Nina Weinberg Doran says, "A routine mammo followed by the unexpected diagnosis of breast cancer.... my head was swirling. .. i couldn’t imagine what might be my life in the coming year or more..... the first words.. chemotherapy turned my insides out.... loss of hair.. the world would know.. i would be exposed... to them.. to myself.. to my inner world of terror....  as i grappled with a long period of time in treatment. surgery... radiation... i peeled the layers back inside myself.. and found the most important gem.. myself.. true identity. truly exposed.... it was then i turned the camera on myself.

It’s remarkable how we arrive at certain places in life. You make a decision to do something new and it opens a window onto possibilities previously unexplored. For me photography emerged haphazardly. I’d been going through a tumultuous time and found myself struggling to find new meaning and peace. 

I set off on my own, camera in hand, with the intention of doing nothing more than further explore a place I’d grown to love.  The camera was thrown in amongst the usual essentials; maybe I’d take it out now and then to encapsulate some lasting memories. What ensued was a metamorphosis: a few casual shots grew into an obsession. 

While out shooting and walking, everything else vanishes. I become immersed in areas rarely ventured and am granted glimpses into idiosyncratic moments of others’ lives. It’s the greatest peace I’ve ever known.  As I sift through my photographs, the memories adjoining the images are savored and as significant as the final result.

I am a self-taught photographer, picking things up by something akin to osmosis.  Time and again I was told by friends and colleagues that the photos evoked something more than the typical travel shot and I was encouraged to do more. I began to connect with fellow photographers who assisted in mentoring me. 

Like the revelation of discovering more than “vacation shots” stowed away in my camera, I find sharing my photographs with a broader audience just as serendipitous.  
Shooting comes from somewhere deep within.  It is as though something murmurs, and I must wander off and shoot. My heart starts to beat wildly. My eyes blink like a shutter, as if to retain some images I may have missed. What ensues are these special moments, requiring communication with the subject, even if unspoken. Almost all of my photos begin with that flicker of human connection.   

What does the future hold?  I’ve always loved to travel. The second the wheels hit the runway, I’m conceiving my next journey.  With the added captivation to shoot, the urge is almost irrepressible."
 
CV
The Photographic Nude
Lightbox Photographic Gallery
Astoria, OR
Juror Christa Blackwood
Feb-Mar, 2018

Tree Talk
Griffin Museum of Photography at
Lafayette City Center , Boston
Juror, Paula Tognarelli
Jan-Feb, 2018

The Curated Fridge
Somerville, Ma
Juror J. Sybille Smith
Winter 2018

Portraits
SxSE Gallery
Molina, Georgia
Juror Elizabeth Avedon
Nov-Dec, 2017

Winner Photographic Nude
Julia Margaret Cameron
Budapest, Hungary
Oct 2017- Jan @2018

What the World Needs Now
The B Complex Gallery
Atlanta, Georgia
Jurors Anita Arliss,
Ruben Natal-San Miguel
Sept-Oct, 2017

The Face
The Dark Room Gallery
Essex Junction, Vermont
Juror Catherine Just
Jul-Aug, 2017

23rd Juried Exhibtion
Griffin Museum of Photography
Winchester, MA
Juror Hamidah Glasgow
Jun-Jul 2017

Summertime 
A Smith Gallery
Johnson City, Texas
Juror Sandrine Hermand-Grisel
Jun-Jul 2017

PUBLICATIONS
Fraction Magazine
9th Anniversary Issue-May 2017

Women in Photogaphy
Julia Margaret Cameron 2013
Black & White Magazine
Special Issue-February 2009

AWARDS
Julia Margaret Cameron
10th edition - juror Amber Terranova
Nude and Figure - Winner 2017

Ph21 Gallery  Mobil Only 2017
Honorable Mention

CFAP Portraits 2016 with Juror Karen Marks-honorable mention, Live books website awards

Julia Margaret Cameron-  2010

www.ninaweinbergdoran.com
 

Sylvia Stagg-Giuliano says, "I could always depend upon my friend Alicia, whose family I had known since my childhood in Ecuador, to lend a helping hand. 

She demonstrated this most literally during the year-long process of relocating from the suburbs to my new home and studio in Fort Point, which required extensive renovations (an activity we both loved). Alicia’s energy and enthusiasm, her sheer zest for doing things, is to me the essence of life. 

Even when doing things was hard, as it often is for all of us, in all aspects of our journey, she never uttered a word of complaint – about fatigue, or boredom, or inconvenience, or anything else. This was never more apparent than during the weeks between her fatal diagnosis and her death As she’d done all her life, she did what she could to comfort her family and then passed from this earth with serenity, her work on this mortal plane completed and her lovely soul, I like to think, in the hands of God." 

Sylvia Stagg-Giuliano was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador. An avid amateur photographer from adolescence, she apprenticed at Foto Olympia, a Guayaquil portrait studio.

In 1976 she moved to the Boston area for three years of intensive study at the New England School of Photography. She became a U.S. resident in 1978, and a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1997. 

After graduating from NESOP, Sylvia held a staff photographer position at Digital Equipment Corporation for eleven years. During this period, she also pursued her own artistic vision, experimenting with advanced darkroom techniques to produce startlingly original surrealistic imagery.

Sylvia has worked as an independent commercial and fine art photographer since 1991. She has been a resident of the A Street Visual Artists Cooperative in South Boston since 2005, and is an active member of the Fort Points Arts Community. 

An early adopter of digital technology, Sylvia has, over the past decade and a half, increasingly focused her artistic energies on creating composited digital photo-illustrations as well as museum-quality commissioned portraits. 

Sylvia’s work has been exhibited in numerous shows in the U.S. and South America. 

Awards and Honors

2009 Minuteman ARC Community Partnership Award (for the portrait series The Faces
of Minuteman ARC)

2005 CIPNE Image Competition: Best in Category, Judges Choice, and Fujifilm
Professional “New Approach” Award

2004 CIPNE Image Competition: Best in Category and Fujifilm Professional “New
Approach” Award

2002 Seybold New York Digital Art Competition: Finalist

Solo Exhibits

Cuba x1 Made in Fort Point Gallery, Boston, 2013

Transit of Venus Multicultural Arts Center, Cambridge, 2012

A Walk in the Past 35 Channel Center Gallery, 2010

The Faces of Minuteman ARC (traveling exhibit), 2009-present

A Walk in the Past The Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center, 2009

Dispatches and Dreams jgallery, Boston, 2008

Caminata al Pasado Museo Antropológico y de Arte Contemporáneo, Guayaquil,
Ecuador, 2005

Out There The Chelsea City Gallery, 2004
Interiors The Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center, 2003

Dispatches The Chelsea City Gallery, 2003
A Walk in the Past The Gallery at Newbury College, Brookline, 2002

The Human Factor, The Chelsea City, 2002
In the Raw Designs for Living Gallery, Boston, 2002

Altered Vistas The Pivot Gallery, Florence, Massachusetts, 2000

Group Exhibits

Drawing and Sparring FPAC Gallery 2015
Drawn to Water Atlantic Wharf Gallery, 2014

Nostalgia Atlantic Wharf Gallery, 2014
The Fine Art of Photography The Plymouth Center for the Arts, 2013

Still: Objects Observed Atlantic Wharf Gallery, 2013

Play Ball! Atlantic Wharf Gallery, 2012
Battleship Cove (multimedia) Gallery 12, Boston, 2012

Fort Point of View 119 Gallery, Lowell, MA, 2009

Images of Medford The Springstep Gallery, 2004

www.stagg-giuliano.com

 

Sarah Marie Rooney says, "There are two days a year I “indulge” myself in feeling the actual pain and loss of losing my best friend- my mom. 

The other 363 days I push the sadness down and I seek substitutions for her humor, wisdom and care.  I do not speak about this pain and therefore I do not weep. 363 days a year I smile so that no one, including myself, knows that anything is wrong.  As my mom was fond of advising, “Fake it until you make it.

Growing up in Connecticut, my mom would take me to the shore many times throughout the summer.  When I was little I would ask her if we were almost there yet and her answer would be, “I can tell we are almost there because my ears are itching!” I will not forget those memories, but the tone of her voice, her mannerisms and gestures can be hard to recall with accuracy.

I would be lying to say that I believe it healthy to avoid the pain.  I would be lying to say that all of my choices and substitutions for missing my mom have been healthy.  Therefore, I have decided to dig deep and face the loss of my mom. I am determined to allow myself to feel the deep emptiness I feel day in and day out in the hope that by walking through the grief I will be able to heal the holes in my heart.  By forcing myself to consciously deal with her absence, my deep loss and pain, I hope to alleviate an even deeper fear that I have; the fear of remembering and therefore the fear of forgetting.

This selection of self portraits, made in Manhattan Beach, are inspired by confronting my fear of remembering my mom in order to not forget her.  Connecting to my mom photographically through memories with a shared love of the sand, the sea, and the salt air makes my ears itch now and then when I am close by. I take comfort in knowing her ears will be itching too. 

 I miss you mom every day and I love you always."

Sarah Rooney grew up in Connecticut and obtained her Bachelor of Fine Arts, in Musical Theatre, from Syracuse University. After graduating Sarah continued her vocal studies in the UK and New Zealand and performed more than fifty solo vocal recitals and operas in the United States, Australia, the UK and New Zealand.  

Sarah was also the Business Manager and Executive Theater Producer at BATS Theatre, Producer of Summer Shakespeare and Young and Hungry Theatre Company.  In addition to performing and producing, Sarah taught and directed classes for theater, voice and stage at the Wellington Theatre for Performing Arts (NZ), Oregon Children’s Theatre and School (USA), and St. Mary’s in Sydney (AU).   She also maintained a private singing studio for ten years. 

Sarah obtained her MBA, with Merit, from Victoria University, Wellington NZ, and Georgia Institute of Technology.  

Sarah moved from Wellington to Atlanta Georgia in 2012 and spent two years working with Usher at his Non-Profit foundation, Usher’s New Look, as Director of Communications and Technology.  In 2015 Sarah moved to Los Angeles and began her photography studies at the Los Angeles Center for Photography (LACP), where she is currently part of the One Year Professional Program.

Sarah was selected by Paula Tongarelli, Executive Director and Curator of the Griffin Museum of Photography, to show work at the dnj Gallery for LACP’s Fourth Annual Member’s Exhibit.  Sarah has also shown work in “On the Streets of Los Angeles” at the LACP gallery in Hollywood CA. 

Sarah is a photographer for animal welfare, lobby and rescue organizations.  
Sarah photographs events and adoptable animals for Best Friends Animal Society, NKLA (No Kill Los Angeles), Angel City Pit-bull Rescue, and Wags and Walks.  

Sarah lives in Manhattan Beach, CA with her furry, four-legged family (two rescue dogs and one rescue cat).

Website or contact info IG:  @sarahmarierooney 
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