HISTORY OF SPAC
THE UNABRIDGED HISTORY OF THE SCHOOL PHOTOGRAPHERS ASSOCIATION OF CALIFORNIA
School Photographers Association of California began in 1956 with a group of school photographers from Southern California that would run off to Las Vegas to blow off steam and spend some hard earned profits. Just think of these SPAC pioneers as the Rat Pack of School Photographers. Being good businessmen they discovered that if they set up a nonprofit trade association they would be able to write off their party. Thus, in 1961 the School Photographers Association of California Inc. came into being with Louis Bartolo as President and Virginia Ferguson as Secretary.
The party continued unabated until the mid 70’s when the members got bored by just drinking, gambling and taking in the shows. They started programming an actual conference with educational speakers and all.
Things got crazy in the 80’s when Gary Kranz added a trade show and by the early 90’s the darn thing got so respectable photographers from around the US started showing up for the educational opportunities and to get one on one time with vendors and photo labs. It became the in place to get the inside secrets of the School Photography industry. The crazy Las Vegas night life was taking a back seat. During the early 2000’s the photographers got rich, fat and lazy and turned the conference over to vendors to run the association with poor results. By the end of the decade attendance was a fraction of what it was and SPAC was broke. In 2010 Gary Kranz loaned SPAC money to get out of debt and twisted the arms of Calvin Harrell and Marty Brown to join the board and give the control back to school photographers. With the help and support of our member photographers who are willing to give of their time and talent SPAC has become the leading independent school photographers association in the world. In the last 3 years we have tripled attendance, doubled the number of vendors and socked away a nest egg that has put us back on a sound financial footing.
Heck, we even added a SPAC University that helps new photographers learn the necessary skills that it takes to excel in the world of volume photography thanks to Chris Wunder.
SPAC now presents the largest independent school and sport photographers conference and trade show in the world. With photographers from 7 different countries and over 35 of our states the party has only gotten bigger.
Come to Las Vegas for the party, stay for SPAC.
Requests for our Code of Conduct for Attendees and Vendors, please email spacusa@gmail.com
