Photography and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Her work explores intersections of history, place, and landscape and has been exhibited nationally at museums and galleries including the International Center of Photography, Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, Aspen Art Museum, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Torrance Art Museum, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center and Front Room Gallery. Her work is included in the permanent photography collection of the Denver Art Museum, along with other public and private collections, and she is represented by Robischon Gallery in Denver. She has taught photography at the college level in Colorado for over fifteen years.
Shelby Wright
Shelby Wright (Chad Cullen) is an American-Australian photographer and educator who has been primarily working in the wet plate collodion process since first learning it in 2021 in Tasmania. He is drawn to both the hands-on, DIY aspect of the process as well as the unique images it produces, and is equally at home sharing the process with strangers at busy pop-up events as he is alone out in nature with his chemicals, darkbox, and camera. He is currently pursuing his AAS in Fine Woodworking at Red Rocks Community College with the aim of designing and building his own photographic equipment.
Alice Sachs Zimet
Alice Sachs Zimet, President, Arts + Business Partners (ABP), began to collect photography in 1985 and has amassed over 350 museum-worthy images by 148 different photographers, from 20th Century masters to the present. Alice is Chair, Collections Committee, International Center of Photography (ICP); Chair, Photography Curatorial Committee, Harvard Art Museums; Board Member, Magnum Foundation; and Advisory Board Member: Center for Photography at Woodstock (CPW) and the American Photography Archives Group (APAG). Alice founded ABP after a 20-year career as Director, Worldwide Cultural Affairs, The Chase Manhattan Bank. She created the first corporate sponsorship program in a commercial bank, working across 14 countries and generating over $2 billion using the arts as a strategic marketing tool.
As an educator, Alice has taught workshops for collectors and photographers about the fine art photography marketplace for over 15 years. Over 1,000 seasoned to nascent collectors, photographers, museum trustees (and their children), members of museum acquisition and exhibition committees, gallery owners, private art advisors and art appraisers have cycled through her workshops. She teaches regularly at the ICP School, Maine Media Workshops + College, the Houston Center of Photography as well as Christie’s Education and Swann Auction Galleries (among others) and is Adjunct Professor at New York University’s Graduate Program in Arts Administration.
Alice continues to live, work and collect in New York City.