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  • College student helps a boy on a computer in a computer class.
    Man with babies climbing all over him.
    Happy little girl with notebooks and big eyes.
    2 women holding 3 babies.
    College president slaps hands with a MPC graduate on stage.
    College president shakes hands with a MPC graduate on stage and gives him his diploma.
    College president shakes hands with a MPC graduate on stage and gives him his diploma.
    Ambassador Joe Wilson speaks at Cal State Monterey Bay.
    4 men pose with shovels and native plants ready to go in the ground.
    Teaching welding in sculpture class.
  • Painters with canvases and easels are spread out on a hillside with a red mountain behind them.
  • 5 women and a dog pose on a curvy ramp outside an office building.
    Little girl looking up at camera with big grin.
    Little boy looking up at camera with wishful eyes.
    Little girl sitting and looking up at camera with a subtle grin.
    Young woman holding 3 babies.
    Twin boys looking up at camera.
    Little boy with begging eyes.
    Little girl with notebook.
    2 photos of 2 sisters, each photo has them with different expressions.
    Women’s basketball team group photo with otter logo painted on the floor
    Otters basketball team getting crazy.
  • Group of women basketball players acting silly.
    Dozens of university faculty and staff pose on the steps of the conference center.
    A semicircle of students arc around the center of the grassy quad with dorms in the background.
    Dozens of people looking up at the camera and waving.
    Graduates with messages written on their square caps.
    Residence Hall Advisors (RAs) offering calm patient assistance.
    A wall of graduates in black gowns and hats, and 1 with headphones rocking out to music.
    7 experts in communications debate the early influence of the internet on education on a TV stage.
    3 women volleyball players return the ball.
    A CSUMB soccer player dribbles by his opponents.
    Exterior photo of library at night with bright lights illuminating from the inside.
    Abstract photo of curved ceiling and rows of wood planks.
  • Interior photo of library.
    Abstract photo of curved ceiling.
    M.C. Escher-like room protruding from wall.
    Long exposure of car lights going around a roundabout with a library in the background.

Education

Steve Zmak has spent his 30-year career doing marketing, public and media relations, fundraising, and graphic design for educational institutions from Head Start Preschools to universities to educational technology companies. He teaches photography to students of all ages, and speaks on the subject in classrooms and community organization. It’s this experience that makes him so successful photographing students, faculty, staff, and volunteers of all ages and walks of life.

Most of the images in this gallery are from the 9 years Zmak spent as the staff photographer for Cal State Monterey Bay (1996-2005), and his continuing freelance assignments for them and their educational partners in subsequent years.

Residence Hall Advisors (RAs) offering calm patient assistance.

As staff photographer for Cal State Monterey Bay from 1996-2005, I had the opportunity to photograph a wide variety of events: athletics, commencement ceremonies, Capstone Festivals, concerts and performing arts, alumni reunions, treaty signings, television net and broadcasts, Panetta Lecture Series and President’s Speakers Series, groundbreakings and ribbon cuttings, fundraising dinners, carnivals and festivals, and student club events.

 

Graduates with messages written on their square caps.

As staff photographer for Cal State Monterey Bay from 1996-2005, I had the opportunity to photograph a wide variety of events: athletics, commencement ceremonies, Capstone Festivals, concerts and performing arts, alumni reunions, treaty signings, television net and broadcasts, Panetta Lecture Series and President’s Speakers Series, groundbreakings and ribbon cuttings, fundraising dinners, carnivals and festivals, and student club events.