BIO
Life is motion. Life is kinetic. Life is
constantly changing.
My photos reflect Life.
My name is Erin, and I'm a photographer. An artist.
A person who embraces the metamorphosis that is life.
I've been an artist from the time I could pick up a crayon, and
got my start in photography when I was 14 years old. At the time,
I lived in a small town near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the
local paper singled me out because they thought I had some talent.
One of the photojournalists there took me under his wing and showed
me how to use the darkroom and studio (back before the days of
digital when the newspapers used a wet darkroom!), and I went on
to graduate high school, major in photojournalism in college, and
work at the very paper where I first learned my craft. While in
college at Kent State University, I also picked up a few awards
including a William Randolph Hearst Journalism award in the Portrait
/ Personality & Feature photography category. One of my teachers
suggested I explore my more artistic side, as my assignments, while
newsworthy, had a more artsy, personal quality to them than those
of many of my other classmates. This was a sign of things to come.
After landing the front page of the paper for a city wide drug
bust, my mother offered to send me to grad school to get my MFA
in photography. She thought photojournalism was "too dangerous".
I disagreed, but took her up on her offer anyway, because it would
allow me to explore my more artistic side, as my former teacher
suggested. I headed to Savannah College of Art & Design the
next year, and emerged 2 years later with my MFA in photography,
and more importantly, a wealth of knowledge and possibilities.
So how did I end up in the wedding and portrait photography business?
While I was working as a photojournalist in 1998, a friend asked
me to photograph his wedding, and I enjoyed the experience a great
deal. Documenting the fleeting aspects of that once in a lifetime
day really suited my style - those who know me know I'm a laid
back, calm and easy going person with an eye for details who is
always looking for a different way to approach just about everything.
After that wedding I photographed more weddings and portraits for
friends and family in the same unobtrusive documentary manner.
When I got married and moved to the Washington DC metro area in
2001, I found that the way I had been making photos was actually
a style... "photojournalistic style," "documentary
style," there were and still are a lot of different terms
for it floating around. In short, people realized that their photos
didn't have to look like everyone else's and should reflect each
couple's personalities. That sealed it for me, and my official
wedding and portrait photography business was born.
If you want to see what I'm doing day to day, check out my
blog,
and if you would like to meet with me about any of my photographic
services, I'm always happy to go out for a cup of coffee and talk
about your wedding, family, or whatever else is important to you,
and how I can help turn that feeling into art.
