NANPA 2013 Board of Directors Candidate

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Sean Fitzgerald Sean Fitzgerald Photography, Inc. Dallas, TX www.seanfitzgerald.com

1) Give us a brief overview of your job, photographic, educational, volunteer, organizational board/committee skills, etc.

I am a former attorney who switched to photography full time 10 years ago. A substantial amount of my photography is nature and conservation related, along with travel, architecture and commercial. I sell my images in the commercial art, fine art, and stock markets, teach photo workshops and seminars, etc.

2) How long have you been an active member of NANPA?

I have been an active member of NANPA since 1999.

3) What Summits/Forums have you attended?

I have been to eight (Florida twice, Austin, Reno, San Diego, Portland, Albuquerque, and McAllen).

4) Have you served as a NANPA volunteer or worked on a committee?

I have volunteered in past forums and led or helped with six to seven prior NANPA Road Shows. I have not been a NANPA committee member before.

5) What particular expertise and/or qualities would you bring to the NANPA Board?

My past as an attorney prepared me to recognize and analyze issues, find solutions, and communicate clearly. My career as a photographer and artist has trained me to innovate and find new ways to communicate my point of view. I also have a long history of experience on non-profit boards and am currently the president of the Deep Ellum Community Association (a small neighborhood in Dallas with a huge impact, 15,000 Facebook followers, etc. see facebook.com/deepellum and www.deepellumtexas.com).

6) NANPA is a young organization experiencing amazing growth. To help bring about a successful passage into maturity, every member of the Board is required to put in considerable time and effort. Will you be able to participate fully and actively? If you are self-employed, can you afford to take time away from your business? If you are an employee, or in some other way connected to an organization, will your job responsibilities allow you the freedom to attend to NANPA business?

I am self-employed and can schedule in and meet any additional responsibilities with adequate lead time.

7) How would you use your abilities to further the NANPA mission: "to provide education, foster professionalism and ethical conduct, gather and disseminate information, and develop standards for all persons interested in the field of nature photography. NANPA further seeks to promote nature photography as an art form and a medium of communication for the sciences, nature appreciation, and environmental protection." Do not address the entire mission, but only those aspects that align with your own know-how, interests, and goals.

My background is an odd mix of left brain analytical thinking, right brain creativity, with a sprinkling of grass-roots organizing and guerilla marketing thrown in. All of those skills would come in handy in terms of using NANPA as a platform for education and advocacy to its own members and to the public at large.

I would also like to see NANPA greatly expand and promote nature photography as an art form and as a shared experience. A sample idea is to encourage NANPA members to use Instagram on their smartphones to instantly post and share smartphone photos of nature subjects with other NANPA members, run simple photo contests, feed those images back onto the NANPA site, etc. Easy, free, fun, and member driven. (http://blog.instagram.com/post/8758205264/how-to-host-a-photo-contest-on-instagram).

8) How do you envision NANPA's role in the future of nature photography? How would you further that role?

I see NANPA as a community in which nature photographers of every level can meet, learn, share, forge bonds and friendships, challenge themselves and go forward to explore and improve their world and their art. I would like to see more ways for NANPA members to share images, learn and teach others, and meet and communicate with each other locally. This is a decentralized but effective approach to helping build the NANPA community.

One starting point is more effective use of online and social media such as online photo sharing sites where members can share comments and feedback, a much stronger Facebook presence, local online NANPA communities, etc. We have amazing free tools to bring people together now, we just need to put them in place and then educate and encourage people to use them.

I also believe that as a group based on a visual medium in a visual world, NANPA has a critical advocacy role to play in protecting the rights and interests of nature photographers, professional and amateur alike. That should remain a core aspect of NANPA’s mission and one in which I would be honored to help.

9) Why do you want to serve on the NANPA Board of Directors? If elected, what would you personally like to accomplish during your term on the NANPA Board?

NANPA has helped me over the years in many ways and I would welcome the opportunity to do my part. I would like to bring some new perspectives and ideas to the mix to help NANPA move into the future and help build a stronger community not only of today’s NANPA members, but for tomorrows members as well.

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