by Renee Schaefer
Rebecca Rothey studied photography under Geoff Delanoy while working towards her undergraduate degree in philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, Maryland. She was an adult, part-time student, and photography allowed her a much-needed creative respite from the pressures of work and school. She has continued making images since her graduation in 2007.
Her earliest influence was The Family of Man, the book compiled from the famous photography exhibit. She recalls looking over and over again at the images of children depicted.
Among her fondest childhood memories are watching her father develop images in the darkroom. She learned photography by developing film and making her own gelatin silver prints. She worked in the darkroom for 10 years before purchasing her first digital camera in 2008. The challenge of learning to interpret a negative continues to inform her current use of digital imaging software, especially in black and white.
In 2006, she took a workshop with photojournalist and humanitarian Peter Turnley, who inspired a love for street photography. Her enjoyment of finding images in daily life led her to create a new series of images of the top step in a flight of stairs. She simply lowered the camera and discovered a new way of observing passing moments, sometimes including people and sometimes not, though people are always implied.
Rothey’s image, Old World Chinese Couple, was awarded Best Image of the Year 2014-2015 by the Baltimore Camera Club and her image Comfy in Their Skin was awarded the Best Image of the Year 2011-2012. Comfy in Their Skin was featured in the Reader’s Gallery of B+W Photography in June 2014. Her image Ask Fred was awarded Best Monochrome Image of the Year 2013-2014 by the Baltimore Camera Club.
Parisian with Poodle won a gold medal in the Worldwide Photography Gala Awards’ first Portraits and People 2011 book, and was awarded honorable mention in The Photo Review’s 2011 Photo Competition and by the IPA Lucie Awards in 2006. Men Moving Mirror was awarded Best Monochrome Image of the Year by the Baltimore Camera Club in 2009 and was included in the annual single-image competition in Black and White Magazine in 2011.
Rothey is based in Laurel, Maryland and works as vice president and senior philanthropic advisor at the Greater Washington Community Foundation. Her work has been shown locally, published in various regional publications, and juried into group exhibitions nationally. She enjoys the visual inspiration provided by local and international travel.