It all began in high school. Hours of boring lectures caused me to drift and doodle. This innocent pastime of creating was encouraged by a teacher, (who will remain nameless) and eventually developed into full sized, labor intensive drawings. I spent many hours working on highly realistic Prisma color drawings and sculptures. However, it was winning the first place award for the Student Art Awareness month billboard that truly got me hooked. Seeing my work on a billboard was a rush I will never forget. In college, I tried to deny this addiction. I continued my studies of higher mathematics and Physics, but to no avail. I could not give up art. The withdraw became so bad that at one point I began painting the walls of my best friend’s dorm room. So, with cinder block space fast becoming a commodity, and neighbors getting lost in the psychedelic colors, I enrolled in art classes. This was the beginning of the end, or was it the end of the beginning? Four years later I graduated with a major in studio art and an independently design major entitled, ‘Product Design and Development.”

At this point, I once again tried to go straight. I decided to get a Mater’s degree in something that I could make a living doing. I went to San Francisco to study Computer Animation. (Ha! A living? How wrong was I?) After 3 long years, I received a Masters of Fine Art from the Academy of Art College. It was during these three year that I discovered something called Sacred Geometry. This forgotten art incorporates the division of the pictorial composition by squares roots, golden sections, and occult centers. It used math to precisely define beauty and visual interest! I loved it and began working on a project that would incorporate both sacred geometry and 3D.

At the same time, I was going stir crazy in San Francisco. I was gaining weight from all that great food and living in a one room basement ‘suite’. My bathroom was 2’ by 3’ rectangle and the combined bedroom/living room/kitchen was not much bigger. So I started walking. I hiked the hills, stairways, back streets and alleyways of San Francisco. The shapes and shadows of the stairways enthralled me. The implications of the past, present, and future conveyed in the timeless decay of these ancient stairways was meditation for my soul. So, I began photographing them. It was instant gratification, a quick rush if you will. You point the camera, you press the button, and ‘viola’! If the lighting and the composition are right, you just might have a piece of "ART". At this time, I had a basic little 35mm point and shoot camera. I devised a way to overlay the images and analyze the composition based on what I had learning in sacred geometry. I used this research as my final project in Sacred Geometry and I got an A.

It was at this point, where I really fell off the bandwagon. I returned home to PA and obtained a job as a Professor at a local college in order to support my growing photography habit. My walking habit increased and my photography equipment addiction multiplied. I bought multiple cameras, lenses, and scanners. I couldn’t stop. I even bought a dog in order to justify this addiction! It was at this point that I realized that I was addicted to photography and that I needed to do something about it. I decided to sell photography. I became a commercial fine art photographer. And so this is how I ended up here, telling you the story of how I, Erin Sparler, became a photographer.

(Original character by Melissa Snow.)

Photography and Web Design Services in Central PA.