In a our club SSCC, the membership runs from beginner to professional. Every member has a story to tell. Each month the CABLE RELEASE will shine the spotlight on some of our members.
Edited by Marc Auerbach
Focus on Dave Powell
Each third Thursday of the month at Photo Forum, Dave Powell asks, “What’s on your mind? What did you think about….? What do you want to know?” Dave Powell is an important member whose goal is to help photographers grow their love of and skills with photography. Dave came to SSCC by happenstance. He and his wife, Jane, were in line waiting to hear President Obama’s inaugural speech. Dave struck up a conversation with the folks standing behind him. When one of them asked what Dave did Dave explained he was a professional photographer. The person exclaimed, “You ought to come to the Silver Spring Camera Club.” That began Dave’s years long relationship with us
Dave has more than 50 years of experience using media to tell stories that illustrate and bring life to the high-impact, high-visibility, high -pressure, and fast-moving worlds of business, schools,museums, and government. Dave is an award-winning film and documentary maker, creator andproducer of video and multi-screen slideshows and photographs. Silver Spring Camera Club is fortunate to have his help in guiding us to find new and interesting ways to learn and use photography in our lives.
Focus on Will Rabinovich
I’m a native New Yorker, but I’ve lived in the DC area for over 35 years. Work brought me here. I’m a physicist and I work at the US Naval Research Lab. My research area is optics, but not the imaging kind! So my work and hobbies are not the same. I’m married, and have two adult sons.
I’ve been doing photography on and off since I was a kid developing film, and printing black and white photos, in my parent’s tiny bathroom in our apartment. I do mostly landscape and nature photography. I was a Canon guy for a long time, but, a few years ago, I bought myself a small Sony APSC mirrorless camera, just to have something small. Over time I realized that i was using the Sony much more than the Canon, so I became an early mirrorless convert. I still have a Sony APSC, but I also have a Sony full frame camera.
I’d been thinking of joining a photo club for awhile, but I wasn’t sure I’d have time after work to make the meetings. Well the pandemic sort of solved that problem, and I joined SSCC. Since I joined after the pandemic, I have yet to attend an in-person meeting, but I am hoping that will change. When I was investigating local camera clubs, I looked at SSCC’s website and that helped me make up my mind. So I’ve tried to pay that back by helping with the club’s website.
Aside from photography, I enjoy travel, hiking and writing Mac software. I hope to do all of those more once I retire in a couple of years.
Focus on Diane Sanders
I’ve been around photography my whole life. My dad owned a camera store and was an avid photographer, always with a camera in hand.
After college and while still in New York City, I studied with a master silversmith, who had learned the craft from his father in Germany. It was the best possible training in close attention to detail and respect for process, where every hammer stroke affects the outcome. When I left New York, I went to Indiana University to continue studying in their metalsmithing department.
I got back to photography after moving to West Virginia. Initially, I wanted to explore the beautiful flowers from my garden. Then my husband introduced me to the piles of glass left by now shuttered glass factories. That glass became my road to abstract imagery. These are still my favorite subjects – close ups of flowers and other natural subjects, and abstractions created using reflected and refracted light.
After a few years of barely earning a living as a jeweler, I decided to return to my alternate life and started a computer company, which I ran until retiring. We moved to this area about 6 years ago to be close to our daughter, who has rambunctious 7 year old twin boys.
One day, while walking around our new neighborhood, I met my now good friend and fellow photographer Kate Woodward. She convinced me to join the camera club and to eventually start submitting photographs. It’s been a complete pleasure since then.
When Covid hit, I started trying to re-learn French, my other current obsession. Any Francophones out there, I’d love to hear from you!
So life is busier than I expected, with lots to still explore in Maryland and DC, so many parks to visit, and so much still to learn.