Member Profile: Mary Heller

closeA STATEMENT I have traveled a long way since becoming a professional photographer forty years ago. In the beginning I used a large-format camera and painstakingly printed each image myself. My first photographs were structured black and white images of interwoven shapes and shadows with architectural references. This approach led to a series of nudes with the same stark definitions. A period followed in which I experimented with printing double images in the darkroom, a series I have called Illusions. In time, the large camera was replaced by a Hasselblad, and now the Hasselblad has been replaced by a digital camera and the darkroom by the computer. Every year my husband and I used to take one or two working trips, which inspired my work. We went to remote areas of over twenty countries as well as many parts of the United States, but the geographic location and identity of my photographs is not important. What is important is the emotional impact, light, and transience of the subjects I have found. The resulting images are eclectic but share a common sensitivity and awareness. Until recently, people have rarely appeared in my photographs. I have always prefered the silent beauty of place. Mary Heller New York, NY