See You at MODE: Three Days of Photography, Conversation & Community
In just a few weeks, we’re heading to Minneapolis for MODE by Flickr and we want to see you there!
MODE by Flickr is taking over downtown Minneapolis September 18–20 for three days devoted to photography, creativity and the people behind the work. It’s a festival, conference and large creative meeting all mashed into one, that brings together photographers, producers, agents, artists and industry leaders for talks, workshops, photo walks, exhibitions, live music, demonstrations and plenty of opportunities to actually spend time together in person.
And we’re excited to be a part of it.
Heather Elder, Dan Saelinger, Diana Zalucky and David W. Johnson will be a part of programming that touches on many of the conversations we’ve been having within our own community: how commercial photography is changing, where AI belongs, how photographers build sustainable careers, why access matters, and what we need to protect as the industry moves forward. We are excited to join the over 50 other photographers, reps and multimedia artists who will also be on panels and hosting workshops.
There’s a lot happening over the three days, but here’s where you can find us.
Heather Elder
Heather will participate in four conversations throughout the weekend, including two that feel particularly close to home.
The Eras Tour: Three Decades in Commercial Photography
For nearly 30 years, Heather Elder and Jigisha Bouverat have experienced the commercial photography industry from different sides of the table.
Heather has spent those decades representing artists, while Jigisha’s career has taken her from Director of Art Production at ChiatDay to production company owner to photography app founder. They’re also longtime friends, which means this will feel more like a coffee shop conversation and less like a history lesson.
The two will look back at the different eras they’ve lived through together: what the industry used to value, how photographers were discovered, the ways technology changed the business, what disappeared along the way and what emerged in its place.
Most importantly, they’ll talk about what it takes to keep evolving when the ground underneath your career refuses to stay still.
Dear Art Producer, Live
Heather has spent years asking art producers what they really think on Dear Art Producer. Heather will host Dear Art Producer Live: AI, Estimates, Usage & the Future of Production, joined by Sari Rowe, Candace Gelman, Jennifer Lamping and Billy Diesel for a candid conversation about what’s happening inside agencies and brands right now.
They’ll get into AI’s growing role in production, the evolution of treatments and estimates, usage and conditions, and how producers are navigating an increasingly complicated marketing landscape from both the agency and brand sides.
If you’ve ever listened to Dear Art Producer and wished you could ask the follow-up question yourself, this is your chance. Audience questions are encouraged.
Heather will also join The State of the Industry: The Agency World Unplugged on Saturday, talking with agency and production leaders about how photographers get discovered, how usage and licensing are evolving and what it means to get seen today.
Earlier Saturday, she’ll join Dan Saelinger, James Broadbent, Jigisha Bouverat, Rob Grimm and Ryan Laux for AI on Set: Commercial Photography & AI, exploring where AI is actually entering commercial workflows, from pre-production through post.
Dan Saelinger
Anyone who knows Dan Saelinger’s work knows he has never been particularly interested in making things the obvious way. At MODE, he’ll bring that curiosity to conversations spanning AI, business, production and the fundamentals of making an image sing.
In collaboration with Adobe, Dan will lead AI as a Tool, Not the Artist, pulling back the curtain on how generative AI fits alongside still photography, motion and CGI in his commercial practice. The focus isn’t AI for AI’s sake. It’s about understanding when the technology helps solve a visual problem, where it still falls short and how photographers can experiment with new tools without surrendering their creative fingerprint.
Dan will continue that conversation during AI on Set: Commercial Photography & AI on Saturday and AI and Photography: The Conversation We Can't Avoid on Friday, digging into the practical, creative and ethical questions surrounding the technology.
But AI is only part of his weekend.
On Friday, Dan joins From Pitch to Production: Working with Brands, Agencies & Talent, a conversation about what happens between the first creative brief and final delivery, including pricing hybrid shoots, working with brands and agencies and understanding what the people doing the hiring actually want.
On Saturday, he shifts from business back to craft with Make It Pop: Using Color, Composition and Light, a workshop breaking down the intentional planning behind his vibrant visual style.
And on Sunday, he joins The Business of Commercial Photography, tackling the decidedly less glamorous but incredibly important parts of sustaining a photography career: pricing, client communication, dry spells and everything that happens when you’re running a creative practice as a business.
Diana Zalucky
Diana Zalucky’s MODE programming approaches photography from another angle: the person behind the camera.
She starts Friday with Women Redefining Photography, joining Dani Jackson, Polly Irungu, Ro.Lexx and Kelly Allison for a conversation about women shaping the visual language of photography today.
On Sunday, Diana hosts two workshops that dig deeper into the internal work of sustaining a creative career.
In You Are Not Your Camera: Separating Your Sense of Self from Your Work, Diana draws from her own experience navigating art and commerce to examine something creative people know all too well: how easily the success or failure of the work can become tangled up with our sense of self.
Later that day, Meeting Your Creative Genius: A Workshop on Presence, Intuition & Making draws on Diana’s twenty years of creative practice, as well as her previous work as an intuitive mentor for creatives. The workshop explores presence, intuition and how to develop an ongoing dialogue with your own creative instincts.
Together, the sessions ask an important question: How do you build not just a body of work, but a creative life you can actually sustain?
David W. Johnson
David W. Johnson’s work has always centered people and the communities they belong to. His MODE programming expands that philosophy beyond the photographs themselves.
In his presentation Beyond the Gatekeeping, David tackles a reality that commercial photography doesn’t always talk about openly: talent and access are not the same thing.
Drawing from his own unconventional path from college athlete with no creative background to internationally recognized commercial photographer, David examines the role proximity plays in building a career. Who gets seen? Who gets invited into the room? Who receives the opportunities capable of changing the trajectory of a career?
Through his work with True Chicago, David has been thinking not only about how creatives get through those gates, but how we can build new pathways that don’t require permission in the first place.
His workshop, Human Over Everything, turns toward AI and asks what becomes more valuable as technology becomes more capable. For David, the answer is emphatically human: empathy, presence, listening and genuine connection.
He’ll continue exploring that idea in Widening the Lens: Human Experience in Photography, a True Chicago-powered panel about the role in-person creative communities play in careers and culture.
And then there’s The True Chicago Link-Up. No presentation. No agenda. Just creatives meeting one another, swapping stories and building the kinds of relationships the internet still can’t manufacture.
Which, in many ways, gets to the heart of why we’re excited about MODE in the first place.
Why We Need MODE Now
Photography has never existed in a vacuum, but right now the forces surrounding it seem especially loud.
Technology is changing how images are made. AI is changing production. Business models are shifting. The paths to getting discovered look different. Questions around licensing, authorship and usage are becoming more complicated. At the same time, photographers are still grappling with some very old questions: How do I find my voice? How do I build a career? How do I get in the room? How do I keep going?
Those aren’t conversations any one photographer, agent, producer or technology company can answer alone.
MODE is designed to bring photography off the screen and into real spaces, with workshops, talks, demonstrations, photo walks, exhibitions, performances and meetups happening throughout downtown Minneapolis. And that emphasis on being together feels particularly important right now.
We’re excited to contribute to the conversation from a few different angles.
We’re also excited to listen.
MODE takes place September 18–20, 2026 in downtown Minneapolis.
If you’re a photographer, producer, art buyer, creative director, rep, student, image-maker or simply someone thinking deeply about where photography is headed, we hope we’ll see you there.
Come find Heather, Dan, Diana and David. Sit in on a conversation. Ask a question at Dear Art Producer. Join a workshop. Find someone you’ve only ever known through Instagram and introduce yourself in real life.
Learn more and buy your tickets here!