Doug Hansgate

Doug has been shooting professionally and with distinction for over 40 years. His creative approach to photography, coupled with his ability to see and capture light, permeates his impressive body of work. His love of photography, passion for art, and desire to always be the best that he can be in any field, has driven him to excel as a photographer, artist and educator, wood sculptor, master stonecutter, and fine art craftsman.

Doug’s work has been on display in galleries in New York City, Washington DC Smithsonian, Buffalo, PA and Toronto, including the world-famous Ontario Art Gallery. His numerous gallery showings highlight his perceptive and compelling work. Doug is gifted in his ability to view a subject, see and distinguish slight nuances in light and tonal variations, capture that vision through photography and the capabilities of the camera, and express his vision through printed work.

His work has been seen in dozens of magazines and throughout the web on commercial sites and has received numerous national and international awards including the Kodak award for image excellence. His mainstay has been his commercial work with attorneys, real-estate developers, physicians, product developers, recording companies, modeling agencies including the prestigious Wilhelmina Agency of New York and Silver Modeling agency of New York. As well as maintaining a high-volume high school senior business and portraiture studio.

Through his constant search for the very best technology, new techniques and tools, evolving styles, and an idealistic view of the world, Doug has become a sought-after educator. As a consummate instructor, Doug works hard to share his knowledge with fellow photographers. Photographers look to him to expand their knowledge, increase their sense of light, create that which the camera is incapable of perceiving, and explore the world as an artist. Doug has taught at professional photography seminars throughout the United States and Canada. He teaches classes in Adobe® Photoshop® and Lightroom®, post-production applications, high dynamic range, painter, and studio portraiture. His passion for sharing his knowledge is tempered only by the hours of the day and how much can be accomplished in one lifetime.

As you explore Doug’s work, you will surely see—and feel—the emotion and passion that he captures in every image, whether in his dreamscape series or iconic architectural images. As a sought-after judge of photographic imagery, Owner of AMP Studios, a successful commercial portrait and fashion photography studio in North Tonawanda, New York, Doug often says that if an image does not exude passion and does not evoke a sense of delight, sorrow, sadness, happiness, or desire, the image lacks the ability to be a sustainable work of art.

Class 1:
Finding Your Creative Self

Technology has taken over the photography world. Image creation has become more and more a matter of technical skills with both equipment and post-production. Doug will show you how to create images not just take pictures. Create images that have meaning and emotion, that compel, yes compel, viewers, to look deeper into understanding the image, through light and shadow the world becomes a palette and you are the artist. Doug will show you how to pick up the brush.

Class 2:
Wildlife Photography: what you need to know in the modern time

We all love the idea of walking into the woods with that $13,000 lens and latest camera body ($6,000+) not to mention the $1,000 tripod, Gibal head multiple lenses, filters, Gili suit, all-weather gear, water, food, packhorse, and sherpa to carry all of the gear.

But for some those are dreams. Reality is — how do I really get the best images I can from my backyard set up on budget of $2,000 or less.