team bios
Dennis Biela
Dennis Biela is a photographer and digital documentarist.
For over 12 years he has served as the photographer and lecturer of choice for Apple Computers.
He is a beta tester for leading software companies, and for Kodak and Canon cameras & digital imaging equipment.
His client list reads like a who's who; some of them are: Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, BMW General Motors, Eastman Kodak, Cessna, Apple computers, Smithsonian Institution, Michelin Tires N.A., Car and Driver, Ocean Drive and Automobile, Four Seasons Hotels, Red Lion Hotels & Resorts, and MGM properties.
Certified as an expert in the field of digital imaging by the United States Government, he is a consultant to major corporations, advertising agencies and various camera manufacturers.
Dennis has just completed the QuickTime Virtual Reality tour for National Air & Space Museum, part of the Smithsonian. Current projects include creating virtual tours for the San Diego Air & Space Museum and the National Park Service.
Patrick Cheatham
With over 15 years of experience in varied art & design disciplines, Patrick Cheatham places his clients at the vanguard of interactive online marketing, design and 360° virtual tour photography. Patrick is internationally recognized as a pioneer in the Virtual Tour and 360° VR Photography industry, and is among the top tier of VR shooters/producers worldwide.
Most recently, Patrick's 360° virtual tour photography helped introduce Starbucks® Pike Place Roast, and, working with Jones Lang LaSalle's Interactive Design team, he scripted and implemented the virtual tour of Network Drive in Massachusetts. Other recent clients have included L'Occitane en Provence, Bone Clones, Inc., and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Patrick is a member of the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP), is currently listed in the Adobe Photographers Directory, and has organized quarterly meetings of professional panoramic photographers in the Bay Area. In November of 2007 VRMAG interviewed Patrick for VRMAG's Guest Artist Spotlight.
Patrick served as a director of the International VR Photography Association (IVRPA) in 2005 and 2007, and with other members of the IVRPA, he organized the 2007 International VR Photography Conference in Berkeley. In previous years, Patrick spoke at the VR Summits in Savannah, Georgia & Sedona, Arizona and gave several presentations there on VR photography and interactive Web development.
When not photographing and scripting dynamic 360° Flash & virtual tour content for his clients, Patrick has been known to take graduate courses in Linguistics, do the crossword and snap the occasional photo just for fun.
Kay Christy
Kay Christy is a multimedia artist specializing in Flash, QTVR, 3D animation, aesthetic quality control, and wacky ideas. She has consulted for photographic virtual reality projects, and spoken at numerous digital conferences including: Consumer Electronics Show, Digital Media DC, NY Digital Video, National Association of Broadcasters, and the International VR Photographers Summit Series on such subjects as: 3d animation, Flash animation, and VR.
Formerly chair of the Media Arts and Animation and Game Design departments at The Art Institute of Washington, she now toils under her own banner, ConceptGirl.
Her work ranges from work on animations for Volkswagen to fingernail-constructed necklaces to a full-blown workout of her longstanding interest with retro rockets: Washington DC's Rocket Bar.
Kay is a graduate of Savannah College of Art and Design and Rhode Island School of Design.
Tom Cummings
Tom Cummings is a writer, producer/director and narrator who creates for the eye and the ear. A 1975 graduate of Cornell University, his early career included work as a radio copywriter, advertising agency writer, television producer and agency vice president for creative services.
Current work includes Birds Eye Foods, Corning Incorporated, Dresser-Rand, Eastman Kodak and MedAmerica Insurance among many others. Recent non-profit clients have included Strong National Museum of Play and Junior Achievement of Rochester.
His creativity has earned a CINE Golden Eagle Award, Silver and Bronze Telly Awards, as well as national finalist recognition from advertising's Clio Awards. He has served as a juror for the Golden Reel, CINE and the Clio Awards.
He has served as a judge for the Golden Reel Awards and the national Clio radio awards. Cummings is a past president of the Western New York Chapter of the International Television Association (ITVA) and has been a featured presenter at the organization's national conference.
Robert Fisher
Bob Fisher started at WBTV and WCCB television as a news photographer and worked his way up to shooting TV commercials and editing. During this period Robert also directed and shot many short films, several of which won prizes on the film festival circuit.
In 1980 Robert met his future business partner and started a commercial production company, Location Video, Inc., which survived until just recently as The Avatar Group International. The main goal of the company was to produce TV commercials and content with the highest production values utilizing cutting edge technologies. Location Video used both film and video technology to make unique visuals come to life for a broad range of clients. The partners leaned toward cinematic visuals and comedic stories throwing away the conventional wisdom of the period about what commercials contained and how they looked.
From there Robert moved on to work in the emerging motion picture industry in the southeast. He worked as a camera operator/assistant on regional and smaller budget Hollywood productions learning photographic and management skills that would later be put to good use. Finally Robert decided to come to west and moved to Hollywood to pursue a career in the Motion Picture Industry. He continued to work as a camera assistant and also worked as a Gaffer and lighting technician to hone his skills lighting movies.
In the years following he has worked on feature films such as Titanic, Money Talks, Jurassic Park, Mission Impossible II and many others -- picking up knowledge and lighting skills along the way.
Using his years of experience and lighting/camera skills Robert has been serving on the Science and Technical Awards Sub-Committee of the Motion Picture Academy from 2002 to present. It is a rewarding experience on all levels to be able to participate in the Academy Awards.
Benn Foos
Benjamin Foos is a dynamic graphic artist on the creative cusp of design and technology. Educated at San Diego State University and The Art Institute, Ben began working in the business in 1997.
While working at some of the most reknowned printing companies in California (including, Bordeaux Printers and Bayshore Press) Ben learned the business of what it takes to get jobs done from a production standpoint.
Ben also worked for Aquent Partners (the creative industry leader in freelance employment) for two years, and has worked as an in-house designer for the San Diego Air & Space Museum since 2006. Ben is also a member of the The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA).
Kevin O'Connor
Kevin O'Connor is one of the country's leading experts on color managed workflows, and one of the subject's best presenters. He brings his Irish wit and love of language to the classroom to make sure you'll have a good time while you're soaking up color knowledge.
His areas of expertise include color management, digital photography and publishing workflow creation and best practices, and intense training in the Adobe Creative Suite applications and QuarkXpress. He was responsible for designing and implementing the color workflow for the QuickTime VR project at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum with Master VR Photographer Dennis Biela.
Kevin has been a professional photographer for more than 30 years, a graphic designer and print production manager for 20 years, and a color geek for more than ten years (before it was fashionable, something he's never accused of being). A self-described "lazy man", he works hard at finding the easiest ways to do his work, and delights in teaching other people to share the efficient tools, tips and techniques he has adopted.
His clients include Apple, Adobe, Fujifilm USA, X-Rite, GretagMacbeth, Extensis, Sony, Kinko's and HP.
Patrick St. Clair
Pat St. Clair holds a bachelor's degree in marketing from Miami University (O), and a bachelor's degree in professional photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology.
He has been photographing commercially since 1978. St. Clair serves a corporate clientele that includes agencies of all sizes as well as direct corporate clients such as Eastman Kodak Company, Palm, Xerox, Hewlett-Packard, The Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum, 3Com, DaimlerChrysler, ExxonMobil, Microwave Data Systems and more.
He was an early adopter of digital photography as well as interactive photography. He worked as a consulting photographer with Eastman Kodak Company on digital capture projects and digital image quality issues for fifteen years as they brought their professional digital photographic technology to market.
He has worked with QuickTime VR since 1994, is a charter member of the IQTVRA (now the IVRPA), and was a speaker at the first four International VR Summits in Boulder, CO, Washington, DC, Sedona, AZ and Savannah, GA.
Pat has written extensively on VR and photographic topics for VR Mag with distribution to over 120 countries for the last 3 years.
