South Bay Camera Club Featured Photographer

Phillip Cohen a Biography

Phillip was born in New Jersey. His father had finally had enough of the cold winters and in 1964 moved the family out to Encino California, the land of sunshine.

Phillip became interested in photography at the age of 11 when his father got him a GAF home darkroom kit and gave him the family Kodak Instamatic camera and exclusive use of the "back bathroom" as a darkroom.. Phil's father taught him how to develop film and make prints, and had gotten him an old Omega enlarger for his birthday. That had set the bug and Phil has been living in the dark ever since. (He thinks digital is just a passing fad).

Phillip was active in the Boy Scouts of America, and earned the rank of Eagle Scout. While in his early 20s he also participated as a scoutmaster for 3 years in the troop. He also is an active HAM radio operator and passed the FCC tests for Advanced Class radio operator at age 13 (a true nerd). Although a bit rusty he can still send and receive the Morse Code at a pretty good rate.

After school, Phillip got a job at Motorola Communications working on everything from miniature pocket pagers to mountain top repeater stations, even installing a communications system in the Goodyear blimp Columbia and the Barnum & Bailey Circus Train in the mid 70s. During the late 70s early 80s Phillip moved from radio communications to the world of computers where he was responsible for the operation of the Los Angeles Metro Page terminal which controlled all of the radio pagers in Southern California, at the time there were only a few hundred thousand pagers, mostly used by professionals as they were quite expensive back then.

Based on his knowledge of computers, Phillip was lured away from Motorola to Hughes Aircraft Co. in El Segundo where he went to work designing Tracking, Telemetry and Command systems for communications satellites. Later Phillip became part of the Mission operations team actually participating in the launch of the spacecraft. Traveling around the world setting up tracking and control stations used to control the spacecraft while it was positioned into final orbit. Phillips final mission was a 7 week stint in Jakarta Indonesia running a station to rescue a failed Asiasat satellite by adjusting its orbit to send it around the moon. This was the first time the moon had been used in a commercial venture and it was a complete success.

During his stay in Indonesia the government fell and Phillip was caught in the rioting and violence for several days before he could get out. This was the eve of the lunar flyby mission so the stress level was already high. Ask him for the whole story, it is the stuff movies are made of.

Phillip leads a more normal calmer life now as part owner of an Internet service provider and web design company as well as part owner in a portrait studio, his true love.

Click HERE to view a slide show of Phil's images.
(requires Shockwave player, turn your "Pop Up Blocker" off)