Ray McSavaney, born in Los Angeles studied architecture and
design. Until 1979, he worked mostly in architectural firms in their
urban planning department. From 1972 to 1979 he was the Project
Planner for Playa Vista project in west Los Angeles. His interest in
photography began around 1970 as a form of documenting backpacking
trips in the Sierra Nevada mountain range and intensified in 1972 when
he attended his first Ansel Adams Yosemite Workshop. Over the next
twelve years he attended many workshops, initially as a student and
later as a workshop assistant and came in contact with a varied group
of instructors, including Ansel Adams, Robert Heineken, Paul
Caponigro, Roger Minick, Arnold Newman, Ellen Landweber, Duane
Michaels, and Ruth Bernhard. In 1975, he and Bruce Barnbaum co-founded
the Owens Valley Photography Workshops, which was joined by John
Sexton in 1976 with the partnership lasting for sixteen years. He then
started his own workshop program, which lasted until the present. In
1992 his book, Explorations, was selected as one of the fifty best
books by the America Institute of Graphic Arts. Over his career he has
taught over 200 workshops.