I am a fine art photographer and I am an artist. It took me a long time to have the confidence to say that! Being a science and math geek, it has taken discipline and hard work to develop my artistic side. I am a photographer, digital artist, and blogger. I express my art mostly through my photography and I consider blogging and digital art my personal therapy tools.
As a child, I spent a lot of time alone. My parents divorced when I was a toddler, I was an only child, and my mother never remarried. Since my mother worked full-time, I was a latch-key kid from kindergarten on. I became a voracious reader and developed an enormous imagination. I would construct stories in my mind and daydream all the time. Yet I was mature and capable, a good girl. In high school I played the flute, making first chair my junior year, and discovered mathematics and science were natural strengths. Art was never something that came easily to me. As I grew up, I become quite introverted and very introspective.
This artistic path started with the birth of my daughter, Anna… my muse. It seems like a lifetime ago that I held that tiny, fragile infant in my hands, not having any sense of what was to come. Anna has multiple special needs including PDD-NOS (autism), intellectual disability, and epilepsy as well as Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a connective tissue disease. My journey as her mother has mirrored her journey… we learned together how to cope with the challenges, milestones, and heartache that came with her every day life. Each moment built upon another, and I found myself lost with no identity of my own.
I reached out to other mothers on online message boards and found a tribe of exceptional women who are now life-long friends. I started blogging, which led to discovering an artistic side of myself when I started making digital art pieces called “siggies” for other moms on the forums. That led to digital scrapbooking for myself and others when I started Digital Star Design. Doing digital scrapbooking made me notice how a good photograph could make or break a layout. My explosive growth as an artist happened when I picked up my first DSLR in 2007. By 2010, I was shooting in manual mode with my entry-level Nikon D40 and photography became my preferred medium. I threw myself into studying and practicing. I spent several intense years learning about basic photography rules, more advanced topics like composition and design, until I reached a point where I found my voice and style. Each image is a chance to learn, to refine my vision. I feel that I will never stop growing as an artist which makes photography especially appealing.
With my photography, I wish to convey that my subject can be solitary yet connected… be it object, plant, animal, or person. I wish to connect you, the viewer, to me and to the world. I stop and look purposefully to see the world through Anna’s eyes; I notice details present in ordinary life. I have a special fascination with the macro world, I find the beauty in the details. I want you to say, “Wow, that is so beautiful! I’ve never noticed that before!” I don’t take for granted how quickly life can change and strive to record moments into memories, especially in my children’s lives.
My work most often explores singularity utilizing subject matter, composition, and/or design elements, while evoking a sense of Zen while viewing my images. The contemplative nature of my photography is directly related to my being quite introspective and introverted, spending a lot of time alone as a child and young adult, and finding peace with myself and my perfectionistic quirks.
I am a technical perfectionist. I own it. I like unique, clean compositions. I use the Rule of Thirds, the Golden Spiral, and the Golden Triangle for basic compositions. Color, texture, form, depth, lines, and light are my preferred primary design elements. I shoot RAW, use Adobe Camera Raw for basic processing, then use Photoshop for polishing. I don’t use third party presets or actions. I like traditional processing and rarely shy away from clean, classic color, composition, and focus.
I hope that something you see resonates with you. Maybe you’ve found an image you want on your wall. Maybe I’ve captured a soulful connection that speaks to you. I hope you see the beauty in what I see.
Thank you for stopping by.
