Phillips' Mill Photo Committee member Linda McManus is equally at home in the worlds of commercial and fine art photography. Having earned a Bachelor's in Fine Arts with a concentration in black-and-white photography, she honed her architectural photography skills with a job in real estate and her still life skills while serving as lead product photographer for QVC. “I feel that having a camera in my hand on a daily basis has kept my eye sharp and creativity fluid,” says McManus. “Commercial work has paid the bills, but creating fine art will always be my passion.”
Thanks to the urging of a friend, McManus entered the Phillips' Mill Photographic Exhibition in 2023 and won a third-place award for one of her otherworldly images. She comments, “I've always been drawn to surrealism and haunting imagery. I have a deep fascination with old things—houses, trees, and even ‘old people.’ My parents had a twenty-seven-year age difference, with my father born in 1912. Because of his age, we naturally grew up in a different era, surrounded by big band music, antiques, old movies, and even recipes with a sense of history. My dad was a painter and woodworker, and perhaps I inherited his artistic gene.”
McManus’s interest in the past includes the history of photography. “Some of the most haunting and thought-provoking images came from the Civil War era. Photography was just becoming mainstream, and it was all in black and white. The images captured were tragic, depicting devastating loss. Color wasn't necessary to convey the impact.” She is drawn to the visual as well as emotive aspects of nineteenth-century photography: “I adore early photographs, tintypes, daguerreotypes and early prints. Their haunting quality and aged patina are something I try to replicate with my own work.” Further inspiration comes from twentieth-century masters Brassaï, Robert Frank, and Henri Cartier-Bresson, “and I also enjoy the grit and raw emotion of modern photographers such as Sally Mann and Nan Goldin.”
McManus’s aesthetic process often begins with ideas rather than a real-life scene. For example,
“One page of the journal that I keep has the words ‘paper,’ ‘flying,’ ‘typewriter,’ and ‘black dress.’ The final image is my interpretation of those words.” In addition to using a Sony Alpha VI for digital work, she also turns to Nikon and Minolta film cameras as well as the quirky Holga plastic camera and an old 2 ¼ camera. And, she says, “I love an open shutter that allows my subject matter to blur.”
Reflecting on her photographic career this far, McManus recalls: “I was captivated from the moment I first stepped into the darkroom, watching my own film develop and that first image come to life.” Now, she muses, “I wish I had known my worth as an artist earlier and taken my art more seriously, but I was often caught up in what people thought of my work. Wisdom comes with age, they say. I feel I am entering a place where I am my own critic. I am creating images to satisfy my vision, and it’s a refreshing place to be!”
