My career in photography reaches back to the 1970s, during my tenure as Director of Public Relations and Publications at Lebanon Valley College, in my hometown of Annville, Pennsylvania. I couldn’t find a local photographer capable of producing the kind of work I envisioned. With the help of my husband, Jim, who became a hobbyist in graduate school, I learned to do it myself, using a medium-format, twin-lens reflex camera.

By the early 1980s, Jim and I had opened Countryhouse Studios, a full-service portrait studio, housed in a barn next to our 1876 farmhouse. That’s where I learned a lot about marketing and managing a small business (some through formal study, and much more through The School of Hard Knocks. Ten years later, after opening a second studio in Lancaster, I began teaching marketing, sales, and financial management to fellow photographers through Professional Photographers of America (PPA). Later on, I became Chairman of the Board of the PPA School of Professional Photography, just as the age of digital photography began to change the very foundations of our industry. Both an exciting and scary time for professionals, I had to relearn my profession, seemingly overnight, to maintain credibility as a teacher and author of photo business books and trade press articles, as well as a business consultant to studio owners and major industry corporations.

In 2009 we opened a specialty pet portrait business at our Annville location, marketing it as Persnickety Pet Portraits, “a warm-fuzzy division of Countryhouse Studios.”

By 2010, three years after iPhones became the rage, both pro photographers and photo enthusiasts had fully embraced digital photography. Back then, I had become concerned about the permanence of digital files. Some clients (and even newly minted pros) seemed more interested in how many photos they could make than whether the images would last as long as printed photographs. After researching the issue, I began to stress, in the classroom and in publications, the need for photographers, families, businesses, and societal institutions to properly preserve their vulnerable digital files. If not, I feared we would suffer what many document conservationists warn is the real possibility of a coming “Digital Dark Age.” 

My concern extended to how families and institutions could establish legal ownership and hereditary access to digital assets placed on cloud-storage platforms through proper “digital legacy” planning. These are the issues that led to my becoming a photo archivist in partnership with FOREVER.®

Credentials and Recognitions:
B.A. degree in English, Bucknell University • Master Photographer (PPA) • Photographic Craftsman (PPA) • Certified Professional Photographer (PPA) • Fellow, Irish Professional Photographers Asociation • Associate, American Society of Photographers • PPA-Approved Business Instructor • PPA-Approved Photographic Instructor • PPA-Approved International Print Competition Juror • Trustee PPA Charities • PPA Past President • PPA School Past Chairman • Helen K. Yancy Award, “for distinguished service to photography as a token of high esteem to an individual who by their ability, ingenuity and gracious sharing of talents has bequeathed to photography an achievement of service of far-reaching value.” (PPA) • Gerhard Bakker Award for excellence in teaching (PPA) • Charles H. “Bud” Haynes Award “for distinguished service to PPA and its members for encouraging business awareness and practices in the field of professional image-making (PPA) • Leadership Award from the International Photographic Council, presented at the United Nations (PPA) • 2 PPA National Awards(PPA) • 2 PPA Director’s Awards