“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
Anaïs Nin
About
Thomas Donley, Creative Coach
Thomas Donley is a New York City-based Creative Coach and Photographer, who grew up ‘in the theater.’ His parents were actors. His father was on Broadway, television, and film. His mother founded the Children’s Wing of the Croton Shakespeare Festival, in Westchester, NY. He has been shooting for over 20 years: from Madison Square Garden to the Ecuadorian jungle; from film sets in Vancouver, B.C. to Charleston, S.C.; from product launches to corporate events; to the wild underground party scene in NYC. He has freelanced and done projects for publications including The New York Times, Time Out NY and Life Magazine.
Earlier in his career, Donley also spent time within the indie film worlds of production & distribution, working on the sets of veteran filmmakers Brian DePalma and Oliver Stone as well as several years on the staff of the pioneering indie film distributor, United Artists Classics (The Last Waltz, Diva, Entre Nous). He was the in-house photographer for Lightstone Productions, the creative home of filmmaker Demian Lichtenstein and Mr. Lichtenstein brought Donley onto the set of his film 3000 Miles to Graceland to take behind-the-scenes photographs of Kevin Costner, Kurt Russell, Courteney Cox and Christian Slater.
Thomas Donley has a B.A. in film and theater from Sarah Lawrence College. He was Co-Founder of the NY Shamanic Circle in 1997 and one of its leaders for 15 years, hosting shaman & medicine people from around the world to teach their wisdom. He has been a member of the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) since 2002 and has served on the Board of the New York Chapter of ASMP, including as its President from 2015-2019. In the past three years, he initiated what has become a very successful mentoring program called The Bridge for underserved young photographers under the banner of ASMPNY in partnership with the Brooklyn-based educational organization, BKC. It is a program that is now expanding to other cities. Currently, Donley is serving as a Director on the ASMP National Board of Directors, since 2020.