Gordon H. Schenck Jr.

Gordon H. Schenck, Jr.
Mr. Schenck died at home on January 15, 2009. Strong in all that he had loved doing for 81 years, he was not strong enough to overcome the aggressive pancreatic cancer that took his life.
Born in Greensboro, NC, on May 7, 1927, he was the son of Gordon Harry Schenck and Letie Graham Schenck. Gordon graduated from Albemarle High School and from NC State University in 1950 with an engineering degree. He was employed by Southern Railway for 13 years and met his wife, Rebecca, there when she also worked in the Engineering Department in Charlotte. He eventually served as Assistant Division Engineer in New Orleans and Greenville, SC, before moving back to Charlotte to establish a business of architectural photography, photographing buildings for architects, building material manufacturers and architectural magazines.
That career combined his interests in photography and the architectural-engineering curriculum he had studied at NC State. He claimed two men as mentors: Julius Shulman, the now 99-year-old architectural photographer living in Los Angeles, and landscape photographer Ansel Adams. Gordon and Rebecca visited Ansel and Virginia Adams at their home the year before Ansel's death, and they visited Julius Shulman at his home three years ago. Gordon's assignments afforded him and Rebecca the opportunity to travel widely throughout the United States.
He received a number of awards recognizing the excellence of his photography, and his work, both commercial and personal, has been exhibited in colleges, architectural schools and museums. His work also appeared editorially in major publications. In 1984 he earned the degree of Photographic Craftsman from the Professional Photographers of America, in whose Chicago-based school he taught summer courses for several years.
Currently a retrospective of his work is on exhibit at UNC-Charlotte. Called 'By Assignment and By the Way: Gordon Schenck Photographs Architecture, 1963-2008.' The exhibition opened at Wake Forest University in October and will travel to NC State University when it leaves Charlotte. A lecture and reception in the Storrs Architecture Gallery on January 28th from 5:30-7:30 will celebrate Gordon's life.
Gordon has served as both deacon and elder at Myers Park Presbyterian Church, where he has been an active member for 40 years. A memorial service will be held at 2:00 p.m. Tuesday January 27,2009 at Myers Park Presbyterian Church, 2501 Oxford Place, Charlotte, NC 28207, to celebrate the life of Gordon H. Schenck, Jr.
Gordon was last a member of the Top of the Week Rotary Club where he was a Paul Harris Fellow.
Besides his wife, Rebecca, Gordon is survived by his sister, Letitia Schenck Capps and her husband, Bill, of Leesburg, FL; a sister-in-law, Judy Scholl Magill, of Birmingham, AL; and a number of loving nieces and nephews who remember the role their uncle played in their lives.
Harry and Bryant Co. serving the family.