NORBERT VON DER GROEBEN
Norbert von der Groeben joined the staff of the Palo Alto Weekly as Chief Photographer in July 2003. Prior to working at the Weekly, Norbert spent 17 years as a staff photographer at a daily newspaper, the Contra Costa Times. Norbert earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Long Beach State University and majored in visual communications. In addition to his photos being published by the Palo Alto Weekly and the Contra Costa Times in the last two decades, his pictures also have appeared in such magazines as People, Business Week and Vanity Fair. Norbert has also published a children’s book, “Fire Station Number 4.” Author Mary T. Fortney wrote the text and Norbert provided the photos.

DAVID HIBBARD
David Hibbard, a Menlo Park resident, is a fine art landscape photographer. He traces his career back to age seven when on a family vacation he attempted to record the magnificent Big Sur coast with a Brownie camera. Encouragement, first from Ansel Adams then later from Marion Patterson, helped David find his way as a photographic artist. In 2002 he retired from a long career as a software technical writer so he could devote full energy to his “other career,” as he calls it. Over the years he has created an extensive body of landscapes from the forest, coastal, and wetland environments of the Bay Area-places he has explored with great patience with his camera. His photography has won many local awards, including awards in five previous Palo Alto Weekly contests. His latest work can be seen at Modernbook Gallery where he has an upcoming show in May 2006.

JOE QUEVER
Joseph Quever was born and raised in Palo Alto. He attended Cubberley High School, and studied photography at the UC Santa Cruz. He began his professional career producing album covers for Columbia Records, and assisting noted Bay Area photographer George Fry. He opened his own commercial photography studio in downtown Palo Alto in 1989, utilizing medium and large format cameras, and his work has been displayed across California. Many of the photographs produced for his clients (mostly advertising, catalog and corporate) have won design awards recognized in their respective industries. He has relocated to Mountain View, and has had a relatively recent shift to digital — as requested by many of his clients. He continues to be excited by the ever-changing visual medium, which took him on a two month hiatus, to study filmmaking at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.

BRIGITTE CARNOCHAN
Brigitte Carnochan (a 1993 PA Weekly Photo Contest winner) is both a fine art and documentary style photographer. She has published and exhibited nationally and internationally. In the summer of 2004 she had a solo exhibition with a catalog, “Organic Forms,” of her hand-painted gelatin silver photographs at the Albuquerque Museum in New Mexico. Her work and newest catalog, “Myth and the Natural World” can be seen in Palo Alto at Modernbook Gallery, where she exhibited in November 2004. She teaches hand painting, exhibition and photography project workshops regularly through the Stanford Continuing Studies program and serves on the board of the Santa Fe Center for Photography.