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When photographer MaryEllen Nealis renovated her studio on the Royal Road her husband took his time to craft an intricate wooden mantle to surround the propane fireplace. Little did the couple know that in just a few months Nealis would bring home prestigious awards to decorate the top.
Nominated for Photographer of the Year this in 2004, Nealis recently received her first bar from the Professional Photographers of Canada Inc. A digital image she created of her daughter surrounded by autumn leaves entitled Earth, Wind and Fire won the Top Print Experimental from Polaroid Canada Inc., and was one of 40 prints accepted into the PPOC’s National Print Show Loan Collection. With this print Nealis also scored merit with the Maritime Professional Photographers Association, won the Kodak Gallery Award of Excellence Digital, the Nikon Award of Excellence Electronic Imaging and the Fuji Award of Excellence Digital.
Another print, Mind Over Matter, also scored merit and made the loan collection with the PPOC and scored merit as Best Commerical Digital with the MPPA. Another print of her daughter, I am my own Fever, I am my own Pain scored MPPA merit as best portrait/wedding digital while a second commercial print, It’s all about Science also made the loan collection.
“He teases me that he built me a mantle for all my awards,” she said of her husband, smiling as she ran her fingers over the smooth glass of one of the three statues.
This certainly is a year for celebration and Nealis said she is indescribably thankful for all of the good things in her life.
The first woman to ever win the title of Photographer of the Year by the Maritime Professional Photographers’ Association in 1999 and again in 2000, Nealis first became interested in photography when she was a Grade 12 student at Fredericton High School. She said her art teacher saw potential in her black and white photography and said she had a “special eye”. But she had other plans at the time to get a job rather than continue her education. A request from her best friends to photograph their wedding gave her the hands-on experience she needed to get started, she said.
This wedding led to other weddings and she would bring her work to another photographer in the community who served as her mentor and he would critic it and give her suggestions. Nealis enrolled in night courses at the College of Craft and Design to improve her skills and then she became a part time student. It was during this time that she said she started taking photography more serious and in 1994, soon after she graduated with a certificate in photography, she found a spot handy to her home on the Royal Road and opened her own studio.
Nealis is in the process of making the transition from traditional to digital photography. She said her clients really like her fantasy portraits of fairies and the fact that digital makes it easier to manipulate and touch up photographs.
With traditional photography Nealis said she was able to experiment with processing but digital photography has taken her work to the next level, allowing her to do anything she wants with an image. It is exciting to sees an image come together the way she imagined it, she said, adding she gets goose bumps every time.
Experimenting on the computer with digital images is to her like painting a great work.
“Those pixels and that colour is like wet paint and when you get in there you can take them and move them around to do anything you want,” she said. “I feel like an artist who finds a scene, captures it and then comes back to make it into a masterpiece on canvas. All of the techniques come together to make it turn into a work of art.”
With digital photography a person could never get bored Nealis said because if they did they could just need to move on and do something new. With digital technology photos can look infrared, have a sepia tone or classic black and white with the click of a button and she can play around with contrast to enhance the effect.
“I eased my way into it slowly. I am not someone to jump in and I think it has been gradual and slowly but surely because it is the direction I wanted to go in,” said Nealis. “A lot of my clients had questions about digital in the last couple of years and I would say up to a year ago I wouldn’t have said digital was better than traditional but now I think it’s up there and then some.”
Nealis said she is honoured every time a client entrusts her to capture a moment in their lives. She has been shooting weddings for more than 20 years and said she can honestly say that she is fighting back tears along with everyone else to see how much the bride and groom love each other.
“I am a romantic at heart and I can truly feel the love,” she said. “If I get to the point when I’m not happy to be there and be a part of a couple’s day then that will be the end for me. It just doesn’t fade.”
She said this emotional connection is the same when she photographs elderly coupes who have loved each other for decade as well as when she captures the glow of new mother with their babies.
“You feel that excitement and unexplainable love for their children and it’s enough to move you to tears,” she said, adding her patience and connection to her own three children help her to connect with young subjects.
“I don’t expect children to come in here and sit right down. I know they’re going to run around but I use voice and act silly and I find if you relate to them, they relate to you.”
It’s special when she is able to capture a special event, Nealis said, adding this could be as monumental as a wedding or as simple as a child’s portrait. She said she also enjoys the commercial photography work she does because it takes her in a different direction and is a unique challenge from the portrait and wedding photography she does on a regular basis.
Nealis said she shares her accomplishments with her husband, two sons and a daughter who are supportive and allow her to do what she loves.
Gazing at one of the award winning portraits of her daughter Monica, Nealis says she can’t help but remember the first time her little girl posed for the camera. When she was just three months old her husband held the baby up from under the table so her mother could capture the moment.
“When he saw all the outfits I had to put on her he said no way,” Nealis said, laughing at the memory. “But I set them there and she was so perfect. She just kept smiling so we kept changing her and taking pictures.
“She has been a star subject of mine so it’s even more special to me that I have been recognized for these photographs of her.”
