Every image tells a story.
That’s more than a motto for me. It’s a truth that makes itself evident to me every minute of the day. I look at photographs and see inside them narratives and allegories. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been such an avid reader all my life, my imagination fueled my thousands of books through the years. Maybe it’s the artist in me who has always enjoyed sketching, painting, creating images that express the creative urges that stir in me. My photography is certainly an extension of that: a form of art and storytelling that does more than just record a moment in time.
I started out doing photography as many of us do; taking snapshots of the people and places that I care about. It wasn’t until an assignment I was on one year in Gallup, New Mexico that my obsessive nature took over my life. I worked at that time for a non-profit agency which helped homeless veterans, and I was in Gallup on behalf of the agency to take photos of the Stand Down we were holding there. I had been given a digital camera to use, and I drove every day the four-plus hours round trip between Gallup and Albuquerque for three days. The third day a snowstorm hit on my way home to Albuquerque. Instead of being terrified at the terrible driving conditions, I was mesmerized by the incredible landscape scenes that were developing around me. I couldn’t help myself, I stopped just about every five miles and stood in the blowing tempest to capture bits of snow clinging to cacti and Piñon, mesa and barbed wire fences. I was hooked. I didn’t get home for five hours, I scared my boss to death. In those days my camera was a Sony, the kind you could slip a floppy disk into, and it had all of 1.3 MP.
So much has changed since then. I traded my Sony in for a Canon. I began at first to offer my images to stock.xchange, where I learned a great deal from some wonderful photographers. (I still contribute there, and the photos are free to use under certain circumstances, it is a fantastic resource full of some talented people.) I had been an artist for most of my life, and it wasn’t hard to translate those visions to the lens of a camera.
I’ve been fortunate enough to participate in two gallery shows, a fashion show, and numerous commercial enterprises. My work has been featured often in print, on three book covers, and in many magazines.
Contact me for availability if you would like to work with me.
email: dawnallynnphotography@gmail.com
Phone: 505-926-1339
