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Bel Air Camera celebrates founder's 100th Birthday with launch of Fine Art Photography Gallery

Bel Air Camera celebrates founder’s 100th Birthday

with launch of Fine Art Photography Gallery

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WHO: Bel Air Camera’s (landmark of Westwood Village since 1957) staff and exhibiting photographer Dr. Elliot McGucken on-hand to discuss photography and state of the art processing techniques used in Gallery work.    

 

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WHAT: Cocktail Reception to launch of Westwood Village’s only fine art photography gallery and inaugural Elliot McGucken exhibit.

 

WHEN: Saturday, June 28th from 5pm – 7:30pm.

 

WHERE: Bel Air Camera, 10925 Kinross Ave. at Gayley Ave., Westwood Village.

 

WHY: To unite Dr. McGucken’s seminal retinal research and Bel Air Camera’s long relationship with UCLA – in particular in memory of loyal customer, friend and founding member of the UCLA Jules Stein Institute, Dr. Leonard Apt – a portion of the exhibit proceeds will benefit their department of Pediatric Ophthalmology.

 

 

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Westwood Village — June 28th, 2014 (5-7:30pm) — Bel Air Camera celebrates what would have been the 100th birthday of its beloved founder, William Herskovic, and a family’s century of love for photography by launching the only fine art photography gallery in Westwood Village through the work of physicist Dr. Elliot McGucken with a cocktail reception and drawings (including: Bel Air Camera free processing gift cards; iPic movie tickets and gift card).

 

Earlier Saturday activities include a live model for photo shoot lighting demonstration by Sony factory representative, and a photography course taught by McGucken.

 

 

ABOUT BEL AIR CAMERA

 

For 57 years, Bel Air Camera (http://www.belaircamera.com) has been a veritable landmark in Westwood Village – Established in 1957 by Maria and William Herskovic just months after immigrating to America from Belgium. Though only 43 at the time, William already had three decades of experience first as a fine art photographer in his native Czechoslovakia and then in post WWII Belgium, as photographic retailer operating one of the country’s largest camera stores.

 

He brought to Los Angeles his long-time principle of establishing an ongoing relationship with his customers through excellent service at discount prices.  As a result, current customers include not only those that have been coming in for decades, but in many cases, their children and often their children’s children.

 

ABOUT Elliot McGucken

 

Dr. McGucken's "Hero's Journey Mythology" photography collection receives over 1,000,000 views a day making him one of the most-viewed, photographers in the world.  In this show’s work, created as a “Call to Adventure,” McGucken married the pursuit of beauty in the great outdoors to his love of classical literature.

 

Dr. E’s (as his students call him) art parallels his award-winning physics research on an artificial retina which is now helping the blind see, as both pursuits seek to humbly serve with light—with simple truth and beauty. 

 

Dr. E earned a B.A. in theoretical Physics from Princeton University before going on to receive a Ph.D. in physics from UNC Chapel Hill.  His NSF-funded research on an artificial retinal prosthesis, which is now helping the blind see, appeared in NSF’s Frontiers and Popular Science while receiving several Fight-for-Sight grants and a Merrill Lynch Innovations Award in a global competition.  While studying theoretical physics at Princeton, McGucken worked on projects concerning quantum mechanics and general relativity with the late John A. Wheeler, and the projects combined to form an appendix treating time as an emergent phenomenon in his dissertation – research which continues to this day, and which inspired the equation dx4/dt=ic with which he signs all of his fine art photography, and whose roots can be traced back to Einstein's 1912 manuscript on relativity.

  

"In every photograph you can see not only where the photographer was standing, but what they were thinking and feeling.  And thus the Hero's Journey Mythology collection tells of my humble journey as no words ever could.  Art begins where science ends, and for all that beauty we cannot capture in equations, a photograph must do… " – Dr. E 

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