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A group of photojournalists, documentary photographers, fine art photographers, and photography lovers in the Fargo-Moorhead area.
Mark Anthony, Moorhead
Email: anthonym@mnstate.edu
Website: www.visphoto.com
Mark is a freelance and commercial photographer whose work has appeared in many area commercial, corporate and university publications. He operates Visionaries Photography in Fargo. Mark has taught photography and digital media at North Dakota State University and currently is an adjunct instructor at Minnesota State University Moorhead. He holds a B.A. degree from MSUM.
Ross F. Collins, Fargo
Email: ross.collins@ndsu.edu
Website: www.rossfcollins.com/photography
Social media:
Facebook: ross.collins.507
Twitter: @rossfcollins
Instagram: www.instagram.com/rossfcollins
Ross is a professor of communication at North Dakota State University, Fargo. A Moorhead native, Ross began his professional career as a photojournalist, working under Forum photo chief Colburn Hvidston III before moving to Britain to complete a master’s degree in European Cultural History at the University of Warwick. After returning to the area in 1981 he spent several years as a free-lance photographer and writer. In 1984 he joined Minnesota State University Moorhead as a public relations specialist and instructor of mass communications. In 1987 he returned to Britain to complete a Ph.D. in journalism history at the University of Cambridge. After working two years at the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, he joined NDSU in 1993.
Ross’s photographs have appeared in several dozen juried shows and other exhibits. He has published photographs in a wide variety of publications and is co-editor of a photography textbook, Photocommunication Across Media (Focal Press, 2018). He teaches photography, writing, editing, design, mass media history and other courses at NDSU. He is founder of the Celebrate Local Photography group.
Bruce Crummy, Fargo
Email: brucecrummy@yahoo.com
Website: brucecrummyphotography.com
Social media:
Facebook: Bruce Crummy Photography
Bruce is a freelance photojournalist in Fargo. From 1976-2008 he was a staff photographer at the Forum. His photographs have appeared in a wide variety of national publications, and have won many National Press Photographers Association and other awards. He has published two color photo documentary coffee-table books: Red River Historic Flooding (2009) and an area book, Fargo & Region (2013).
He has two grown daughters and three granddaughters and lives with his wife Lora in Fargo. A native of Argyle, Minn., graduated in 1976 from Minnesota State University Moorhead.
James Anthony Faris, Fargo
Email: james.faris@ndsu.edu
Website: anthonyfaris.wordpress.com
Anthony is a sculptor, writer, photographer and mixed media artist from Southeast Georgia living and working in Fargo. He graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design with a BFA in Photography. In 2014, Anthony completed his M.F.A. from Georgia Southern University in 3D art. Anthony is a co-founding member of the Stillmoreroots group, a rural arts advocacy group. He has worked in community development as Education and Outreach Director of Gallery RFD and Director of Downtown Development for the city of Swainsboro, Ga. He currently works as an Instructor and the Gallery Coordinator and Curator of Collections for North Dakota State University.
Dan Francis, Fargo
Email: dan@danfrancisphotography.com
Website: www.danfrancisphotography.com
Dan worked six years as a photographer and visual artist at a photography studio before opening his own studio in 2009. In addition to his work as a photography teacher, his art photography has appeared in a wide variety of juried exhibits, galleries and publications. He has become nationally known for his carefully set and lit genre work resembling enduring traditions of Norman Rockwell-style Americana.
Dan is a Master Photographic Craftsman and Certified Professional Photographer, winner of many awards, former president of the FM Camera Club and currently (2018) vice president of the Professional Photographers of North Dakota. His professional work specializes in architecture, interiors, commercial spaces and portraiture. He graduated from Northwest Technical College, Moorhead, Minn.
Lynn Fundingsland, Fargo
Email: omar1518@cableone.net
Website: lynnfundingsland.wordpress.com
Lynn retired as longtime director of the Fargo Housing and Redevelopment Authority in 2017, but continues as one of the region’s longtime photographers specializing in art photography. A former partner of Gallery 4, his work has appeared in many exhibits locally and regionally. He has published some of his work as a book, Leech Lake from the Lake (2012).
Darren Gibbins, West Fargo
Email: darren.gibbins@mnstate.edu
Social media:
Twitter: @seeingstraight
Website: www.mywedding.com/vendors/darren-gibbins-photography-147011
Darren is a commercial photographer and adjunct instructor of photography at Minnesota State University Moorhead. Before opening his own studio specializing in weddings and portraits, he spent two decades as a photojournalist working for the Forum and other publications.
Darren is originally from Bismarck, N.D., and a graduate of MSUM. In addition to his photography he serves as distribution manager for Spotlight Media.
Sheldon Green, Fargo
Email: sgreen@cord.edu
Sheldon is a retired a senior writer and photographer for the Office of Communications and Marketing at Concordia College, Moorhead. He collaborated on several books, including the five-volume North Dakota Centennial Book Series, Magnificent Churches on the Prairie (NDSU Press, 1996), and Unwanted Bread (NDSU Press, 2001). He previously edited the Hazen (N.D.) Star and North Dakota Horizons magazine, where his photos often appeared. His work has been featured in area exhibits and a Prairie Public TV television special.
Sheldon’s formal photography education consisted of a one-semester class at University of North Dakota taught by Forum photographer Colburn Hvidston III. He also studied at summer workshops led by National Geographic photographers William Albert Allard and Sam Abell. In retirement he continues to contribute photography to the Concordia music and sports information departments.
Wayne Gudmundson, Moorhead
Email: gudmund@mnstate.edu
Website: www.waynegudmundson.com
Wayne retired in 2013 from a career as a professor of photography at Minnesota State University Moorhead, but he continues to offer photo workshops regionally, and continues to produce work as one of the country’s well-known landscape photographers working in large format. His photography captures a grandeur of spare landscapes in North Dakota and Iceland. His work is part of many major permanent collections, and has appeared in nine books, public television documentaries and exhibits.
Colburn Hvidston III, Fargo
Email: chvid3@yahoo.com
Colburn (“CH3”), today the area’s most well-known photojournalist, retired as Fargo-Moorhead Forum photo chief in 2004 after a professional career that spanned the 1960s to the 2000s. He covered some of the most important events in area history, and his photos appeared in some of the country’s most important publications, beginning with Life magazine in 1959. That was when he was still a student at the University of North Dakota, but his interest in photography reaches to primary school days.
“I became totally fascinated with photography at the age of six,” he says. “My father purchased a locked trunk at an auction sale and we discovered it contained an ancient bellows camera and some cut film holders.” Colburn said his father bought some film, exposed it, and processed it in the darkened basement furnace room. “As the images began to appear I experienced the rush I still experience to this day! But today it comes when I tone an impressive digital image.”
Colburn was photographer for his school newspaper, beginning with a Speed Graphic press camera, and later moving to a Kodak Signet given to him as a gift in seventh grade.
At UND, “the agreement with my father was that I was to stay out of the darkroom my freshman year to insure I became well grounded I my classwork.” But the next year he joined the Dakota Student as a staff photographer, working as well for the annual and the university’s public information office. After graduating with a marketing degree in 1961, he accepted an offer as a staff photography at the Grand Forks Herald. “This was upsetting to my wife,” says Colburn, “because in doing so I took a significant cut in income relative to what I was making as a student doing contract and freelance photography.” But Colburn stayed at the Herald until shortly after the Flood of 1966. He then returned to UND to set up a photographic division for the news bureau, and to teach photography. It lasted less than two years.
“The problem was I had grown to love the always-interesting, non-routine newspaper photographer’s life, with its turnaround daily deadline.” Cal Olson, managing editor and former Forum photo chief, snared him away with an offer. Six months later he was the Forum’s chief photographer. Cal was a former president of National Press Photographers Association, and encouraged Colburn to become more active in the group. In 1982 he became the second president of the prestigious press photographers’ group from Fargo.
Colburn downplays his long list of photography awards. “My father always preached, ‘it’s better to be consistently good than momentarily great,’ and ‘you’re only as good as the last picture you made!’” But one award is particularly meaningful: the 2015 Alvin E. Austin Legacy Award from UND “in recognition of professional accomplishments for community benefit.”
While Colburn retired after 37 years at the Forum, he’s still taking pictures. “However, in this age when everybody is a photographer,” he notes, “I have found that it is much easier to find charitable outlets to utilize one’s talents.” And he wants to give credit to his wife Jackie. “There are three kinds of newspaper photographers: Those that never marry, those that are divorced and those few that are fortunate enough to have a wife like Jackie! It takes a very special and loving person to be the wife of a newspaper photographer.”
Dan Koeck, Fargo
Email: dan@dankoeck.com
Social media:
Instagram: www.instagram.com/dankoeck/
Website: dankoeck.com
Dan is a freelance editorial and commercial photographer based in Fargo. He spent 24 years as a staff photographer for the North Dakota State University Office of University Relations, and before that was a staff photographer for the Minot (N.D.) Daily News. Dan’s photographs have appeared in many national publications around the country, including the New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, Wall Street Journal and Reuters News Service. His photographs can be found in permanent collections of museums and corporations throughout the region.
Dan holds a bachelor’s degree in photojournalism and history from the University of Minnesota.
Ann Arbor Miller, Fargo
Email: annarbormiller@gmail.com
Website: www.annarbormiller.com
Social media:
Instagram, www.instagram.com/annarbormiller
Ann brings her photojournalism background to her current role as a visual storyteller. She helps people find connections to themselves, their environment and a larger community. Her specialties as a freelance photographer include education and commercial photography, writing, and documenting births, weddings and daily life. Awards for Ann’s work have come from newspaper associations, the Associated Press, Society of Professional Journalists and Picture of the Year International.
Ann was a staff photographer at the Forum from 2002-2006 and 2007-2009. She earned a master’s degree in visual communication for Ohio University’s School of Visual Communication and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Montana.
J. Earl Miller, Fargo
Email: jearlmiller@mac.com
Social media:
Facebook: J. Earl Miller Studios
Twitter: @jearlmiller
J. Earl is a marketing and sales associate for the High Plains Reader, Fargo. His photography has appeared in a variety of publications and exhibitions. In 2017 he founded Exposure 2.0, an opportunity for emerging local photographers to exhibit their work and encourage new photography.
J. Earl holds a bachelor’s degree from Minnesota State University Moorhead.
Cathy McMullen, Fargo
Email: mcmullen@cord.edu
Cathy retired in 2018 after a quarter century as an associate professor of English at Concordia College, Moorhead, and advisor to the Concordian. She formerly was a staff writer and columnist for the Forum. Her support of local photography stems from her father’s influence: Cal Olson was Forum photo chief and a dominant influence on photojournalism both locally and nationally through the 1960s and 1970s. Cathy worked closely during her time at the Forum and continues to take a keen interest in photojournalism.
Cathy holds a B.S. degree from Minnesota State University Moorhead and an M.F.A. from Bennington College, Vermont.
Michael J. Olsen, Fargo
Email: michael@michaeljolsen.com
Website: www.michaeljolsen.com
Social media:
Twitter: @olsenmichael
Michael J. Olsen is a communications consultant with 35-plus years of experience. He specializes in crisis communications, public relations and comprehensive communications planning.
Formerly: senior vice president, corporate communications and public affairs, Otter Tail Corp., Fargo; senior vice president, corporate communications, Great Plains Software (later Microsoft Business Solutions), Fargo; vice president, corporate communications, National Car Rental, Minneapolis; deputy assistant secretary of transportation, public affairs, Washington, D.C., serving under former Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Dole; press secretary, Sen. Mark Andrews (R-N.D.), Washington, D.C.; senior producer, Prairie Public Broadcasting, Fargo; director of continuity, KXJB-TV, Fargo.
Olsen is on the board of trustees for the Upper Midwest Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Association, and is a member of the city of Fargo’s Arts and Culture Commission.
Mike’s father, Alf Olsen, was a Forum photographer whose photos documented the Tornado of 1957, sharing with Cal Olson and others of that journalism team a Pulitzer Prize for weather coverage. He was Forum business and farm editor when he died in 1970 at age 50.
W. Scott Olsen, Moorhead
Email: olsen@cord.edu
Website: blog.cord.edu/wscottolsen
Scott is a professor of English at Concordia College in Moorhead, where he also edits the literary journal Ascent. The author of 11 books of nonfiction travel and adventure experiences, he is also the co-editor of three anthologies. His essays and photographs appear in literary journals such as Kenyon Review and North Dakota Quarterly, aviation magazines such as AOPA Pilot and Plane & Pilot, online journals such as Terrain.org, and every now and then in the Fargo-Moorhead Forum. He reviews books for LensCulture.com as well as the Minneapolis Star/Tribune. His most recent book is A Moment with Strangers: Essays and Photographs at Home and Abroad (NDSU Press, 2016).
He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Missouri-Columbia, and an M.F.A. from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
Jerry Richardson, Fargo
Email: jerrylou@cableone.net
Jerry is retired director of communications and university relations at North Dakota State University, Fargo. His wide range of interests cover photography, writing and fine printing. He donated his darkroom to the NDSU Photography Club in 2017.
Jerry graduated with a bachelor’s degree in journalism from South Dakota State University, and a master’s degree from the University of Washington.
Kristine Ringler, Fargo
Email: krisringler@gmail.com
Kristine worked as a freelance photographer in Minneapolis from 2000-2003. She joined the U.S. Army Reserve in 2002, and until 2009 was deployed to Iraq and Kosovo. She continued taking photographs and documenting her deployments through blog projects. After her completing her master’s degree in Public Policy from the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs in 2009, she continued to work for the U.S. Government as a cultural advisor to the Army in Northern Iraq and as a Trainer at Ft. Leavenworth, preparing teams for Iraq and Afghanistan.
Kristine later became an instructor for USAID/DAI and traveled throughout Afghanistan training Afghans, U.S. and NATO forces on a program management tool. She went on to conduct research at the United States Military Academy, West Point, N.Y. She currently serves as the vice president on the board of directors for the Veterans Yoga Project and teaches both adult and children's yoga in the Fargo-Moorhead area. She also works at the North Dakota State University Foundation and Alumni Association. Kristine is a 1999 NDSU graduate.
Dave Samson, Fargo
Email: samsond@forumcomm.com
Social media:
Twitter: @samsonphoto
Dave (“Sammy”) began his career in photojournalism in 1981 as a part-time sports photographer for the West Fargo Pioneer. “I also won the first Forum photo contest that year,” he says, “and decided I would like to do this full time.” After graduating from Minnesota Technical College Moorhead in commercial art, Dave returned to school at Minnesota State University Moorhead. He finished a degree in mass communications there, studying part time while continuing as a photojournalist for the Pioneer.
Davie joined the Forum in fall 2006 following the company’s purchase of the Pioneer/Midweek in 2005. At the Forum he specializes in sports photography. His work has won a number of NPPA and other awards.
Robert Schlomann
Email: rschloma54@gmail.com
Website: www.redbuffalophotography.com
Bob spent a 30-year career in technical communications at Microsoft and Great Plains Software in Fargo. He also has experience in journalism and is an avid photographer, primarily focusing on landscapes and corporate event photography. His work has been featured in regional shows and in Fargo’s Community Sponsored Art (CSA) program.
Scott Seiler, Fargo
Email: sseiler@cableone.net
Website: www.scottseiler.net
Scott is a fine art landscape photographer whose perspective has been shaped by his love of landscape and architecture, and his childhood growing up on a ranch in western North Dakota. His work has appeared in a wide variety of juried shows and exhibits. He is a partner member of Fargo’s Gallery 4, and is a marketing and communications strategist in Fargo.
Scott is a graduate of Minnesota State University Moorhead.
Jon Solinger, Pelican Rapids
Email: jon.solinger@gmail.com
Website: jonsolinger.com
Jon lives in Lida Township near Pelican Rapids, Minn. As an artist embedded in his community, he portrays rural life and work through photographs, text and subject-drawn maps and diagrams. Thanks to Lake Region Arts Council and Minnesota State Arts Board grants he self-published his Working Land photo book in 2016 and toured his Working Land photography exhibit during 2017-2018.
Meg Spielman Peldo, Fargo
Email: megsp@cableone.net
Website: http://www.spielmanstudio.com
Meg is a prominent local artist and former member of Gallery 4 artist cooperative. Her work in photography and other mediums have appeared in shows around the region. She specializes in baby photography, and also is an accomplished travel photographer. Meg’s work frequently appears in area magazines, as well as greeting cards, prints, posters and calendars.
Laura Stoneburner, Fargo
Email: laura.m.stoneburner@gmail.com
Website: stoneburnerstudios.com
Social Media:
Facebook: @StoneburnerStudios
Twitter: @Rocks_on_Fire
Laura is owner of Stoneburner Studios, Fargo, and a communications specialist for Moore Engineering. She has a variety of newspaper and agency communication experience and at Moore is a writer, designer, social media specialist and photographer. Her interest in photography began when she was a young girl. “More than anything I love taking a photojournalistic approach,” she says, “pairing capturing a moment, person or thing with writing about it and/or captioning it.”
Laura holds a bachelor’s degree in communication from North Dakota State University, Fargo.
Mark Strand, Fargo
Email: strandmark1@gmail.com
Website ( five-year documentary project of Jamestown, N.D.): surround.pics/markanthony/Strand_Pano/061516_MS_Pano_01%20Large.htm
Mark retired in 2017 after 25 years as a professor in the Minnesota State University Moorhead mass communications department, and 17 years before that at North Dakota State University. There he was an instructor, university photographer, publications editor and special projects editor for the communication department and office of communications and university relations. He directed the 1976 Dakota Photo Documentary Project, in which seven photographers and two darkroom technicians documented each place name in the state and created visual essays on all 53 counties. He was president of Rourke Art Gallery Museum 1986-96.
Mark grew up in a family-owned photography business in Rugby, N.D. He worked for the Hatton (N.D.) Free Press, an award-winning weekly, from 1969-72. He received a B.A. from Concordia College (Moorhead, Minn.), and Master of Science, Visual Studies (S.M.Vis.S.) from the architecture department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Mike Vosburg, Fargo
Email: mvosburg@forumcomm.com
Social media:
Twitter, @michaelvosburg
Mike has been the photo editor for the Forum, his fifth daily newspaper, since 2002. He holds a bachelor's degree in mass communications from North Dakota State University and an master's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri School of Journalism, Columbia. There he taught in the Missourian newsroom as well as lectured in staff photojournalism and graphics desk management.
He converted the Forum to digital photography, implemented digital archiving and pioneered the use of mobile devices to speed the delivery of photographs to readers. His mission is to use photography to "explain a community to itself."
Chris Walker, Fargo
Email: christopher.v.walker@ndsu.edu
Website: http://www.chriswalkerphoto.com/
Chris is a former instructor of communications at North Dakota State University and Minnesota State University Moorhead. A native of Croswell, Mich., Chris began work as a photographer for the Toledo, Ohio, Blade. His clients have included the Associated Press, New York Times, Scientific American, and Camping Life, where he worked as a photography columnist.
Chris specializes in large-format documentary photography. His work has appeared in exhibits worldwide, and has been featured in many art and photography publications. Chris holds a Master of Fine Arts in photography from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.
Dave Wallis, Fargo
Email: davefargo@yahoo.com
Social media:
Twitter, @davewallisphoto
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKqyLnsyUn8
As a photojournalist Dave ("Wally") probably holds the record for longest career in Fargo-Moorhead history. His first photo was published in 1967 in his Wahpeton, N.D., High School student newspaper. Based on a high school newspaper photo he shot for an Earth Day event in 1970, the publisher of the Farmer Globe (Wahpeton) and Valley Alert (Breckenridge, Minn.) offered him a photography job upon graduating. While shooting for these newspapers he also attended the North Dakota State College of Science.
After a year and a half he transferred to North Dakota State University, majoring in art and architecture. He photographed for the Spectrum student newspaper and worked on the university's well-known last annual, The Last Picture Book. He also worked three summers for Jerry Richardson and Mark Strand at the university's communication office.
Dave transferred to the University of North Dakota for a journalism degree, graduating in 1975. After graduation Dave stayed in Grand Forks for two and one-half years to work for the Grand Forks Herald. While there, he says, "I worked with nationally recognized NPPA award-winning photographer Ron Smith." Then he decided to move south again, joining the Forum in 1977. "I was hired by Colburn Hvidston III," he says, "also a NPPA award-winning photographer who years later would become president of that organization." Dave retired in fall 2017 after more than 40 years at the Forum.