PANEL GROUP
THE OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPHER
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This panel combines a very diverse group of current and former official photographers assigned to senior leadership officials from the President of the United States on down to covering federal agencies and departments. They will share insights, experiences and tools of the trade to provide our new up and coming photographers a better understanding of their responsibilities and importance to the bigger picture. Also life after the military and the many opportunities available if networked in the community.
Johnny Bivera will moderate this panel. As principal of Visual Media One LLC and executive director and founder of Shoot Off Visual Media Workshops, he's been a freelance photojournalist with over 30 years experience in visual communication and has captured images worldwide from everyday life to the hostilities of war. He was an official videographer to the President of the United States Bill Clinton and executive photographer to Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Vern Clark and Admiral Mike Mullen. He deployed with Task Force 58 Operation Enduring Freedom under Marine Corps General Jim Mattis.
JOHNNY BIVERA
Shane is an original plank owner of the DC Shoot off and has worked with Johnny Bivera since inception in 2006. He's the US Marshals first photojournalist & videographer, his operational photography is used by media worldwide to help explain the US Marshals mission. He edits video, creates multimedia presentations and does layout and design for the Marshals. He is a former member of Legion Photo Agency and a freelance photojournalist in Washington, DC. He was an active duty Navy photojournalist for over 15 years working at commands with the Office of Naval Intelligence, Combat Camera Atlantic and All Hands Magazine where he was photo editor for six years.
SHANE MCCOY
BRIEN AHO
Brien is a native of St. Paul, Minnesota, and a co-founder of the Shoot Off photography workshops. Brien joined the Navy in 1991 and has photographed in 45 countries. As an instructor at Defense Information School for four years he helped mold the future of military photographers. After graduating from the 2002 Advanced Military Photojournalism program at Newhouse School of Communications, Syracuse University, Brien started working as a combat photojournalist at Combat Camera Atlantic where he completed tours in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay Cuba. Brien won over 33 awards to include first place wins six times at the Military Photographer of the Year competition in different categories and won the prestigious Communicator Award for “The Road to Recovery” a photo documentary about burn patients and their ordeal. Former President of the D.C. chapter of the National Association of Naval Photography, Brien produced their annual 4 day photography workshop “The D.C. Shoot Off”. Brien is also a twenty-year veteran of the “Black Team” at the Eddie Adams Workshop and was a student on the 2003 purple team. Brien has been published in numerous books, magazines and newspapers such as National Geographic, Time, Newsweek, GQ, Washington Post and the New York Times. His work appears in many books pertaining to the war in Iraq like the critically acclaimed ‘This Is Our War” and the recently published “War/Photography Images of Armed Conflict and it’s Aftermath”. A proud father of 2 lovely daughters Sophia and Bailey, Brien lives in Austin Texas and is currently working for USDA FSIS as an Audio Visual Production Specialist. Contracted Photographer with Associated Press & Getty Images.
Sharon Farmer is a photojournalist and lectures extensively on photography and photojournalism. Her recent solo photographic exhibit entitled Pro-Active Women was exhibited in 2009 at the Sewell-Belmont House and Museum on Capitol Hill in Washington. She was the curator for the photography show entitled Cuba Now at the District of Columbia's Sumner Museum and curator for Touchstone Gallery's Regional Photography Competition and Exhibition. Formerly an assignment editor for the Associated Press, she was part of the A.P. team in 2003 that covered the Super Bowl in San Diego, California. Ms. Farmer was the campaign photographer for Sen. John Kerry's presidential election campaign in 2004. Farmer served as Director of the White House Photography Office from 1999-2001. A White House photographer since 1993, she documented the Clinton-Gore Administration since it's beginning. Ms. Farmer has been a professional photojournalist and exhibition photographer for more than 35 years, shooting news stories, political campaigns, cultural events, conferences, and portraits. Over the years she has photographed for The Washington Post, the Smithsonian Institution, The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority to name a few.
SHARON FARMER
SCOTT ALLEN
Lieutenant Commander Scott Allen served 26 years in the Navy as a military photojournalist, then as Public Affairs Officer. For his final tour, he served as Deputy Director for Current Operations, Multi-National Force, Strategic Communications in Baghdad, Iraq. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois and his Navy Commission from the Illinois Institute of Technology. Scott attended the Syracuse University Military Photojournalism program in 1987 and attained his master’s degree in visual communications from Syracuse University in 2022. He recently self-published a book titled: SHOOTING FROM WITHIN, Capturing Military History One Frame at a Time. He is a recipient of numerous photography awards from the National Press Photographers Association, Military Photography of the Year Contest, and The Naval Institute. In 1990, the U.S. Navy named Scott its Photojournalist of the Year. He has documented breaking news and military operations, including the recovery of Space Shuttle Challenger, conflicts in Panama, the Persian Gulf and Iraq, the discovery of mass graves in Iraq, the pre-trials of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and many other international news events. He’s been published by the Associated Press, Washington Post, New York Times, USA Today, London Times, U.S. News and World Report, Sporting News, Sports Illustrated and in books and other publications worldwide. In 1989, he was selected for the Eddie Adams Workshop, and has returned every year since as part of its staff helping to mentor future photographers. He is currently the Chairman of the Board for NYC Salt, a photography and mentorship non-profit for inner-city youth in New York. He lives in the Chicagoland area and works for the U.S. Department of Labor where he serves as Regional Director for Media Relations and Public Affairs for 12 Midwestern states.
Matthew Breitbart is a Digital Imaging Specialist at The Library of Congress. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photojournalism from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Matthew also has 40 hours of continuing education credits from the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s International Forensic Photography Workshop. His federal imaging and photography experience includes a very wide variety of materials ranging from the human remains of five presidents, the bullet that killed President Lincoln, the skeleton of Able the Space Monkey, Paul Revere’s dental tools, the skull of an unknown 54th Mass Soldier from the American Civil War, President Garfield’s spine section, the comic books Batman #1 and Superman #1 and countless other national treasures. His work has appeared on the cover of medical journals and in numerous books, magazines, and newspapers such as the Washington Post, Military Times, Stars and Stripes, Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research and Military Medicine: International Journal of the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States.
MATTHEW BREITBART
Christophe Paul was born and raised just outside Paris, France. After finishing his Bachelor degree in audiovisual communications in 1997, he moved to the U.S. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1999 as a combat cameraman and retired in 2020. He received multiple assignments over the years. He was most notably stationed in Germany, with the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command in Hawaii, at the Pentagon, in South Korea and on Fort George G. Meade where he first served with the 55th Signal Company and then at the Defense Information School where he was a basic still photography instructor and taught the Instructor Training Course for his last year in uniform. He came back to DINFOS in August 2020 as a contractor and taught the visual documentation course to young Marines, Sailors and Soldiers until July 2022. Paul is currently working as photojournalist for the Office of Communication at the United States Department of Agriculture.
CHRISTOPHE PAUL
TODD FRANTOM
Todd Frantom received a degree in commercial photography from the Art Institute of Atlanta in 1994 and worked as a traveling studio & portrait photographer for Life Touch Photography Agency. In 1998 he was hired by The National Turkey Federation as a video specialist and traveled throughout the country producing video products for the Outdoor Channel. He joined the
U.S. Navy and was ships photographer on board USS Kitty Hawk and documented the Iraq and Afghanistan war. He later became photo editor and journalist for the Navy flagship All Hands magazine. He is a graduate of theadvanced military photojournalism program at Syracuse University graduating with top honors. He served as combat photographer while stationed in Norfolk, Virginia documenting special and conventional joint military force missions. While serving in Iraq he was awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star for valor and heroism and made a total of six separate deployments to the war zone. He has been published in over 30 military magazines and books to include leading newspapers globally. Todd would return to the nation’s capital again as photo editor for All Hands Magazine and become president of the National Association of Naval Photography, Naval District Washington chapter. His love for nature led him to establish a photography training company called Nature Images LLC. And in the spirit of continued service he volunteered as an official photographer for The Eddie Adams Workshop, the country’s best four-day photojournalism seminar globally conducted in upstate New York where over a hundred prospects are invited to participate from college students, professionals and U.S. military photographers. Todd is currently a portrait photographer at Pax River, Virginia and an independent contract photographer for Visual Media One LLC in Washington, D.C.