Leticia Alaniz

Leticia Alaniz is a still photographer, motion picture cinematographer, a writer, and stage performer. She has spent most of her life dedicated to the cinematic arts writing scripts, performing, and creating visual images for motion pictures. She was born in Allende, Nuevo Leon, Mexico on November 30th to Paulino Alaniz Cavazos and Maria Elba Cano. Leticia began her career in Mexico landing roles in professional theaters around the country. Soon after, she landed roles for Amadea Film Productions and
continued work in independent films and professional theater. Since her teen years, Leticia found refuge in literature and writing and turned her passion into a profession writing short stories and scripts as well as editing film scripts for independent filmmakers. From watching classic films of the golden age and Film Noir of the 1940s and 1950s, Leticia developed a unique style of photography and applied her skills of cinema to the still photography she creates for fine art photography and commercial work. Some of the masters of cinematography she most admires are those who applied German expressionism
to their styles such as John Alton, Greg Toland, Nicola Musuraca, John F. Seitz, Robert Burks, and Mexican artists of the camera such as Gabriel Figueroa, Juan Rulfo, and Manuel Alvarez Bravo. Leticia's other interests are creating art glass mosaics, brewing beer, cooking, food photography, writing about food, and traveling. Leticia lives with her family in Texas.

Rodney D Butler

Rodney D. Butler is a native Houstonian and a graduate of James Madison High School where he excelled at art, wood shop and drafting. After graduating from high school, he received a Bachelor of Architecture degree from Tuskegee University and later an Associate degree in Computer Animation at the Art Institute of Houston. While at the Art Institute, Rodney realized that he was an artist at heart. Rodney's work has been featured in various local festivals, galleries and museums such as First Saturday Art Festival, Houston Fine Art Festival, The Bayou City Art Festival, Houston Museum of African American Culture Bert Long Jr. Gallery, The Kemp Center for the Arts - Wichita Falls TX, JoMar Visions, Texas Southern University Museum, The Black Cowboy Museum, Harambee Art Gallery, 45 & Art, Gallery Baroness, Adam and Madam’s Gallery Bistro Shop, Aurora Studios and Gallery, Hardy & Nance Studios, DuVin Pintor Art Gallery, Le Chateau, BR Vino, Insomnia Gallery, 310 Gallery, Rockstar Gallery, 9th Street Studios and countless underground art shows.

Gabriel Duran

Gabriel Duran is a multi-award-winning narrative filmmaker from Wichita Falls but has sustained most of his career in Dallas Tx.
He is the president and founder of FDCLA (Festival de Cine Latino Americano) DFW’s largest annual international Latino Film Festival. Gabriel is also the co-founder of Vivid Vita Events – A company that focuses on Latino-based events such as Fiesta Charra, an event held annually in Lewisville TX. Mr. Duran is an Assistant Professor at Texas A&M Corpus Christi in the Media Arts department where he teaches screenwriting and film production classes in narrative filmmaking. Currently, Gabriel is in the early stages of producing a television series with AB Quintanilla III and Areu Bros Studios in Atlanta GA..

Dr. Amanda Stronza

Dr. Amanda Stronza is an environmental anthropologist and photographer with 30 years of research and conservation work in the Amazon, southern Africa, and other parts of the tropics. She is a Professor in the Departments of Ecology and Conservation Biology, and Rangeland, Wildlife, and Fisheries Management, and she co-directs the Applied Biodiversity Science Program at Texas A&M University. She co-founded Ecoexist, a non-profit organization in Botswana, aimed at fostering coexistence between people and elephants. Her long-term work in the Amazon has focused on community-based conservation, understanding and documenting local incentives for stewarding wildlife and forests. She is recipient of the national Praxis Award in Anthropology for her work in translating anthropological knowledge into concrete action to support conservation and development in Africa and Latin America. In 2016, she was featured as one of 50 global conservation leaders in the book, Saving Wild: Inspiration from 50 Leading Conservationists, with a foreword by Jane Goodall (Ed. L. Robinson).

For years, she has created animal memorials and photographed them under a series called “see them all.”

She writes:
“For as long as I can remember, I have stopped to pull dead animals from roads. I can hardly bear to see the animals left there. It feels like the cruelest act of all, letting the violence of the road further assault whatever remains of their precious beings. I was inspired by the naturalist author, Barry Lopez, and his book, Apologia. In it, he writes of the anguish he experienced finding so much death on a road journey in North America. He stopped for countless animals, gently taking them from the roads, and in the process, grappling with his own feelings about indifference to death and brutality in the modern world.

It was just a few years ago that I started creating memorials for the animals I find—not just on highways, but also on trails and even in my backyard—gathering whatever flowers, branches, seeds, weeds, or grasses are nearby to adorn the bodies and restore some dignity, honor, and beauty. I feel we are too quick to ignore dead animals, to perceive nonhuman beings as objects, as “it’s,” rather than as kindred spirits who share the planet with us and deserve our respect, even in death.

My intention and hope in creating the animal memorials is to give attention and respect to the animals I find, as individuals, as whole beings who had lives of their own. I want to notice them, see them, really see them, not just as “dead animals.” Not as objects. They share the world with us. They once had beating hearts and memories, fears and follies. They had families. By creating beauty from their deaths, I hope to help us all see them. All of them. I share the photos and stories not to sensationalize, but rather, in a way, to do the opposite, to normalize.

“I’m sorry” is what I say to each one. Not just for me, or for the drivers who hit them, but for all of us, our cruelties and harms, intentional or not, our indifferences and blind eyes to the other beings. I adorn them and take a photo each time, not just to honor them, the ones I find, with beauty, but to honor all of the beings we fail to see. My wish is that the color and light from the flowers, branches, weeds, and leaves surrounding them in death may help us to see them all. All of them.”