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		I’m not sure the moment I first became a photographer. I don’t think there was
	one set moment, but rather, an accumulation of many small moments, distant memories and
	varied influences. In hindsight, I think maybe I have always thought like an artist; maybe
	an artist is, indeed, something you are just born being.


		The child of two recreational painters, I grew up around art supplies, and my
	favorite rainy day activity when little was poring over all the pictures in my parents’ art
	books. Early on I tried my own hand at drawing and painting with their watercolors.
	Unfortunately, I soon realized that I had definitely NOT inherited any of their technical
	ability to make anything look like I wanted it to!


		It was around this time that I discovered my father’s collection of Audubon and
	National Geographic magazines, and they soon joined the art books as one of my favorite
	past-times. It wasn’t long before I was asking to borrow my parents' old brownie-style
	camera to try taking my own photos, and once I had gotten my own 110 Instamatic camera
	for my 10th birthday, I was on my way. In addition to all the usual childish photos of
	classmates and Christmas decorations, I found myself trying to capture moments that
	spoke to me in some special way, whether that was a horse and carriage parked along
	Central Park South, the sunset over my cousins’ corn field on a late summer afternoon
	or the eerie look of the ‘haunted’ old school-house across the street from my grandfather’s
	house. I realize now that I wanted to preserve those moments and scenes in some way
	for myself, and I think maybe even then I felt the desire to share with the world (even if
	that was only my family and best friend) the things I saw as memorable or special or
	magical in the world.


		Exactly what I’ve found memorable, what I’ve wanted to share, has, of course,
	changed throughout the years. As a child and teenager I spent a great deal of time hiking
	with my family on weekends, and, inspired by my father’s Audubons and the Impressionist
	paintings in the art books I loved, I was first drawn to share the beauty I saw in nature.
	Later, after studying the history of New York, Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine taught me to see
	the beauty in my city surroundings, even the beauty in the ugliness of a crumbling building,
	a bare light bulb against a cracked ceiling or the lined, dirty face of a homeless person.
	Eventually, after years spent seeing the dance and theatrical work of Martha Swope, and
	as my love for figure-skating grew, I wanted to express that love as she did; I wanted to
	be able to share with someone who had never even experienced figure-skating before the
	beauty that I saw in the sport and in the movement of the human body.


		Whatever the subject matter, I’ve always found myself particularly drawn to the
	magical effects of light on a subject and the texture of a scene. Some of my earliest
	memories are of the strong, golden light and long shadows during an early morning at the
	playground, and of the sun-dappled fairy-tale like mystery of an almost hidden pathway in
	a park forest. And I am perhaps most happy when I manage to capture a tactile quality
	in my photographs, when they have an almost painting-like quality. I guess there’s still
	a part of me that is my parents’ daughter, a frustrated painter at heart!


		So take some time to wander thru my online gallery. I hope the photos inside
	speak to you in some way, stir something inside of you, and that you enjoy sharing my view
	of all that is memorable, special and magical in the world.


		L.D.

All photos on this site © Liza Dey and are subject to U.S. copyright laws. They are not to be used in any 
manner without the express written permission of Liza Dey Photography. 
All rights reserved.