Today we’d like to introduce you to Sandra Bellante.
Hi Sandra, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I’ve wanted to be an artist since kindergarten, spending years exploring every medium I could get my hands on—from painting and pottery to composition and color theory through high school AP Art and my time studying fine art at Saint Joseph’s University. I was always searching for a way to create, convinced for a long time that painting or pottery was my ultimate destination.
Everything shifted when I had my first daughter fifteen years ago and picked up a camera to document her life. That’s when I realized photography was the place where all my artistic disciplines finally collided: I could paint with light and color, sculpt with form and dimension, and build with composition—all while capturing unscripted moments of real life.
Fifteen years later, I’m still chasing that collision.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It definitely hasn’t been a smooth road. For a long time, I kept trying to pick up another medium—and honestly, I still do. My watercolors are never very far away. I had spent years being disciplined to believe that making art meant laboring over a single piece for weeks or even months. Photography felt almost like cheating sometimes. How could something that gave me that kind of instant gratification hold the same weight as a painting I spent three months creating? Suddenly I could make hundreds of images in an hour.
It took time to stop measuring the value of the art by how long it took to make it. Photography may happen in a fraction of a second, but everything I’ve learned over a lifetime goes into recognizing that fraction of a second when it appears.
And then there’s the challenge of turning art into a business. I think I’ll probably always struggle a little with that. Creativity doesn’t naturally fit into packages, timelines, deliverables, marketing strategies and neat little boxes. Art asks you to experiment; business asks you to be consistent. Finding enough structure to run a sustainable business without boxing in the part of me that wants to create will probably always be a balancing act.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I specialize in photographing people—families, couples, seniors, proposals, elopements and weddings—with a documentary approach and a fine-art eye. I learned to see through street photography in Philadelphia: watching what was already happening, reacting quickly, and finding composition, color, light and beauty without controlling what was in front of me. These days I happen to do most of that work in the Blue Ridge Mountains, but I work the same way wherever you put me.
I think what I’m known for most is finding the prettiest version of whatever is directly in front of me. I’m not trying to manufacture a perfect moment or recreate something I’ve photographed before. Give me a family, a city street, a mountaintop, a messy house, beautiful sunlight or terrible weather, and I’m looking for the same thing: the light, color, form, movement and composition that can turn an ordinary moment into a painting.
I’m also known for taking risks. I’ll keep shooting long after the sun disappears, photograph by nothing but Christmas lights, work through fog or rain, or push into strange light just to see what it gives me. Keeping the creativity alive matters enormously to me. I never want to become so comfortable with what I know works that I stop experimenting.
That may be what I’m most proud of. Fifteen years into doing this professionally, I’m still curious. The scenery has changed a lot since I first wandered Philadelphia with a camera, but the instinct hasn’t: look at what’s actually there, find the art in it, and make something I haven’t made before.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
Creative risk is a huge part of how I work. Photography is, quite literally, the capturing of light, and I take that to heart. I’m much more interested in asking what I can do with the light that’s actually there—or what unexpected light I can introduce—than making every situation technically perfect.
I still shoot with a DSLR. Sometimes I’ll reach for a flashlight instead of a flash. I want sun flares. I want deep shadows and drama. I’ll shoot long after the light has dropped below what would traditionally be considered ideal because sometimes that tiny bit of light left in the sky does something incredible. Last year, I photographed Christmas minis late at night using only the Christmas tree lights because I wanted to see what would happen. Those choices aren’t always the safest or easiest way to make a photograph, but that’s exactly the point.
After fifteen years, I know how to make a safe photograph. Creative risk is what keeps me interested in making the next one. I’d rather experiment with light, push my equipment, occasionally get it wrong, and discover something new than spend my career recreating something I already know how to make.
Pricing:
- Starting at $650 for 30 minutes
- One hour starts at $800
- Occasional seasonal mini experience $175-$295
- Elopements starting at $1,650
- Weddings starting at $2,850
Contact Info:
- Website: www.daydreamer.photography
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/daydreamer.photog
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Daydreamer.Photog/
