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All Images © Leigh Nofi, except where noted Double Exposure: When did you first become interested in photography? Leigh Nofi: I became interested in photography as a young child for several different reasons. First, I used to love sitting down with my parents to look at the family photo albums my Mom had put together. I also got a kick out of my uncle’s Polaroid and his trusty Minolta 16 which he always carried in his shirt pocket. I loved to see the Polaroid pictures come to life. He would let me keep a lot of the pictures, and take a few myself, which I collected and kept safe in my own family photo album. Since I showed such a strong interest in photography at a young age, my parents got me my first camera—a Kodak disc camera—for a Christmas present. It was my favorite gift that year and it started me on the road to being the family historian.
We were also fortunate enough to travel a lot as a family to places such as Venezuela, Margarita Island, Canada, Mexico, the coast of California, New England, and all over Florida. These trips definitely set my on the path towards travel photography, which I think is my specialty today. DE: Where did you go to school? LN: I graduated and received a B.A. degree in Journalism from the State University of New York, New Paltz, in the summer of 1993 after completing a six-month internship at The Legislative Gazette in Albany, New York. As a reporter for The Gazette, I covered various political issues such as women's rights, social services and judiciary. DE: Did you major in public relations/communications or the visual arts? LN: Journalism. DE: How long have you worked for S.I.R. Marketing Communications? Did you work for Minolta with Steve Rosenbaum prior to that? LN: I joined S.I.R. Marketing Communications, Inc. in November of 1999. Prior to joining the agency, I was the Managing Editor for Studio Photography & Design magazine. I actually began my career in the photo industry in 1994 as Assistant Editor of Photo Trade News, and was quickly promoted later that same year to Managing Editor of PTN. In order to diversify my experience and understanding of the imaging industry, I became Associate Editor of Advanced Imaging magazine, while remaining Managing Editor of Photo Trade News. I then moved on to Managing Editor of Studio Photography & Design in 1998. I also served as Managing Editor in 1998 and 1999 for the Custom Publishing Division of Cygnus Publishing in New York catering to clients in the photo imaging industry such as Hasselblad and Nikon.
LN: I have been involved in the photo imaging industry for 13 wonderful years. I have worked with Steve Rosenbaum at S.I.R. Marketing Communications, Inc. for almost 8 of those years and I can tell you that the PR part of my career has just flown by. It’s been exciting since day one and we have been lucky enough to work with some really fantastic clients from Minolta (which became Konica Minolta) and Applied Science Fiction to our current international list of clients: DxO Labs, JOBO AG, Kubota Image Tools, Lensbabies, Nik Software, onOne Software and Phanfare. We’re a small firm, which really allows us to give our clients the professional and personal support they can rely on. I think that’s what makes us unique. Since joining S.I.R., I have grown not only as a Senior Account Executive but also as a photographer. I have learned so much from working with Steve. I had never worked in PR before joining S.I.R. Marketing Communications but I knew switching from a career as an editor to PR executive was a change I wanted to make—and to stay in the imaging industry was such a bonus for me. Steve’s training and influence in both PR and photography helped me hit the ground running and I haven’t stopped since. And from being on the other side of the fence—publishing—I have a keen sense of what editors and reporters need to get their jobs done. This helps me to be responsive and supportive to our friends in the media.
LN: I currently use a Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D with several lenses, including my new favorite—a Lensbaby 3G. I started shooting completely digital about four years ago and have not looked back. I actually just sold my old and trusty film SLR camera system to a young woman starting photography school in the fall. I couldn’t have been more thrilled to know a camera that I loved and used to bring with me all over the world now has a new life with a new photographer. Since I started shooting completely digital, I became very interested in working with software to enhance my digital pictures. Plus, several of our current clients are software companies and I like to have hands-on experience with the products we represent. My first imaging software was Photoshop and plug-ins from Applied Science Fiction—which I loved. Now I still use Photoshop of course, but before Photoshop, I run all of my images through DxO Optics Pro first. And I really enjoy using programs like Nik Software’s Color Efex Pro and onOne Software’s Plug-In Suite 3, featuring my favorite program PhotoFrame Pro 3, to add creative effects to my pictures. I very rarely delete pictures anymore. I believe that even a seemingly bad picture can be made great with the help of some creative imaging software.
LN: My favorite photography is travel/scenic/landscape. I found I had a knack for this type of photography on my first trip to Europe with my Mother in 1993. It was my college graduation present and we traveled to England, Scotland and Wales and I can’t even remember how many rolls of exposed film I returned with. It was just the beginning of my fascination with photographing European landscapes, architecture and culture. We returned a few years later to visit Paris, Germany and Austria. DE: Has anyone influenced you photographically? LN: As I mentioned earlier, Steve Rosenbaum has definitely influenced me more recently. He’s a top-notch photographer and I do aspire to take pictures that are as beautiful as his. I’ve also had the good fortune to know some wonderful professional photographers, like my favorite photographer John Isaac, and I can’t help but be influenced by the images created by the professionals I have come to know and respect. But I have to say the first person to truly influence my photography was Shutterbug’s George Schaub. He was my editorial director at Photo Trade News. While at PTN, I wanted to not only write about the photographic industry, but I also wanted to be a better photographer and learn about the products that were being sold at retail. To do so, I began writing brief product reviews of new cameras for the magazine. I would bring my slides to George for him to critique and I’ll never forget what he asked me the first time he reviewed my images —“Your pictures are good, but where’s your color?” And he was right. I was shooting a lot of scenics in the Poconos at that time and most of my pictures were just green foliage around waterfalls or lakes. This forever changed how I shoot pictures and how I look at scenes and locations. Now, whenever I take my camera out of the camera bag I have this little voice that says to me, “Where’s the color?” DE: Tell me about your travels to Italy and how it inspires your photography. LN: My first trip to Italy was in December of 2005 for my honeymoon. My husband Joseph and I traveled the country for two weeks visiting Rome, Florence, Siena, Naples, Pompeii, Sorrento, and Formia. We brought with us two digital cameras and two portable image storage devices. Italy was a dream trip for both of us and we didn’t want to risk losing any pictures so we double-backed up our image files every night. We returned home with over 4,000 pictures between the both us. I learned on this trip that my husband has an excellent eye for photography and we make a great photographic team. He never really took very many pictures before this trip but since I basically never put the camera down when traveling, he needed something to do too.
There are so many inspirations in Italy—the changing landscapes region by region, the colors, the architecture, the food, wine, people, and the history. When exploring the medieval streets of cities like Siena, I love feeling like I have stepped back in time. We also like to travel in the off season and often feel like we have the whole city, hotel, museums and restaurants to ourselves. The off-season is also best for photography—I don’t have to fight the crowds as much to get a shot. DE: Any future plans/projects coming up? LN: The challenge for me since this last trip to Europe is to find more time for my photography, especially creative digital photography using software to create different artistic effects. We just became new homeowners and I’m so happy to have a garden full of flowers to photograph. I’d like to get more involved in macro photography at some point (as I once was with my film system). My husband and I are planning a fall getaway to New England, which is such a wonderful time for photography. And we’re discussing a possible return to Europe in 2008. To see more of Leigh Nofi's photos, CLICK HERE. To learn more about S.I.R. Marketing Communications, visit http://www.sironline.com. Click Here to See a Gallery of Leigh Nofi's Images© Copyright 2002 by Photoworkshop.com |
