Explorers Club Annual Dinner 2023
I'm thrilled to share that I've been chosen once again as the portrait photographer for the Explorers Club Annual Dinner - a momentous occasion that's been going strong for 119 years. This is my 7th year setting up a portrait studio at this event.
Beyond the eclectic menu featuring delicacies like deep fried tarantulas, python and roaches, the dinner is a gathering of exceptional minds and daring adventurers. It's a time for these pioneers to connect, reflect on their achievements, and set their sights on even greater endeavors ahead.
Marine Conservation Biologist and National Geographic Explorer Callie Veelenturf
2023 awardees (L-R): Greg Carr - The President's Award for Conservation Lhakpa Sherpa - The Tenzing Norgay Award goes to Lhakpa Sherpa Bindi Irwin - The President's Award for Conservation Wendy Schmidt - The President's Award for Conservation Kristin Larson - The Sweeney Medal Meg Lowman - The Explorers Medal Dominique Gonçalves - New Explorer Award
2023 Tenzing Norgay Awardee Lhakpa Sherpa is the first Nepali woman to successfully summit Mount Everest and the first woman to successfully summit the world’s highest mountain ten times, beating her own world record again in 2022 for most Everest summits by any woman in the world
Princess Kalina of Bulgaria with Kitin Munoz, Spanish adventurer & scientist
Robert, Terri and Bindi Irwin as a family perfectly represent Steve Irwin's legacy of conservation, and were at the dinner to celebrate Bindi winning the 2023 President's Award for Conservation
Astronaut, Entrepreneur and Explorers Club President Richard & Laetitia Garriott with their children, in costumes representing biomes on earth
Kinga Garriott as a swan
Wayne L White, who spent two summers and three winters as the winter site manager of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. While lots of scientists man the South Pole during the summer, staying over the winter is reserved for only the most hardy
Cheetah Conservation Fund's Laurie Marker with Bruce Brewer, who have been instrumental in the conservation of the wild cheetah and its habitat
Chef Gene Rurka, with a plate of deep fried cockroaches, tarantulas and worms, served at the dinner. This year's menu featured no red meat whatsoever.
Expedition filmmaker Trevor Wallace with writer Kim Frank who carried The Explorers Club Flag #71 on a project documenting the human-elephant conflict along the eastern Himalaya
Wendy & Eric Schmidt - Wendy Schmidt is a philanthropist and investor who has spent nearly two decades creating innovative non‐profit organizations to work with communities around the world for clean, renewable energy, resilient food systems, healthy oceans and the protection of human rights. Through her grant‐making and investing with the Schmidt Family Foundation, founded in 2006 with her husband Eric, communities from the Navajo Nation in Arizona to the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have access to clean solar and micro‐hydropower energy and the economic, social and educational opportunities that come with reliable power.
Explorers Club Wildlife Ambassadors from Beardsley Zoo and 'Skyhunters in Flight' with a variety of wildlife including a Barn Own, Ball Python, Eagle Owl, Boa Constrictor and a Gar Falcon. Featuring Teddy-Theodora Bradley, Kellen DeOliveira, Eileen Knox, Jim Knox, Brian Bradley & Mark Fowler
New Explorer Awardee Dominique Goncalvez, a Mozambican ecologist focused on elephant conservation working in Gorongosa National Park
Geologists Sarah Carmichael (on left), Diana Boyer and Johnny Waters who together with Felix Kunze (middle) and Magnus Karlsson) represent part of a huge effort to study the causes and origins of the late Devonian Mass Extinction of around 365 million years ago
President's Award for Conservation Awardee Bindi Irwin
'Bicycle Nomad' Erick Cedeno, whose cultural studies done entirely by bike have earned him a spot in 2022's 'Explorers Club 50'
Mongolian paleontologist Bolortsetse Minjin in traditional Mongolian clothing. She is the founder of the Institute for the Study of Mongolian Dinosaurs and a National Geographic Explorer
Genoveva Nelly Forero is a Captain in Panama’s Air and Navy Service (SENAN), the Director of the Department of Naval Security, and the spokesperson for SENAN’s Environmental Committee. She leads marine environmental stewardship initiatives at SENAN
Leland Devon Melvin is an American engineer and a retired NASA astronaut. He served on board the Space Shuttle Atlantis as a mission specialist on STS-122, and as mission specialist 1 on STS-129
Archeologist George Leader, who specializes in studies in the Namib desert
Natalie Cash, Executive Producer of the Wildlife Conservation Society, whose work helps protect wildlife and wild places
'Her Deepness' Sylvia Earle, arguably one of the most influential Marine Biologists of our time
'Her Deepness' Sylvia Earle, with members of the expedition team who in Feb 23 were part of the Antarctic Climate Expedition, where they focused on the unfortunate 'greening' of the Antarctic landscape, a phenomenon occasioned by rising temperatures due to climate change
Explorers Representing Adventure Canada: Grace Cordson, Aleksander, Rikhterman, Brianna Rowe, Trevor Wallace, Keiji Hammond, Eric Zember & Eric Herrera
Part of the crew of a submarine expedition in Roatan, Honduras, tagging Sixgill sharks at depth and studying their migration patterns, sampling for micro-plastics in the deep ocean and doing marine surveys, one of which led to the discovery of a new species of jellyfish. l-r: Breezy Grenier, Colin Bettis, David Deberard, Elon Gordon & Trent Tresch
The first ever Colombian members of The Explorers Club, Diego Cardenosa and John Bohorquez
Hong Kong Chapter Explorers Club members Hamilton Muirhead & Angelica Angles, who recently announced their growing family
Bhutan Chapter chairman Matthew DeSantis & Jenny Kwong
Actor Chevy Chase
The expedition team joining Carl Allen in the Bahamas as part of his work diving for the sunken history of the Spanish 17th century galleon the Nuestra Señora de Maravillas. Pictured here are Carl and his wife Gigi with Josh Gates, David Concannon and Michael Pateman
The Explorers Club 50 program is described simply as 'Fifty people changing the world who the world needs to know about' - I photographed them this year in two groups, including the next one with Richard Wiese, former President of the Explorers Club, who has been spearheading this program.
The Explorers Club 50 program is described simply as 'Fifty people changing the world who the world needs to know about' - I photographed them this year in two groups, including here with Richard Wiese, former President of the Explorers Club, who has been spearheading this program.
'De-extinction' of the Woolly Mammoth (as well as other advances) is the work of the team at Colossal Biosciences, some of whom are featured here
With thanks to The Explorers Club, Elinchrom, V-Flat World, Oliphant Studios, Bill & Sharyn Runyon, David Isserman, Kevin Murphy, Richard Garriott and everyone else that helped make this possible
A huge thank you to my spectacular team (l-r):
Brandi Nicole, Arianna Veter, Allie Epstein, Magnus Karlsson, Nate Napolitano, Keoni Chun, Emily Teague, (me), Brian von Glahn, DonnaMaria Jones
