Our Team

Meet Hyper, the orange cat and co-founder behind the Shutterpaws. Legend holds it that between him and Rory, an epic showdown of Rock, Paper, Scissors happened to determined who would handle the paperwork and who would get to play with balls of yarn and nap in the sun. Needless to say, see Rory’s profile below for how that worked out for them. Hyper can be found at an ungodly number of conventions around the East Coast to the point that his camera has over 1 MILLION E-SHUTTER SNAPS! How he managed to go through all those photos is a mystery to even those in the Shutterpaws offices, but alas, he does it. It must be that orange cat energy. Rumor has it that Shutterpaws Laboratories is trying to bottle up the stuff and sell it. During the daylight, Hyper works in IT field, is HIGHLY food motivated, and enjoys BIG hugs (extra points to those that give him uppies)!

Meet Yivishta, our resident fox-of-all-trades who would not know what to do with a camera if it hit him in the muzzle. He is basically the random helper who drifts around doing whatever needs doing, whether that is wrangling a crowd, fixing a rogue snack table, or just standing there so we do not look understaffed. While the rest of the team is busy being artistic and squinting through viewfinders, Yivishta is our chaotic safety net, handling all the weird, unglamorous stuff that keeps the event from turning into a total disaster. He is just a fox doing things, and honestly, we would probably be lost (or at least very hungry and disorganized) without him.

Rory is the confounding co-founding bamboozled but bamboo and apple powered red panda who handles all of the secretarial and administrative work here at Shutterpaws. No wonder they (Hyper) made them the Board Secretary and then preceded to dump all the paperwork on their desk and then knock off their drink onto the floor (typical orange cat behavior, we’re told here in the office)! Rory has a background in working in the public sector professionally and has extensively worked in the non-profit space in various roles throughout the years. When they aren’t hiding in bamboo thickets from the looming mountain of paperwork; Rory can be found photographing events, staffing conventions up and down the East Coast, and working on reaching out to the photography community to hold workshops and portfolio sessions. They love naps and hugs.

Zayre is an experienced event coordinator from the DMV region, having created the successful DC FurRide and assisted in events including the DC Cherry Blossom Takeover. In addition to helping plan and coordinate events with Shutterpaws, he oversees outgoing communications with community partners and attendees and manages event finances to ensure Shutterpaws' ability to continue to run exciting events in the future.