This Friday Allen-Stevenson is celebrating Founders Day! In recognition of this annual tradition, we are sharing a series of interviews with our alumni who are themselves founders in a wide range of industries. This founder is E. David Luria ’51, founder of the Washington Photo Safari Program - one of the largest photography instruction programs in the country. Read below to learn how Mr. Luria was able to turn his hobby of photography into a successful business.
Tell me a little about yourself and the Washington Photo Safari Program.
My name is E. David Luria, Class of '51. I was born in Hamburg, Germany to Jewish parents during the Nazi era. Fortunately, I escaped the Holocaust and arrived in New York City in 1938, where I was raised and attended The Allen-Stevenson School from 1947 to 1950. After graduating from a Quaker boarding school in Newtown, Pennsylvania called George School, I attended and graduated with honors from Amherst College in 1958 where I majored in political science, international relations and modern languages.
After spending three years in Germany with The United States Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) during the Cold War, I began a 34-year career in the non-profit international development and citizen exchange field. This this time, I spent six years with CARE International in Colombia and Panama and 28 years as a senior executive with other organizations such as Partners of the Americas, Friendship Force, and World Learning, becoming fluent in French, Spanish, and German.
In 1995, my job with a government-sponsored non-profit in Washington, D.C. was eliminated due to budget cuts. So, I took up my hobby of photography and made it my profession, specializing in architecture, events and restaurant photography. Becoming an artist was not an easy transition. My income declined about 90% from what I had been making as a salaried executive. But, that's the glass half empty! The glass half full is that, in only eight years as a self-employed photographer, I was earning as much as it had taken me in 34 years to earn as a salaried executive, all while pursuing a personal passion.
Then in 1999, at age 63, I decided to try teaching other people how to use their cameras, just as the digital age was beginning. I created a small business known as Washington Photo Safari. In that first year I had all of 72 clients.
In the ensuing 21 years, Washington Photo Safari has become one of the largest photography instruction programs in the country, with 11 instructors training over 39,000 amateur photographers from 50 states and 53 countries on 5,800 photo excursions in 186 locations in 11 states, 30 cities and 8 countries, reaching an average of 5 people every day, 365 days a year for 21+ years. The program has received hundreds of 5-star reviews on Trip Advisor and other review sites, plus a high degree of customer loyalty, with over 11,500 clients returning as repeat customers. At 84 years of age, I am still running the business and teaching photography several times a week in the Washington, D.C. area.
What inspired you to start your own company and this particular business?
Very simply, I needed the money. I still had a daughter in college when I lost my job in 1995, plus very limited retirement funds from my non-profit career. Necessity being the mother of invention, I became an eager student of photography, even taking a 6-week course in Paris with the Parsons School of Design, working with a protege of famed French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson.
This has been a very happy second career for me. I love being my own boss and greatly enjoy helping thousands of other people experience the joy of photography.
How did Allen-Stevenson influence where you are today?
Allen-Stevenson had a great influence on where I am today. My English language training, particularly in grammar and usage, was superb. This has been a great help to my writing skills throughout life and in marketing my business. The appreciation of history and culture that I got during my Latin, Spanish, and French classes and from history classes at A-S has helped me become the internationalist and world traveler that I am today. I got the sense at Allen-Stevenson that education is both a serious and most enjoyable business, giving me the self-confidence to become a successful teacher myself.
Do you have any advice for someone looking to start their own company?
Absolutely. The business you start must be in a field you love, whether it is banking, photography, sailing, law, acting, financial planning, or making doughnuts. That is the only thing that gets you through the hard times, the disappointments, the mistakes, and the refusals: you have to thoroughly enjoy what you are doing. It is that sense of self-confidence and enjoyment, conveyed to your customers, that will make you a success.
