IVRPA Board of Directors
The current IVRPA steering body was inaugurated in January 2009, and is made up of the following members:
Jan van der Woning
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- Role
- President
- Location
- Duivendrecht, NH, Netherlands
- Contact
- +31 20 6977150 or send an email
- Company
- Studio Jan van der Woning
- Biography
Jan van der Woning wanted to become a photographer when he made his first picture at age sixteen and became a professional at the age of 25 when he got his grade for photography from the Dutch "Fotovakschool". He also studied at Hans Goetze, now the Academy for Photography. Most of his work is commercial but in 1999 he started to make 396 degrees panoramic images and the work shifted more to editorial and interactive photography for websites and CD-Roms and DVDs. His work is also bougth as artwork in medium and large sizes and sold at artmarkets and in galleries.
He speaks 3 languages fluently and 3 fairly well so communication during travel is not a problem. He travelled through many countries in Europe, North and Central Africa and the United States including Alaska. He also was in Middle and South America and in Borneo, Indonesia for WWF and Greenpeace to make panoramas of illegal logging. And he made an expedition to the Antarctic as part of an art project.
Jan likes to shoot landscapes and people. He thinks the nicest moment of the day is the twilight zone and a lot of his pictures are taken in this short but beautiful period. On the Antarctic the sun downs lasted for hours so this was a real "Eldorado".
G. Donald Bain
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- Role
- Vice President
- Location
- El Cerrito, CA, United States
- Contact
- 510-237-5785 or send an email
- Company
- Bain Digital Graphics
- Biography
I have always used photographs of landscapes in teaching geography and environmental sciences. This led me to create The Geo-Images Project in 1991, one of the earliest web sites (1994), and perhaps the first site to feature color imagery.
When I first saw Apple's QTVR, I recognized it as a significant advance in portraying landscapes. I built a special camera mount and started making VR panoramas in 1995, eventually presenting them on my website: Don Bain's Virtual Guidebooks. My goal is to portray the landscapes of western North America, in pursuit of which I have travelled from the tip of Baja California in Mexico to the Arctic Ocean in Canada, creating over 7000 panoramas.
I served on the IVRPA (IQTVRA) board from 2004 to 2007 and again beginning in 2009. My goal is for the IVRPA to become the unifying organization for VR producers and a resource for everyone interested in VR photography.
In 2004 Landis Bennett and I founded the World Wide Panorama with the aim of bringing VR photography to the attention of a wider audience, and promoting a sense of community among the participants. It is now administered by the World Wide Panorama Foundation.
In June 2007 I helped organize and host the International VR Photography Conference in Berkeley, California.
I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, attended the University of California at Berkeley and University College London in England. From 1986 to 2008 I was the Director of the Geography Computing Facility, University of California Berkeley, where I taught computer cartography and field studies. I live in El Cerrito, on the crest of the Berkeley Hills, with my wife Dr Nora Weldon and two cats.
Willy Kaemena
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- Role
- Secretary
- Location
- Bremen, n/a, Germany
- Contact
- ++49421325906 or send an email
- Company
- http://homepage.mac.com/wkaemena/FSPanos/Menu268.html
- Biography
Born in 1950 in Bremen Germany, Mecanical Engineer, Worked for a large german company in the construction of industrial plants all over the world. Now retired.
Hobby photographer.
First contact with QTVR 1997, first QTVRs in 1998 (QTVRAS) Since 2004 spherical panoramas.
Active participant of the WorldWidePanorama project (WWP)
http://worldwidepanorama.org/worldwidepanorama/wwppeople/html/WillyKaeme...Due to his almost 30 years of working experience outside of his home country, He is fluent in 4 languages and able to communicate in many others.
Carlos Chegado
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- Role
- Director
- Location
- Barreiro, , Portugal
- Contact
- +35121210889190 or send an email
- Company
- Olho de Peixe Lda
- Biography
I was born in Évora City, Portugal, but grown up in Mozambique, more particularly in Pemba City, Cabo Delgado province, but had to leave that place at the age of 16 and return to Portugal to pursue my studies.
My father introduced me to photography when I was a kid and that passion just grow with me so that I decided to make my studies in the Portuguese Institute of Photography.
Back then it was all about Black & White Photography, Color Slides & Cibachrome prints. I met my wife when I was teaching photography and she was my student, since that I decided to quit teaching photography and started my company in 1992.
Back then my very first clients where Hotels from Lisbon that needed images from their premises to use on brochures, by that time, the World Wide Web was still on Tim Berners-Lee head.
My Business grow with multiple additional photographic services up to the point that I was completely saturated with all the analog issues I was having, just imagine the load of stuff it was needed to shoot pictures inside Hotels with mixed sun light and artificial light sources, it was insane, I was craving for a digital system but when I looked at the specs of the Nikon E2 from that time, how disappointing, just made me give up on photography for a while.
I started to work mainly in the marking & advertising business and focused in developing my Large Format Print Center.
Having been a Nikon user all my life, I waited and waited for a decent Nikon Digital SLR to get back in the action, to no avail, at some point I decided to give up on Nikon and switched to Canon Digital gear.
Hans Nyberg web page introduced me to panoramas and I started to develop my skills on 360º Photography and when I started to show these immersive images to my Hotel clients it was a perfect match.
This year (2009) I turn 40 and I want to shoot more images for my own pleasure than as my professional obligation, but of course I am always open to new experiences and learning/expanding skills is a never ending task that I happily pursue.
Jürgen Schrader
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- Role
- Director
- Location
- Reichertshausen, , Germany
- Contact
- +49-172-8166854 or send an email
- Company
- Jürgen Schrader
- Biography
Born in 1960 I wanted to become a photographer right after school in the early 80s.
But as things sometimes don't turn out as expected I first had to go through many years of studies, working in advertising agencies, multimedia startups, raising children and all that kind of stuff before I finally managed to get back to my roots.The new lit fire took me straight into spherical panoramas and I am still enjoying this amazing technique. Luckily I was able to find some customers that support me to follow this line and bring panoramic photography to a new experience, especially in the field of computer simulations.
With my background in general marketing I also discovered a talent to help customers to bring things to the point. This is why I get invited to help companies develop the content for and appearance of their web pages, packagings and general advertising material.
Aaron Spence
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- Role
- Director
- Location
- Pacific Pines, Queensland, Australia
- Contact
- +61 7 5573 5511 or send an email
- Company
- Panedia
- Biography
Buying an SLR camera in highschool during the late 80’s kicked off my career as a photographer. I entered the digital age of photography in 1996 with Photoshop 3.0.5 and a Nikon Coolscan II film scanner. In 2000 after years of computer based design, web, cd-rom, audio, video & photography I finally found the perfect blend of photography & computer imaging…..the 360 degree panoramic virtual tour.
Since that time, I’ve continued working across most fields of digital multimedia while specialising in the shooting & production of panoramic virtual tours. All the while I’ve had a desire to build the ultimate product and company to expand the use and appreciation of the Panoramic Virtual Tour.
Over the past couple of years I’ve had the opportunity to make that desire a reality, doing extensive R&D into panoramic photography workflows & systems for batch processing extremely high quality georeferenced panoramic photography. The fruit of these years of labour is Panedia, in what we have now, and the more advanced products & services still to come.
Matthias Taugwalder
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- Role
- Director
- Location
- Zurich, , Switzerland
- Contact
- +41 79 744 58 55 or send an email
- Company
- Concept360
- Biography
Matthias Taugwalder was born in 1981 and grew up in Zermatt (Switzerland). After spending his childhood in the mountains, he studied business informatics at the University of Zurich. He is a direct descendant of the mountaineers Peter Taugwalder and Son, who experienced the drama of the first ascent of the Matterhorn with Edward Whymper on 14th July 1865. The family tradition is obligatory, it is a matter of honour for him to take his panoramic shots by climbing the ascents and doing without helicopter services.
Taugwalder is a passionate panoramic photographer. The focus of his photographic creativity is the Alps and the surrounding area. By capturing the structures, forms and aura of the mountain landscape as realistically as possible, he meets documentary standards. In addition, as a computer expert, he makes full use of the opportunities offered by electronics.
Alongside his freelance activities, Matthias Taugwalder runs his own company, “Concept360”. As the company’s owner, he offers a whole range of services in the field of photography and information services.
In addition, the IVRPA Board of Directors would like to extend its gratitude to the following members for their help and involvement:
Kat Bennett
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- Role
- Treasurer
- Location
- Richmond, CA, United States
- Company
- 360Geographics
- Biography
I am a cartographer in the Bay Area of California working for a travel book publishing company Avalon Travel Publishing.
During university in the geography program at Cal I learned from Don Bain how to make panoramas. With my husband, Landis Bennett, I try to travel as much as possible to as many places as possible to take a pano. As a geographer I find that panorama technology is the best way to show all aspects of a landscape, physical and cultural.
Aldo Hoeben
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- Role
- Webmaster
- Location
- Schiedam, , Netherlands
- Company
- fieldOfView
- Biography
Aldo Hoeben has been involved in panoramic photography since 1996. Over the years, he deployed several different viewing technologies, discovering the merits and limitations of each technology. With a steady development of mainstream computer graphics hardware and the arrival of broadband internet, the time to initiate new innovations in the field of panoramic imaging has come. This is why Aldo started to develop the SPi-V engine; a hardware accelerated panorama viewing engine, based on Macromedia's acclaimed Shockwave technology.
In 2006, Aldo joined the IVRPA Board of Directors and was responsible for designing and implementing the new IVRPA community website, based on the open source Drupal CMS.
For more information about fieldOfView or the SPi-V engine, please visit http://fieldofview.com