Sketch Series: Petunia Halo Photograph - Limited Edition of 60

Raised a bridge away from New York City, a year's adventure in the Caribbean ultimately brought me to a permanent home, in the nirvana of the Canadian Rockies. My name is Ellen Liguori. My photographic images are printed on archival, acid free cotton rag and photo papers. Archival inks are used exclusively. I see myself as hunter gatherer so to speak, in search of visual tapestries... threads that offer a jump-off point to compelling art. In a thousand meanders and, literally, 10's of thousands of shutter clicks, I look for a symphony that lives within a larger image. The process: It is about seeing the ordinary thru an extraordinary "lens". A spontaneity is born after a capture is taken. When pulling from it, the subtleties embedded within, one can find treasure in a story that may not have been exposed at first glance. I seek the capture's sweetspot, where it reveals an unforeseen sense of edge and surprise. Almost always this begins with a photo cropped to a new form. As a Fine Art Photographer, happenstance imagery holds a special place. If, in the hunt for that compelling happenstance, one can initially capture organic line and shape, and the feel of depth, there sleeps an image that will reverberate, moving its viewer. My passion is to study composition, to find where harmony and/or discord can be massaged. The combined interactions of the light, color, or, not color...shadow, mood, motion, stillness, and line, are the story. The editing process is, by today's technical abilities, somewhat primitive. I prefer to use lesser editing tools that do not allow me complete control. I focus on the sum. There is satisfaction in dichotomy, with a love for both moody subtlety, and, blazing color. A last, very selective cropping will be the final note of almost any medium I work in. What is taken away is as important, if not more so, than the "snapshot" itself, or, even that which is added thru embellishment. More molded and evolved, my process results in images, not especially polished and slick, but those retaining, organically, a sense of their beginning. The un-prescribed final works share a common thread of working with the unplanned and "accidents" that occur. The finished image is a child of the happenstance.The outcome, never predetermined, is discovered. Unveiled. Beginning with the hunt for that special capture, I continue until I reach a final piece. One with its own personal, seductive characteristics.