Photography Atelier

A Celebration of Norway

Wooden buildings painted and unpainted, crafted details, expansive rugged landscapes, boathouses dotting the shoreline collectively define the unique qualities and beauty of Norway. On a trip with three generatiions of my family to visit three generatiions of Norwegian relatives, I traveled from Oslo to Bergen to Trondheim and up the coast to Kirkenes. I used my camera as a sketch pad, recording the many experiences I encountered. The resulting composite photographs represent the many aspects of the country that I found throughout Norway. Spanning centuries, there is a continuity of the Nordic aesthetic that has to do with the quality of light and exposure to weather.

Combining several photographs into one image enables me to tell a more comprehensive story than with a single photograph. I look for details that help define similar subjects and look for the unusual in the ordinary

A Sheaf of Stories

The telling of stories must be as old as the first campfires, keeping away the dark. Along with the light of the fire, the stories draw the listeners together and build community. They are a way to transfer information by putting it into a framework that facilitates understanding and provides an avenue to remembrance. The stories let us share feelings. They help to define the similarities and differences among us and build personal connections. While the presentation of stories started with the oral tradition, it has evolved into the written narrative and the dramatic presentation.

Dramatic presentations inspired the long-standing metaphor of viewing the world as a stage, with each of us playing our parts. My introduction to Venice as I stepped from the Santa Lucia train station immediately brought this metaphor to mind. Stepping onto the plaza in front of the station was like moving from a theatre lobby into the seating area. The golden afternoon light on the Church of San Simeone Piccolo, across the canal, defined the stage. Unlike in the theatre, I now had the chance to step out of the darkness and onto the stage.

The implication that accompanies the metaphor is that we each act out our parts while thinking we know the stories of the other actors. Similarly, an aspect of travel photography is the challenge of documenting, in a distinctive way, the places that we think we know because we have seen so many pictures of them. The people and their stories are unique in any location, and they provide a way of breaking through the difficulty of false familiarity. By walking onto the stage and focusing on the other actors, I wanted to forget my story and think about the stories of the people around me as a way of experiencing the daily and weekly rhythms of a place

In this body of work I’ve focused on people viewed at distances defined by the scale of human interaction. I have not tried to define one story. I chose to feature an anthology of individuals, with their work, families, and neighborhoods. They are the building blocks from which I invite you to construct stories.

Shape Shift: A Part as the Whole

Perhaps the sheer abundance of physical beauty in my surroundings in Gloucester, MA has evoked my current fascination with small segments of objects or scenes. My travel experiences also further this way of seeing parts as representative as the whole. The richness afforded by these smaller visual gems has grown greater the more I seek them out and train my eye to see them. The delight of such discovery compels my visual expression.

Such an orientation is probably not all that surprising for a former biologist and electron microscopist. The polarity between microcosm and macrocosm were a big part of my formal education as a biologist, albeit balanced by a minor in art history. Weeks spent in electron microscopy preparation were sometimes lost while the specimen dissolved in the electron beam while I was trying to get the most pleasing image, which sadly, was not the objective. I can focus more appropriately now! These current images result from contemplation and learning, and to me, are representative of the shapes, curves, shades and angles of our lives.

The Childhood of a Family

My husband and I left our extended families in Italy fifteen years ago for a better job opportunity in the USA. For most relatives we have became “The Americans” but for our American friends we are “The Italians”. Worrying that my children would struggle with their cultural identity, I started celebrating and documenting our family life-style through my photographic work, revolving around their childhood.

As they allow me to experiment with my camera I am fascinated by everything I see through their eyes and by the sense of freedom our adventures bring to us. I am so grateful to have the opportunity to create a photographic record of the time we are spending together and to celebrate the deep connection we have with each other. Though my work is deeply personal and intended for creating a legacy that I will pass down to my children, it is also accessible, addressing human nature and allowing the viewer to enter my world and reflect on their own childhood.

Reflections of a Quarry Wall

Today, most of the quarries of Cape Ann were abandoned during the 1930’s and since then have filled with both rain and spring water to form deep ponds. Many of the quarries are now hidden in forests which nature has reclaimed. I strive to capture and share a vision of our world, an image of a point in time, an image that describes the reality of that exact moment, a moment that most likely will not occur again. Every day brings new and fresh opportunities to record the reflection of a quarry wall on glassy calm water or a thin sheet of fresh ice. These reflection images provide unique and intricate patterning sure to inspire a viewer’s imagination

Owing to its colorful beauty, the stone can get its color a number of ways from varying percentages of minerals present in the stone, to the environment in which the stone walls were created (exposure to different elements and/or organic materials). The intriguing rock designs were created by cutting and splitting large blocks of granite and in some cases, an artistic carving created by a Quarryman.

Creative inspiration abounds on Cape Ann owing so much to its ocean, rocky coastline and miles of woodland trails. My creative inspiration has much to draw from as every day and every season provides a seemingly endless diversity of photographic opportunities whether from an explosion of color from a rising or setting sun to the many fishing boats and seaside structures that populate its many harbors. I am also drawn to the serenity and beauty found within its deep woods where the remnants of days past can be found among the abandoned quarries and homesteads. There is no other place that I have travelled to that inspires me more.

Ambiguity of Cityspace

What is it about being on the outside looking in that piques our interest? Walking down city streets, we often find that the view of the indoors from the sidewalk is fractured by window and doorframes that divide our attention. In constructing the graphic images in this portfolio, I have reordered these sometimes ambiguous views into new compositions, incorporating different perspectives, objects, and color. If you appreciate these new spaces and wish to enter them, then I will have accomplished my objective of creating novel perceptions of order within a sometime chaotic urban environment.

Woodland Light

I enjoy being outside in the natural world, walking though woodlands, across fields or along a seacoast. I find mystery and comfort in the woods. The quiet, the sounds, the light, the colors are constantly changing. Removed from the built world, I am surrounded by growth and decay.

These images were made within or at the edge of wooded areas. I am interested in the high contrast between light and shadow as sunlight falls through openings between trees limbs or travels though vegetation, illuminating the undergrowth, making leaves translucent or filtering through a screen of opacity.

Working with these elements, I move the camera while the shutter is open. I am interested in patterns created by the moving sensor, the edge between representation and abstraction, the space between maintaining sharp edges and becoming a blur, the in-between that transforms an image into an experience, an escape into the other-worldliness of our imagination or our memory.

Shadows and Silhouettes: Nothing is Explained

I began this series of photographs by accident. I found my old light table (originally used for looking at slides and negatives) and discovered it was the perfect back-lit stage for my toys and figurines, transforming them into mysterious, fanciful shadows and silhouettes. It’s the sheer wonder of catching an image, separate and devoid of its origin.

The simplicity of shadows and silhouettes, as well as its limitations, let me explore unlikely possibilities and create fanciful, dreamlike photographs in mischievous ways. The contrast of black and white is both mysterious and beautiful.

The themes that recur in my work are irony, fantasy and human behavior. The small-scale images create an atmosphere of quiet luminosity.

A True Self

This series of images address the nature of family—what draws us closer together, or pulls us apart? We are individuals and yet we are part of a larger whole; and as part of this fluid confluence of people, we grow, learn, mimic and adapt, even revolt. Sometimes we follow the path of those before us, and at other times we choose our own decidedly different way.

What interests me are the ways in which we are inextricably connected. The strands of one life delicately connected to another. I look for the overlapping ecology of interests, actions and inspirations; and wonder, if in the silence of our own minds we hide our true selves—the wishes and secrets that contribute to who we truly are.

Elusive moments and unintended ‘reveals’ are what attract my attention and camera’s focus. If I linger long enough, I might be lucky to capture a sincere smile, a playful glance, the glimmer of a wandering imagination, a persistent hope – a true self.

Atlantic Waves: Grace and Movement

These images reveal the changing moods and tides of the Atlantic Ocean that I witnessed on Long Beach in Rockport, Massachusetts, in the autumn and winter of 2014-2015.

I turned my lens to the ocean, and embarked on a photographic journey of stalking the waves. I capturing time to show the forward pressing motion of a twenty foot wave. I record time with a four second long exposure showing the long, soft, blurred movement of water turned frothy white.

My quest became meditative on foggy mornings when no waves could be found. Another day, a collapsing breaker drenched me while I stood in the white water.

Many times I was awed when seeing the internal reflection of the waves as they turn to a mirror just before breaking.