Thomas Kelsey is a California native who grew up in the Central Coast towns of San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara before graduating from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo with a degree in Journalism in 1977. Kelsey interned at Newsday in Long Island, New York and went on to work at nine daily newspapers including 12 years as a staff photographer at the Los Angeles Times where he was part of a team that was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1983. He has published two successful books including "The Spirit of the West" in 2011. It was a 30-year project on landscape & wildlife photography. In 2020, Kelsey published “75 Years Later, Warbirds, Airman & Veterans of World War II”, which included interviews and photographs of Veterans then & now. It is a tribute to the ‘Greatest Generation’. One of his career highlights was being mentored by Ansel Adams at Adams' last workshop in Yosemite Valley in 1981. He currently is on the faculty at the Lone Pine Film Festival in Lone Pine, California where he leads tours each October on the life & photography of Ansel Adams.