MODE: The World’s Photography Festival

LA-based commercial photographer and director Diana Zalucky draws on her own experience navigating the tension between art and commerce to make the case for separating your sense of self-worth from the work you produce. An honest conversation about mindset, self-care, and what it actually takes to sustain a creative life.

YK films a series of short how-to videos at specific locations around Minneapolis before the festival, pinned in the MODE app. Attendees follow the map, find the spots, and use YK's tutorials to recreate the image or put their own spin on it, without YK needing to be present. A city-wide, self-guided photography challenge that will turn Minneapolis into a classroom.

From the darkroom to the director's chair, women have long been shaping the visual language of our world. This panel brings together four artists who are doing exactly that, each in her own way.

We experience culture as something we can see, buy, and participate in. But long before that, it was built in community, in rooms, in conversations, in relationships that most people never see. Powered by True Chicago, this panel brings together photographers and creatives to talk about what in-person community has meant for their careers and why it still cannot be replicated online. In a world of followers and feeds, showing up in person matters as much as ever.

Brooke Shaden joins Flickr's MODE Festival as their Artist-in-Residence, bringing a four-part interactive art series called Murmurations to the event. The residency will contain an abstract ten-minute play created for participants to photograph three different sets within the performance, a legacy piece of printed artwork where community members will be photographed and composited into the large-scale piece, which will be gifted to the city of Minneapolis, two interactive art installations representing the art and artists of MODE, and a keynote speech. A murmuration [noun] mur·​mur·​a·​tion ˌmərməˈrāshən: a flock of birds that come together to fly in a pattern, share information, and commune. Just like a murmuration of birds, artists are more inspired and more innovative in community. Each of Brooke's curations highlights what it means to live as an artist in transience, never finished with their work, always learning, and how to let go of your art after you create it.

Photography can hold what words cannot. Drawing from her deeply personal project No Mother Is An Island, a documentary of her mother's passing, Da'Shaunae Marisa leads an honest conversation about using image-making to navigate grief, loss, and hardship. This workshop creates space for participants to explore how the camera can become a tool for healing and self-expression.

This session explores what carries over from established creative practice into generative workflows, including artistic judgment, authorship, editing, and visual thinking itself. Rather than focusing on tools alone, the conversation turns to enduring creative questions: How do we recognize coherence in an image? What decisions remain fundamentally human? When possibilities multiply, does judgment matter more, not less? Drawing on backgrounds in photography, art production, consulting, editing, and experimental practice, Beth Huerta and Liz Miller-Gershfeld approach the session as a live conversation rather than a lecture, using examples and audience participation to examine how creatives can engage emerging tools without abandoning the discernment, perspective, and values they already bring to their work.

Liz introduces photographers to vibe coding, the practice of using large language models to write functional code without any developer background. Through a live demo, she shows how a creative producer mindset is all you need to build tools, apps, and interactive art pieces that expand your practice in unexpected directions.

Once you're in the pit, the clock starts. This workshop covers how to work efficiently in a live performance setting, from positioning and reading the stage to moving through the pit to capture every band member, all within the three-song window most pits allow.

With a foundation in documentary and travel photography working for National Geographic for the first decade of her career, and shooting for clients like Bon Appétit and Saveur, Penny De Los Santos walks participants through a real professional food shoot, complete with stylists, props, and all the prep work that happens before the camera comes out. Participants will get a front-row look at a high-end commercial shoot.

A conversation on the preservation and study of photographic archives, the fine art print side of the industry, and the responsibility photographers have in preserving their own bodies of work. Bringing together practical, academic, and digital preservation perspectives, the panel covers how historical collections inform contemporary visual storytelling, how photographers choose labs, papers, and formats, and how print sales factor into a sustainable photography business.

Come as you are. Hosted by True Chicago, this informal gathering is a space for creatives to connect, swap stories, and build the kind of relationships that lead to collaboration. No agenda: just community.

A hands-on portrait workshop built around Naska's signature process of observation, conversation, and making people feel seen before the shutter. Participants rotate as subjects and photographers, learning how human connection drives great portraits.

Former opera singer turned commercial photographer Erick Hercules has spent a decade connecting the dots between music theory and visual storytelling, developing 60 pages of original research into why certain images stop us cold. In this presentation, Erick introduces his Angle Studies framework, exploring how angles, shapes, and composition create emotional responses in viewers, what makes a photograph mathematically and emotionally powerful, and how understanding the hidden language of perspective can transform the way you shoot and see the world around you.

Any music photographer can talk about shooting the show, Jesse talks about everything else: the relationships, the trust, the hustle, and being there for the moments that weren't commissioned. Drawing on years photographing Olivia Rodrigo, Imagine Dragons, Bruce Springsteen, Kelsea Ballerini, Halsey, and dozens more, Jesse unpacks the philosophy behind a career built on friendship over formality, showing up, and what it actually means to keep getting called back year after year.

A forward-looking celebration of New York street photography in 2026, exploring how today's creators are documenting the city differently while honoring its cultural memory. The conversation covers the influence of 90s film aesthetics, street photography as a cultural archive, building a recognizable voice, and translating personal work into sustainable opportunities.

With 40 years behind the camera and album covers for Miles Davis, Willie Nelson, and Dee Dee Ramone to his name, Jimmy Steinfeldt presents a personal look at the Minneapolis music scene and the moments, venues, and artists that have defined it. A rich visual presentation drawn from a career that began in the era of Prince and has never stopped.

Born and raised in the Bronx, Black Soap brings a deeply personal, 90s New York sensibility to his street photography. He shoots with feeling as much as with his camera. This session digs into how to find your own perspective, build trust in your community, and capture the stories that exist right outside your door, including the ones the algorithm never shows.

Moderated by Amelia Davis, who managed Jim Marshall's archive for 13 years and inherited his estate, this panel traces the history of music photography from the golden era of rock to today, exploring how the business has shifted and what it takes to sustain a career documenting music culture. A candid look at the realities of building a sustainable career in music photography: when to charge, when not to, how to protect your work, and how to stay in the rooms that matter.

Two friends, three decades, one industry seen from completely different seats. Jigisha Bouverat (Director of Art Production at Chiat\Day, production company owner, photography app founder) and Heather Elder (artists' rep, podcast host, founding member of the Artist Management Association, AI Committee Co-Chair) walk through the eras that shaped commercial photography, and them, in a candid conversation about what changed, what broke, and what it takes to keep building a career when the ground keeps moving.

How images are selected, sequenced, and presented fundamentally determines how photographic work is understood. This workshop explores the editorial process through collaborative exercises, group discussions, and live demonstrations.

Kelley walks through her editing philosophy and process, showing how deliberate post-processing choices can reinforce a distinct visual style as opposed to alter reality. Drawing on her work within the competitive wildlife photography industry, where strict editing rules apply, she demonstrates how restraint and intention in the edit can elevate an image without compromising its integrity.

Drawing on his fellowship at UVA's Karsh Institute of Democracy and his acclaimed project documenting the removal of Confederate monuments across Virginia, which landed on the front page of the New York Times and is currently exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art in LA, Sanjay explores how photography and video have driven social and political movements over the last 50 years. He'll tackle photojournalism, AI and truth, and the power of the citizen image-maker.

An honest conversation with photographers and industry professionals about what it takes to build and sustain a career in commercial photography. Pricing, client communication, dry spells, this panel gets into the parts of the photography business that you can't afford to overlook.

Diana shares her experiences shooting travel and documentary work with a no-frills point-and-shoot film camera, including a solo trip to Egypt for her 40th birthday where she left all her professional gear at home. A conversation about presence, curiosity, and why stripping back your kit can reconnect you to what made you fall in love with photography in the first place.