About the Photographer

Growing up in a small, fast-developing town in Minnesota surrounded by a rural landscape and raised by a farmer’s daughter, Vanessa Gamelin always felt half urbanite, half country-girl. She found any reason to be outside in the warm sun, cool breeze, and surrounded by the smells of pine trees and flowers, but also loved the modernity of city life. Considered highly creative and art driven from a young age, she decided to study fine art photography at 17 and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Art.

Based now in Brooklyn, New York, both her urban and rural work explores objects, places, and scenes overlooked by most passersby. Her interests lie not in the obviously beautiful, but in the small details: the cracks in orange-brown rust, the gradations in faded color signs, the graphic lines of street lamps, the textures of dying sunflowers. There is a bit of story-telling through each photograph.

Her urban images ask questions like what sort of person owns this deli, who lives in that eccentric house, what culture lives behind that door – all based on the color of paint, the upkeep of hedges, and the cleanliness of the shop window; they deal with the outer senses. Her rural images more convey feelings rather than ask questions; they explore the inner senses. It is a combination of nature’s beautiful circle of life and how it feels to witness it.