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Biographies L-R

This section contains boigraphies of FOTOfusion presenters that will be present this year.

Claudine Laabs

CLAUDINE LAABS is a nature photographer who has been called an artist with a camera, who believes that good photography is "painting with light". She has been specializing in the Everglades and has traveled extensively in Central and South America. A past president of the Audubon Society of the Everglades (Palm Beach County chapter), her work has been published nationally and internationally (Audubon calendars and World Wildlife books) and she has exhibited widely in Florida, including a one-person show at the Boca Raton Museum of Art and Everglades National Park.

Sarah Leen

SARAH LEEN made the leap from freelance photographer for the National Geographic magazine to joining the staff as a Senior Photo Editor in December 2004. She is now responsible for story concepts, budgets, photo editing and working with the design staff on magazine layouts. Her photo assignments for the Geographic took her to Lake Baikal in Siberia, the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia’s Far East, the Republic of Macedonia and the suburbs of America for stories on Urban Sprawl, Cheap Oil and Alternative Energy. Among her many awards are a POY 1st Place in Feature Picture Story for her British Columbia’s Stikine River essay. In 2007 and in 2008 she won the POY 1st Place Magazine Picture Editing Portfolio.

J. Thomas Lopez

J. TOMAS LOPEZ is a Florida Artist, Cintas Foundation Fellowship, NEA Award in the Visual Arts recipient, nationally and internationally known for his large scale digital prints. His work is included in many permanent collections: The Smithsonian Institution, National Gallery of American Arts; The Biblioteque Nationale de France, The International Museum of Photography, and many other museums and private collections. Lopez received a Masters degree in Media Arts from the University of South Carolina in film and video and his M.F.A. from the University of South Florida. His work has been shown across the US, Europe, Asia, and in numerous publications.

William Manning

WILLIAM MANNING specializes in architecture and travel and has lead many workshops and photo treks worldwide. His architectural work is widely known for his unique approach capturing images with true to life feel. His travel work has been widely used for their clean and simple designs. Corbis Images, Getty Images, Alamy and ImageState represent his stock photography images. Many national and international companies and publishers including American Airlines, BP Amoco, Rand McNally and Co., National Geographic, ESPN Magazine, Sierra Club, and John Hancock have used his photography. He is also the photographer of four books including the popular, Photographer's Travel Guide.

Ben Martin

BEN MARTIN, co-owner and creative director of Pomegranate Press, Ltd., an international book publishing company, is also an award winning photojournalist, advertising and corporate photographer with clients worldwide. Martin’s newspaperman father gave him his first camera at age eight, and he became the youngest member of NPPA, working for the Salisbury (NC) Post at fifteen. Coming to NY at the invitation of LIFE magazine’s legendary picture editor Wilson Hicks to be a LIFE photographer-trainee, he went on to become TIME magazine’s first contract staff photographer and TIME’s Senior Photographer for 33 years, covering myriad assignments for all of Time Inc.’s magazines and divisions worldwide.

Scott McKiernan

SCOTT McKIERNAN’s dynamic leadership and decades of experience in photojournalism – as an award winning photographer, photo editor, agent, designer and now publisher (DOUBLEtruck Magazine) – have proven instrumental in establishing one of the world’s largest, and the first, digital age editorial picture agency. With a staff of 50, ZUMA Press represents over 3,000 photojournalists, 90 large dailies & picture agencies around the globe. Among his accomplishments, In the early hours of the world wide web, Mc Kiernan built the first editorial database for pictures.

Joseph Meehan

JOSEPH MEEHAN has been a professional photographer, writer and teacher for over 35 years. Hundreds of his photographs have appeared in books and magazines all over the world and the New York Times has characterized his style as “alive with color and sparkling with light.” Meehan was the Senior Technical Editor of Photo District News for over a decade and has authored over 500 articles in US and British magazines. He is the former editor of the Photography Yearbook and has written 25 books on photographic technique several of which have been published in multiple languages.

Andrea Modica

ANDREA MODICA, an Associate Professor in the Photography Dept at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA., is one of contemporary photography’s most important image makers. Her first two books, Minor League, a study of the world of minor league baseball, and Treadwell, a series of images on adolescence in rural America, have met with critical acclaim. Her photographs have been exhibited widely and are in numerous collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum, Bibliothèque Nationale and the Whitney Museum of Art.

Steven Nestler

STEVEN NESTLER is known for his beautifully crafted prints of intimate and personal landscapes. Many permanent collections, including; The Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum in N.Y.; The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the art museums of Harvard and Stanford Universities have acquired his work. Many artists, including Ansel Adams, Paul Caponigro and Siegfried Halus, have collected his images. For over 30 years, he has taught classes and workshops in photographic vision, design, and technique for many universities and photographic organizations.

Marjorie Neikrug

MARJORIE NEIKRUG, President of Neikrug Photographica, Ltd., is a certified senior member of the American Society of Appraisers, tested in Personal Property/Fine Art Photography. She is on the Board of Directors of the ASA and on the Board of the Appraisers Association of America, serving on several AAA committees, and is a member of the New England Appraisers Association and the Association of International Photography Art Dealers. She has curated exhibitions and written widely on appraisals and received the John Singleton Copely Medal from the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, among other honors.

Lucian Perkins

LUCIAN PERKINS, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner (1995 & 2000) while a staff photographer for The Washington Post for 27 years, covered many of the major events of that time including the war in Bosnia, the Palestinian uprising in the West Bank, the Gulf War, Russia since 1988, and daily and political events in Washington, DC. In 1995 he was awarded World Press Photo of the Year, and in 1994 he was named Newspaper Photographer of the Year by the NPPA Currently, he is an independent photographer and videographer concentrating on multimedia projects and video documentaries while still pursuing his love for the still image.

Robert Pledge

ROBERT PLEDGE, president and editorial director of Contact Press Images founded the agency in 1976 with photographer David Burnett. A student of West African languages and anthropology, he found his way into journalism as a specialist in African affairs for Jeune Afrique and Le Monde Diplomatique. He has edited highly acclaimed books and catalogues, curated major exhibitions world-wide and served on prestigious international juries. In 2004 he received the Overseas Press Club’s “Olivier Rebbot Award” for Red-Color News Soldier, co-authored with Jacques Menasche and photographer Li Zhensheng. He is the president of the W. Eugene Smith Memorial Fund.

John Reuter

JOHN REUTER has been a photographer since the early 1970s, majoring in Art while attending SUNY Geneseo. He continued his studies on the graduate level at the University of Iowa, receiving two master’s degrees. It was there that he began to specialize in Polaroid materials, most notably his SX-70 constructions, combining photography with painting and collage. Reuter joined Polaroid Corporation in 1978 as senior photographer and later Director of the legendary 20x24 Studio. His own work evolved through large scale Polacolor Image Transfers to digital imaging in the mid 1990’s. He has taught workshops in Photoshop, Lightroom, Polaroid materials and encaustic painting around the world. John has presented at Fotofusion since 1997.