Jan Butchofsky-Houser
Much has been made of Jan Butchofsky-Houser’s skills in managing and marketing Houserstock, Inc., which may overlook her greatest talent – as a photographer. Her photos combine a sense of spontaneity with careful attention to detail. They get to the heart of the matter, transforming everyday events and situations into revelations – images that you can feel. Images, too, that have been honored in top competitions and widely published by many of the nation’s leading magazines, newspapers and travel guidebooks.
Jan’s Bronze Portfolio award in SATW’s 2000 Bill Muster Photo Showcase certainly opened the eyes of the travel photography community, revealing her work to be among the best in the business. Nothing new to us – but it’s nice when the world knows it as well. Even better, perhaps, is seeing her images on the pages of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELER, ISLANDS, CONDE NAST TRAVELER, ELLE, BRIDES, and the LOS ANGELES TIMES, to name a few. We were all blown away when the latter ran one of Jan’s shots of the Parthenon very nearly full page on its travel section cover during the run-up to the Athens Olympics.
Capitalizing on a childhood interest in photography, Jan studied film and photography at Lindenwood College in St. Charles, MO, receiving a BS degree in 1972. She worked a bit as a video camera operator for the St. Louis PBS station; pursued additional photography studies at the University of Texas, and then headed off to Hollywood to make a name for herself shooting music and movie personalities. Her celebrity coverage made it into ROLLING STONE, BILLBOARD and TV GUIDE. She also covered the social side of the 1986 Olympic Games in Los Angeles for Germany’s famous DER SPIEGEL magazine.
Tiring of the bright lights and long hours and desiring to travel the world again (she’d seen much of it during a 120-day Semester at Sea voyage in 1972), Jan had a serendipitous opportunity to interview for an assistant’s position with Dave G. Houser –and, as they say, the rest is history.
For Jan the lights haven’t been as bright nor the scene as flashy – but the hours have been even longer as she’s labored through the years to whip a one-man show into an enterprise now regarded among the leaders in the travel segment of the multi-billion dollar stock photography industry.
We love her a lot – and so do our clients.
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