Photographer focuses on life through her lens

Mary Catherine Rollo, owner of Photographic Arts, is capturing life’s beautiful moments, one click at a time.

“With a camera in my hands, I am called to be fully present,” Rollo said. “I have to be totally focused yet with an open awareness of motion, light, dynamics, relationships and the energy of people, the place and what is around me. It’s the setting aside of contrivance and discovering what is there that allows me to find the authentic and creative life in so many things and people.”

Rollo, a Shreveport resident, was born in Japan and has been a professional photographer throughout the United States, studying under various master photographers through the Professional Photographers of America, WINONA School of Professional Photography, the New England Institute for Professional Photography and various regional seminars. After a 10-year hiatus from photography she now finds vast creative joy in the field of digital photography and computer software.

“The first photography I ever did was for a part time job at a Sears store in Philadelphia, Pa.,” Rollo said. “It was never a hobby. When I had the opportunity to purchase a twin lens Rolleiflex, a 35mm Nikormat camera, case and film from a radio station engineer that needed funds for a computer part in 1976, I started taking photographs around the radio station.”

Rollo then ended up being hired by Capitol Records, Warner Brothers and Chrysalis Records to photograph incoming bands. “I had no idea what I was doing, but I seemed to do it acceptably,” Rollo said. “I decided to learn as much as I could, including what it took to create custom color and salonquality black-and-white prints in the darkroom. The more I learned, the more I was inspired.”

Rollo has an interesting take on inspiration. “Early on, I purposefully did not study the photography of other photographers because I didn’t want to emulate anyone,” Rollo said. “There are many photographers that I admire. However, over the years, it was particular actions of certain photographers that did influence how I see and approach what I do.”

She tends to compartmentalize her career into two parts – when she worked with film cameras and now as she works with digital cameras.

“While there are fun memories in the film camera part, such as spending a day with Bob Seger as a photographer in St. Louis, a time with Ray Davies with the Kinks in Minneapolis or dinners with Judy Collins and the Little River Band, a truly defining moment came for me here in Shreveport,” Rollo said. “It was being recognized as an artist when I had not recognized it in myself. It’s all thanks to the Shreveport Regional Arts Council and the opportunities that opened up through them that’s allowed much expansion, personally and professionally.”

She recently completed a commercial photography job with more than 50 images for the Etheredge Electric Motors’ new Web site. Currently, she’s working on two exhibition projects that will take a few months to complete. “One is a new collection of art work called ‘A New Leaf,’” Rollo said. “It’s soft, beautiful and contemporary images.”

But not all of her work is as such.

“I also have a funky cozy studio space for relaxed portraiture and creative work in Tipitina’s Music Co-Op Building,” Rollo said. “I enjoy portraiture in studio and on location, as well as elegant event documentation work rounding out the mix.”

Rollo’s photography has been published in Drummer Magazine out of the United Kingdom, The Shreveport Times ; The Forum News, SB Magazine and Heliopolis. Solo exhibitions in Shreveport in 2015 included “Living Art” in the Artspace Coolspace Gallery, the Highland Table Restaurant and “Louisiana Naturally – Music and Beauty” in the Noble Savage Tavern.

To see more of Rollo and her work, visit www.mcrollo.com.

– Betsy St. Amcant