Member Profile: Tiffany L Harned

closeHow does one become an artist? There are many paths, and no two artists follow identical ones, but Tiffany Harned has forged her own road and thus formed her own unique style. Her medium of choice, photography, was destined when she received her first camera, a Canon A1, at the age of five. The sense of exploration that permeates all of her work was developed as a high-school student in Woodbridge New Jersey when she and her friends would go out at night trying to find the unusual locations appearing in the magazine “Weird NJ.” This started a life-long pattern of heading down the roads less traveled with her camera always in hand. She developed more skills while attending Middlesex County College under the tutelage of professor Whitey Warner, who encouraged her love of unexplored places. In 2002, Tiffany moved to Los Angeles to pursue her dream to be a photographer in the music scene there. She quickly found success, with her first magazine publication appearing in Campus Circle magazine, and eventually landing gigs at Skinnie Magazine and American Music Press (AMP) Magazine, and shooting for OzzFest and the Warped tours. Unfortunately, in 2006 the music industry began a decline and Tiffany found herself at loose ends. She pursued freelancing opportunities until 2008, when she moved back to New Jersey to stay with her family. Over the next few years she bounced around between Oregon, New Jersey, and California struggling to make ends meet, hardly finding time to take any pictures. Over time she grew depressed, despairing of ever finding a creative home for her art. In desperation in February of 2015, Tiffany set out on a cross-country journey looking for a place to call home. She had her car, her cat, her camera, and $3,000 – all her worldly possessions. Remembering her teen explorations she took the roads less travelled, heading south to Atlanta, then west through New Orleans and Houston, across Texas and along the Mexico border, traveling through ghost towns and tiny communities. She stayed with friends, camped under the stars or slept in her car, and through it all took pictures. Eventually she landed in a small off-the-grid community called Slab City in the southern California desert near the Salton Sea. She stayed there for a while, finding inspiration and motivation and beginning to rediscover herself. From there she proceeded north through several of California’s beautiful National Parks, and on up into Oregon. Looping back east through Nevada, Utah and Colorado she realized she’d been on the road for three months and still had not found a home – but she had found her own peace. After a long hiatus, she was again making art, and that brought happiness, motivation and passion. When she finally arrived back in New Jersey, some 15,000 miles later, she realized she had created a beautiful story in her photographs from the trip – a story which has been realized in her book Away To Awaken, beautifully depicting not only the amazing shots she captured, but also her own spiritual awakening. In addition to the book, Tiffany offers high quality giclée prints of her work on her website, www.tiffanyharned.com, and has had her work displayed in galleries on both coasts. Tiffany is a member of both Professional Photographers of America (PPA) and American Photographic Artists (APA). Her work has a well-defined recognizable style, with unique and vivid lighting, often shot at night with multiple light sources and long exposures. Many of her shots feature her or others “spinning fire” for a breathtaking visual effect. And as always, she finds the roads less traveled: the unique vistas few people see, or unique perspectives on the common sights, allowing the viewer to glimpse the wonder she finds wherever she travels. Fine ART , With a creative eye, Capturing emotion, One click at a time. Welcome to TiffanyHarned.com tiffanyharned.com