IS IT PAINTING OR A PHOTOGRAPH? Fine Art Photographer, Denise Strahm, is asked this question daily at her studio/gallery when visitors encounter her images. Whether it be the architectural travel imagery she is most known for, or one of her newer photo composited images, Strahm delights the eye and heart with thought provoking, colorful and textural artworks.Denise grew up in Lake Zurich, Illinois, a small town near Chicago, where she lived from birth to just after college. Both her father and grandfather were photography buffs, and having been gifted a film camera at a young age, Denise enjoyed taking pictures for many years there.While she was working toward her degree in Graphic Arts Technology-Design at Northern Illinois University, she took pictures of her friends and scenes around campus and developed the black and whites in the campus darkroom lab.Ten years after graduating, Denise moved to San Diego; and now in the digital age, she captures her subjects with a digital camera and completes the creative process in a “digital darkroom.” Using her 30+ years in graphic design, Strahm creates simple graphic contemporary compositions that resemble the look and feel of paintings. In her composited images, she applies treatments and layering affects to create a surreal feel that has grown in popularity with her colleagues and collectors.Denise Strahm Images have been acquired by visitors from all over the world She shows her work in gallery shows in Southern California and in exhibitions across the country. Most notable is the 83rd National Midyear Exhibition at the Butler Museum of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio, in Summer 2019.Honing her craft since 2005, Denise’s favorite subject to capture is old, colorful, textural and weathered (but charming) architecture, as near as the California Missions and as far as Europe and Morocco.
