Richard A. Dorbin, owner of Paragon Light, a commercial photography studio in Easton, recently had his work published in two nationally distributed magazines, Photo District News (PDN) and Rowing News.
PDN is a monthly magazine that has been covering the professional photographic industry for more than two decades. Dorbin was a winner among his peers in PDN’s “Faces” Contest, a national competition of portraits of faces from around the world. Winning images were divided into four categories of portraiture: Celebrity/Editorial, Environmental, Self-portraits, and Animals. Dorbin’s “Still Afloat” was a winner in the Environmental category. The image depicts Joe Stewart, a marathon swimmer from Baltimore, who has spent countless hours swimming the waters of the Chesapeake Bay.
Over many years of open water stroking in Chesapeake waterways, Stewart has raised thousands of dollars and raised awareness about AIDS awareness and the race to save North America’s largest estuary. Dorbin photographed Stewart at the Claiborne pier in 1999 while Stewart was training for a fundraising swim around Wye Island. The photograph was included in Saving the Bay: People Working for the Future of the Chesapeake (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), a pictorial book authored by Dorbin’s wife, Ann E. Dorbin. The book profiles more than 50 individuals from throughout the Chesapeake watershed, and includes a chapter on Joe Stewart.
Dorbin’s work was also selected as a winner in the 2009 Photo Annual issue of Rowing News, a magazine for and about the sport of rowing. Dorbin won in the Action Photography category for a shot of a Washington College eight man rowing shell at sunrise on the Chester River. Dorbin also won an Honorable Mention for his image taken during an early morning training run of the Annapolis Rowing Club. The photograph was the inspiration for a painting Dorbin created for Easton’s Art Banner program.
Dorbin is a U.S. Rowing Certified Level One Coach and has worked with youth and adult rowers in the Freedom Rower program. He has photographed rowing crews and regattas across the Mid Atlantic region.
“It was a pleasant surprise having one of my images stack up against big shooters nationally,” Dorbin said of his winning black and white image in the Faces competition. “I am relatively new to the rowing world, but pleased to see some of the images created out on the water make it into the national spotlight.”
Richard Dorbin has been producing commercial, advertising, industrial, portrait, wedding, and fine art photography for 30 years. Dorbin credits growing up in Santa Fe, New Mexico as one reason for a “visually eclectic and multi stylistic” approach to his work. He says the work of Paul Strand, Minor White, Paul Turnbul, George Tice, Ansel Adams, the Weston family, and Elliot Porter has had a moving and continuing impact on his personal and professional work. His studio is located at 401 Brookletts Avenue in Easton. A small sample of his extensive and divers portfolio is available at www.paragonlight.com.