President: Dave Kutz
Lancaster, PA
Cinematographer, Lighting Director, Specialty Camera Operator
Dave’s working background is in the field of motion picture and television. He has earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Professional Photography from The Rochester Institute of Technology where his major was motion picture production and film animation. During his 30+ year career, Dave has been involved in a wide variety of corporate, documentary films and live events. In his specialty camera duties you’ll find him operating a Steadicam, a 32 foot camera crane, or performing aerial cinematography.
His interest in panoramic photography started in the mid 80’s while looking for a cost effective way to train his eye to compose for wide screen format films. “I found an Art Panorama 617 camera and carried that with me on jobs for quite a few years, shooting in the off hours on locations. Later I discovered the xpan and continue to carry it on jobs.”
In the early 90’s he started working with Roundshot and Hulcherama cameras. Working alongside another photographer, Dave designed the lighting and directed the lighting crews for the Pennsylvania State House and Senate group photographs and has continued to do so through the current session.
Today, Dave is working with digital panoramic as well as continuing with the film based techniques.
President Elect: Open
Treasurer: Tom Sheckels
Moorestown, NJ
Duties include balancing books, invoicing sponsors, maintaining event payments, disbursing payments. Skills include: Quick books, a keen strategic financial mind.
Tom was born in Bozeman, Montana, moved to Amherst, Massachusetts as a child and is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island. A professional engineer, Tom has lived in New Jersey since 1976 when he began his career as an Environmental Engineer for the Navy. He has over twenty-five years of environmental experience which has included the cleanup of past hazardous waste dump sites and working with the clean water programs. Tom has traveled extensively for work and pleasure, and has found inspiration for his photography in many diverse and unique places, urban and remote, near and far.
Tom has always loved photography, recalling that as a child, his first was a Kodak Baby Brownie camera. He learned the trade of photo developing in his father’s basement darkroom where all the family photos came to life. As digital photography emerged in the early 2000’s and with Tom’s computer skills, his passion for photography took off again.
The eyes can only see so much when looking straight ahead, similarly, such is the case with most camera shots; the field of view is relatively narrow. But people tend to look around to take in an entire wonderful scene and that is what he is recreating with his panoramic images. It’s a wider field of view but without losing the clarity in the image. Stitching multiple photos together, Tom makes images that provide a huge amount of detail, resolution, color and show great composition. Tom has amazing panoramic images in his inventory, from local cityscapes to landscapes in extremely remote parts of the world.
Secretary: Fran Gardino
Brighton, MA
Fran Gardino has a BFA in Painting from the Massachusetts College of Art, which included Photography courses with such notables as Garry Winogrand and Gus Kayafas. He also pursued graduate studies at Harvard University Extension with Frank Gohlke and Jack Lueders Booth.
He has self-published 4 photo books on blurb.com: “Manhole Covers Etc.”, a collection of over 400 photos of utility covers from around the world, “Paint the Sky Fiery”, a series of night photos from Boston’s annual Fourth of July fireworks displays from 2005 to 2012, “The Sky Mourns”, a photo book of the 2013 fireworks in honor of the Boston Marathon victims, and “Touch the Sky”, showing numerous photos of clouds (many of which are panoramas) taken from the windows of commercial flights.
Fran is represented in the Vermont Artisans Gallery in Brattleboro VT, has two grandformat images installed at Boston’s Logan Airport, and has had several solo photo shows in the Boston area, including his “Italian Journey” show at the Italian Consulate in the Federal Reserve Building in Boston and “Villaggio Italiano”, a show of three 30-foot, 360-degree images in mini-cycloramas on display at the Harvard Education Portal in Allston, MA.
He has won numerous photo awards and has shown regularly in the juried summer shows at the Danforth Museum in Framingham MA, as well as other locations in the Boston area. He also has contributed hundreds of panorama images to the Google Earth website and has a website of his photos www.frangardino.com
Fran is also a Board member and the official photographer of the Brighton Allston Historical Society. Recently, he has been working on a new series of over two hundred 360-degree panoramic images of the local area for use in the BAHS Museum, and is one of the “Legendary Locals” in the book published by Linda Mishkin .
Professionally, Fran was Business Development Manager and worked for Mimaki USA for over 13 years as a key figure in building a successful Sales Channel selling wideformat and flatbed inkjet printers.
Director: Glenn Cope, CPP, Cr. Photog., API, EA-ASP, F-PPO
Tonkawa, OK
Dr. Cope has taught photography and digital imaging at Northern Oklahoma College in Tonkawa, Oklahoma for the past 25 years. He and his wife, Barbara, operate a studio in Tonkawa, Oklahoma. He earned a Ph.D. from The Catholic University, Washington D.C. In addition to photography, he teaches humanities and English. Cope is a Past President of the Professional Photographers of Oklahoma (PPO). He serves on the PPO Board and is the director for PPO School. He was appointed as the 2009-10 and 2010-11 Chair of the Professional Photographic Certification Commission. He is the certification liaison for Oklahoma. Cope serves on the PPA Council as one of Oklahoma’s three elected representatives. Cope is a CPP (Certified Professional Photographer) and has been awarded the Photographic Craftsman degree and is an Approved Photographic Instructor. In addition, the American Society of Photographers awarded him the Educational Associate. The PPO has given him the Grand Fellowship. He has given programs and classes across the country at state and local events. Cope teaches landscape workshops in various parts of the Southwest.
Director: Kay Larkin, Ph.D.
Terrebonne, OR
Enthusiasm with art and photography led me to take many photography classes in middle school, high school, and college. After college I pursued a career in Biology and my extensive use of photo-microscopy required that I continue to develop photography skills, including digital and three-dimensional imaging. During this time I had many images published in scientific journals and thousands utilized for clinical diagnoses.
I am an experimentalist by nature and incorporate the use of shallow-depth of field and slow shutter speeds at times to convey my impression of the moment.
In terms of artistic inspiration and expression I am most influenced by late 18th and early 19th Century Luminist painters.
I particularly enjoy making panoramic images because of the way they draw the viewer into the scene and convey a sense of space.
I also like to explore relationships of subjects and their shadows and other optical phenomena.
My purpose is to share the joy I find in the beauty that surrounds us all.
Director: Syd Moen
Houston, TX
Syd was born in Houston, Texas and has been a lifelong resident of the city’s Montrose area. She obtained both a B.A. in Art History and a Master of Architecture from the University of Houston. She has had a lifelong interest in photography including an early interest in digital photography.
It was her interest in VR photography in late 1998 that led her and a group of friends to form a multimedia company called Haver Street Studios. “When we first formed our company we were aiming at documenting historic sites which were inaccessible to those with disabilities. However our focus changed when we landed a contract to integrate VR photography and special effects to create web based simulations for petrochemical emergency responders. After our contract ended we went our separate ways but the knowledge I gained during that time period was priceless.”
Her experience in VR photography has led to her current work in stereographic projections or little planets. “Throughout the years I have experimented with numerous artistic mediums; however I always come back to photography as the core resource for my explorations of self-expression. Creating a little planet gives me an opportunity to re-imagine the familiar and make something new and different.”
Director: Ray Pfeiffer
Raleigh, North Carolina
Ray was a political science major in college which is why he is aphotographer today. He began his love affair with photography whileworking on his high school and college yearbooks. It was the documentarynature of that work which carried over to his wedding and portraitphotography career that began while he was still in school.
After school he spent the next 25 years traveling around the US and into
Canada photographing weddings and special events. Along the way his work
has been published in several regional and national publications including
Modern Bride and The Knot. A career highlight was being interviewed in
Modern Bride. His fine art work has been exhibited in juried shows and
galleries as well as being purchased for corporate and private
collections.
Along the way, a chance encounter with a photographer carrying a Widelux
camera changed the way he approached his work thereafter. Like many
photographers, he began using stitching programs as they developed in the
90’s but film pan cameras are still his favorite tool.
Ray has also taught photography at the high school and collegiate level in
addition to the occasional workshop and guest lecture.
Past President: Paul Speaker
Upland, CA
I have been interested in photography since childhood, when I began with roll film and a box Brownie. After active duty in the USNavy, I attended Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, CA, where I graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree with a double major in Industrial Photography and Color Technology. Shortly thereafter, I was hired by General Dynamics Corp, where I worked as an industrial photographer and color printer for 10 years. When our facility was sold and moved, I switched to Lifetouch, a school photography company, where, for 10 years I photographed classroom groups from 6 to 600 students, dances, seniors, and sports. I had my first Photoshop class in January, 2000, and by April had hired on as a full time retoucher for a full-service portrait studio. Currently, I am semi-retired, accepting assignments if they interest me, but mostly doing Photoshop work for other photographers.
I am an active member of Professional Photographers of America (PPA), currently serving on the PPA Council. Through PPA, I am certified as a Certified Professional Photographer. I have also earned the PPA Master of Photography Degree, the Craftsman Degree, and am working on the Master Artist Degree. At the state level, I have earned the Fellowship Award with two bars for the number of prints I’ve had accepted in the Professional Photographers of California (PPC)State Print Competitions since 2002. I have been the recipient of two People’s Choice Awards, a Fuji Masterpiece Award, and two Kodak Gallery Awards at the state level. I am a past president of the Inland Empire Professional Photographers and Videographers, based in Riverside, CA, the local affiliate of PPC. I am the new President-Elect of the International Association of Panoramic Photographers (IAPP).