Our story
The origin
Bob Olsen, the Pictureman
Bob Olsen had a forty-year career as a pioneer of special events and digital photography — recognized with multiple awards as one of the top ten event photographers in the nation.
He loved helping people create and record memories, and everyone knew him as “The Picture Man.” He took part in Leadership Lincoln and was a member of Rotary Club #14, Professional Photographers of America, and the Pinelake Neighborhood Association. In retirement came the Audubon Club, the Camera Club, the Garden Club and the Science Club, alongside sports cars, travel, the wonders of nature, and family and friends.
He left behind millions of photographs. Hey Pictureman! has collected that life’s work and is scanning it now — cataloguing each frame by the event it belonged to, and making it searchable by the people in it and their loved ones.
Carrying it forward
Greg Dynek and Corey Riggle
Greg spent some time in front of Bob’s camera during his academic and not-so-academic pursuits at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Greg later established a friendship with Bob through Rotary International and other volunteerism.
Greg had seen iPhoto match a face in an old family photograph to a recent picture of the same person, decades apart. He wondered whether the Pictureman’s negatives could be searched that way.
Greg and Corey met at a networking event at the original Fuse coworking space. Corey was working on another startup related to digital photography, and as he described his background — Harman’s Camera in Lincoln, a BFA in photography, knowledge of data storage and asset management, and a career in digital photography for fashion and advertising — Greg realized this was the person who could bring the idea to fruition.
Have negatives?
If you have negatives, slides or prints from events or artists, we would like to hear about them.