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Diane Stefanich has been interested
in photography since a young teenager
when she worked at a nearby photo lab part-time. A casual interest took a
serious turn in the 70’s, after receiving a 35mm Pentax as a gift.
Further
encouragement came in the form of a third place finish in the National
Kodak
Photo Contest in 1975 and an honorable mention the following year.
In the early 80’s, she and her husband became involved in commercial
fine art
photography for the poster and greeting card markets where bright,
colorful
images became a trademark. Together, they still shoot assignment work for
the
print trade.
More recently, her personal work has turned back to her first love, black
and
white. A light painting technique enables her to explore the relationship
between the highlights and shadows while using selective focus to
emphasize
the subject. A handheld light source is used to wash light over the image
area, allowing a certain luminosity to develop.
In the darkroom, all images are printed on fiber-based papers and are
archivally toned with selenium, sepia, or sometimes both, giving the end
result an overall rich, warm tone. The final step is to handcolor each
image
with photographic dyes.
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