We recently connected with Mary Ann Gilfillan and have shared our conversation below.

Mary Ann, appreciate you joining us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

I truly believe that things happen when they should. I am about to turn 64. I took a photography class back in college (back before digital cameras) and absolutely loved it. However after graduation I was expected to get a ‘real job’ that could support me and I did. Eventually I got married and had a child and life just got in the way. Fast forward to 2016 and my girlfriend got us tickets to go to CMA Fest in Nashville (I still lived in Chicago at the time). I decided to pull out my old camera and found out that film was mostly a thing of the past. Three days later a Fuji digital camera showed up at my office courtesy of my husband. Even though it was a point and shoot camera – I was off and running and was in love and happy. That October I attended the victory parade for the Chicago Cubs who had won the World Series. I asked every photographer I saw what brand camera did they have as I was in the market for a ‘real’ camera. The majority were shooting with Nikon and they all said it was because of Nikon glass (lens). So I traded in my Fuji and got a Nikon D5500 and took some classes. In 2018 I moved to East Tennessee and have been pursuing photography while working. I recently got back to part time and spend as much time doing photography as possible.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I do nature and flower photography and living in East Tennessee that is easy because it is so beautiful here. I sell prints of my photos in two local shops along with notecards, postcards and bookmarks. I just started selling my work in 2019.

I love photographing flowers and there are flower farms in my area and I am starting to do photography for them for there marketing materials and farm tours are becoming popular and I will be working this spring and summer with several farmers doing photos to help them market their business.

I also exhibit my photos at various establishments in the Knoxville area along with my town of Crossville. I have even had a photo (of a bald eagle) on exhibit at Tyson McGee Airport (Knoxville) and sold 3 prints of it.

With my photography I am hoping for people to notice the extraordinary in everyday moments – flowers in a garden, a horse in the field, a sunset – things that most people don’t take the time to stop and appreciate.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

I am a big believer in supporting local artists and businesses. When I moved to a small town I learned this first hand. We don’t have a Target and I hardly ever go there anymore. Target does not miss me. When you support a local business or artist – you are putting money back into the community. You stop shopping with them – they feel it. Local artists may not be able to create more art and for a lot of artists creating art is like breathing…very necessary. If you don’t support local business they may end up closing and that then affects the whole community.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I do have goals for my photography.

There are animals in nature that I would like to photograph – currently raccoons are topping my list because I just think that they are adorable. I am fortunate that there are bald eagles in my area and while I have tons of shots of them, the one that I want is of them capturing a fish from the lake I live near. I have seen it happen twice but both times I was so mesmerized that I didn’t take a photo. It is quite something extraordinary to see.

Recently I have been working on still life photography and getting the lighting to be the way that I envision it in my mind and making it happen without tons of editing has been a challenge. I personally, do not like photos that are over edited.

I follow quite a few great photographers on Instagram and they inspire me to try new techniques in shooting flowers – still life, flat lay, using a lightpad for hi-key shots. They inspire me to be creative and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. That is the beauty of the digital world.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.alteredlifephotography.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/alteredlifephotography
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/alteredlifephoto
• Linkedin: Mary Ann (Ghiselli) Gilfillan
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/alteredlifephto
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/AlteredLifePhotography

Image Credits
All photos were taken by me – Altered Life Photography. The photo of me taking a photo of the flowers was taken by my friend Sharon Brock.