About Gwen

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Photography

My hobby is fine-art photography. Since retiring from full time work, I spend many hours roaming around New York City with camera in hand, observing and capturing life. My favorite topics are architectural details and the fascinating people I see.
 
I won an award for the photo Out for a Stroll in the Black and White 2017 single image contest. Other images from BackStories earned a Spotlight award in Black and White’s 2018 portfolio contest. And my BackStories: Women of a Certain Age were selected for LensCulture’s Emerging Talent Award 2018.
 
I spend winters in Florida and enjoy photographing nature, especially flowers and birds. I’ve won several contests with this body of work. For example, my photo of a stag horn fern won best in show at the Mounts Botanical Gardens photo contest in 2016. Over the last few years, some of my bird photos have won awards in Loxhatchee Wildlife Refuge’s photo contests and my landscapes and sunsets have been featured in their calendars. In 2012, I won an award in the All-Florida Juried Photo Contest.
 
Some of my photos have been exhibited in galleries: Soho Photo Gallery – July 2016, 2017, and 2018; Highland Beach Library in Florida -- June 2018, and the Klompching gallery in Brooklyn -- December 2018.

History

Current Series

I’ve written and co-authored eight books on educational technology, the most recent of which is the second edition of Web 2.0: how to for educators (published by ISTE). Currently I am a freelancer for Tech & Learning magazine. I manage custom web sites; write eBooks, whitepapers, and advertorials, and direct webinars.
 
I also was senior analyst in the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology and Coordinator of Instructional Technology Planning for New York City Public Schools. I was also founding director of New York City’s School of the Future and started the Well Connected Educator web site, which merged with Tech & Learning magazine’s techlearning.com, which I managed for eight years.

My current project is “Backstories,” a series of photos in which I capture people from the back and isolate them from their surroundings. I try to show their humanity, their “backstories” for viewers to consider.
 
In literature, a backstory provides clues to character. The photos in this series are of women of a certain age who caught my eye in the passing crowd on the streets of Manhattan. You can tell so much about them from the shapes of their retreating figures. We see that each has a unique stance, a style, a way of walking, and a way of dressing. Who are they? These Backstories challenge our imaginations to discern – or invent – a story about the person, one that represents at least a single moment in time.

Awards