sub encode_photo_data {
    
    my($file) = @_;

    use MIME::Base64;
    my ($bin, $data, $stat);

    open PHOTO, $file or die "Cannot open $file: $!";
    while ( $stat = sysread PHOTO, $bin, 57 * 17 ) {
        $data .= encode_base64($bin);
    }
    close PHOTO or die $!;
    die "sysread error: $!" unless defined $stat;

    $data;

} # end encode_photo_data