Instructors
Kendra organizes logistics for BugShots, she is an ecologist, photographer, educators and outdoor enthusiasts based in Tuscaloosa, AL. She loves outreach events to excite others about the amazing biodiversity she has been able to observe her backyard and through her travels. She is the Research and Outreach Coordinator at the Alabama Museum of Natural History.
John is a professional nature photographers, educators and outdoor enthusiasts based in Tuscaloosa, AL. John has focused on dragonflies and damselflies throughout much of his career and has written three books on these beautiful subjects that contain much of his photography. John and his wife Kendra are currently working on Peterson Field Guide to Insects of North America and writing a field guide to the Common Insects of Texas He is currently the Director of Research and Collections at the University of Alabama Museums.
Clay Bolt is a Natural History and Conservation Photographer specializing in the world’s smaller creatures who regularly partners with organizations such as the National Geographic Society and the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. His current major focus is on North America’s native bees and the important roles that they play in our lives. He was a leading voice in the fight to protect the rusty-patched bumble bee under the Endangered Species Act, which became North America’s first federally protected native bee in 2017. In 2019, Bolt became the first photographer to document a living Wallace’s Giant Bee—the world’s largest bee—as a part of a four person exploration team to rediscover the species in the Indonesian islands knowns as North Moluku. In his current role as Communications Lead for World Wildlife Fund’s Northern Great Plains Program he is developing comms strategies to protect insects and fight grasslands biodiversity loss by gaining a greater understanding of the effects that Neonicotinoid pesticides have on wildlife. Clay is a Fellow in the Linnean Society of London, Associate Fellow in the International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP), and past president of the North American Nature Photography Association (NANPA). Learn more at www.claybolt.com. Clay’s headshot © Day’s Edge Productions.
Jena Johnson loves photographing insects because it allows her to share the hidden beauty of the insect world with others.
Insects have always fascinated her. As young child she was mesmerized by the crawling motion of woolly bear caterpillars she held in a glass jar. When she first peered through a microscope and saw the magnified textures and colors of insects she knew she would pursue a career involved with these animals.
She has worked in insect research laboratories since 1982, earning my M.S in Entomology from Clemson University in 1987
Nicky Bay is a world-renowned macro-photographer based in Singapore with works featured on National Geographic, BBC, WIRED, and numerous other publications worldwide. He has had solo photo exhibitions in Europe and parts of Asia. Nicky conducts macro photography workshops in exotic locations around the world, attracting participants from all over the world, many of whom are advanced photographers themselves.
Nicky has put together one of the largest individual arthropod photo databases in the world with over 25,000 high-quality macro photos.
An engineer by training, Nicky is also the Chief Technology Officer of a tech company and publishes his photographs with macro photography and natural history articles at www.nickybay.com.
Piotr (Peter) Naskrecki is a Polish-born entomologist, photographer and author, currently at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University (Cambridge, MA, USA.).Between 2002 and 2009 Piotr served as Director of the Invertebrate Diversity Initiative at the Center for Applied Biodiversity Science at Conservation International, Washington, D.C. His research focuses on the evolution of katydids and related insects, and the theory and practice of nature conservation.
As a photographer, Piotr strives to promote appreciation and conservation of invertebrate animals – insects, arachnids, and their kin – by capturing both their beauty and roles as vital, often critically important members of the Earth’s ecosystems. He is one of the founding members of the International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP).
Alex Wild is a Texas-based biologist who started photographing insects in 2002 as an aesthetic complement to his scientific work on ant taxonomy and evolution. Alex holds a Ph.D. in Entomology from the University of California/Davis and is Curator of Entomology at the University of Texas/Austin. His photographs appear in numerous natural history museums, magazines, books, television programs, and other media.
Thomas Shahan is an artist and photographer based out of Oklahoma, United States, who utilizes his background in printmaking to bring a creative approach to high-magnification macrophotography. He has worked as an imaging specialist for the Oregon Department of Agriculture, a video game artist, and a book illustrator. With a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art from the University of Oklahoma, his photographs have appeared in National Geographic, national television programs, and museums throughout the world. Despite an interest in all fields of entomology, his passion lies with arachnids, specifically salticids.