About Tamara
When my parents first placed a neon pink Vivitar LA Brites camera in my outstretched hands at age seven, my photography fever began, and never ended. I amassed quite a collection of odds and ends, cameras and films. I even “borrowed” my older sister’s neon yellow Vivitar LA Brites camera to see if it took the same pictures as my pink one. (It did) My collection grew over the years, as well as my knowledge of photography. I had a giant Polaroid camera, a mini Polaroid i-Zone camera, several small point and shoots, my father’s old Retina and my grandfather’s old video camera. I needed to see how they all saw the world – or how I saw the world through all of them. I studied darkroom photography in high school and in college, I was finally given a camera I’d stick with for years – a Minolta Maxxum 5 35mm body with a Tamon 28-200mm lens. We went everywhere together for years, from Maine to Key West to San Diego to Vancouver. I started digital photography in 2007 with a Canon Rebel xTi and I’ve been building up my Canon body and lens collection for years.
After college, I worked with a medium format camera doing class portraits for Lifetouch National School Studios in northern New Jersey. In 2004, I photographed an illustrator for the back cover of a published children’s book. I do love the predictability of location, lighting and sets with posed photography but I also loved the unpredictability of never knowing what these children would do for the camera. I was always surprised, each and every day on the job. I learned about light metering, posing, color, and contrast. And personality. Lots and lots of personality.
When my daughter was born in 2009, I fell in love with newborn photography and all children’s photography. I also love photographing families and groups, engagements, special events, wildlife, landscape and pets. My style is mostly candid, girl in the shadows capturing you when you don’t even know it, but I’m also skilled and experienced with poses and portraits. My years of camera and film accumulation and photography experience brought forth a passion to capture joy, strength, character, sadness and more – humanity and spirit at its most descriptive, raw and real. The power of photography continues to bring me to my knees, and I aim to use my work to do the same for you.
My son was born in 2012, and he has happily become one of the most photographed babies in Northampton, MA!
