Fran Stetina began his interest in Photography while serving as an Officer in the U.S. Coast Guard , photographing his girl friend and soon to be wife, Mary. He has been married to Mary for 44 years. They have three sons, Francis, Christopher, and James and one granddaughter Rachael. Fran’s formal photography studies began at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D. C. Since then he has attended many international workshops, most notably with the famous French Photographer Lucien Clergue and Landscape Artist John Sexton. He participated in a 3 week China workshop with Sexton in 1986 . And since his first visit to China in 1986 has been back to China six times, his last visit being in 2004. Fran has organized and taught his own workshops “Photo Treks” for over ten years. He has been a quest instructor with artist Micheal Seewald in San Diego , California. Fran’s first gallery sales were to the prestigious Merrill Chase Galleries in Chicago. Fran has participated in many group and one man shows and been recipient of Maryland awards and recognitions and together with his partner an colleague David Orbock were the first Maryland Artist to have a Photo exhibition in Maryland Sister State - Anhui Province China in 1992.

Fran has traveled extensively around the world in search of the interesting image. He has published a book of poetic essays “ A Portrait of Anna “. In 1995, he became interested in Panoramic Photography. He joined the International Association of Panoramic Photography and has been investigating the making of 360 º Panoramic Artistic Images for over 12 years. Fran has participated in the IAPP yearly conventions and is past President of the IAPP. He has contributed many Panoramic images and articles to the IAPP Journal and presently provides photographic book reviews for the Journal. In 2005 Fran won the Fuji Film Masterpiece award for his Abstract Panoramic Image Gas Plant Seattle , Washington. Frans Images can be seen at his web site WWW.E-VillageGallery.com. His E-mail address is Villagegallery@mindspring.com.