Listen to the interview here!
Tania Colamarino
Toni Reece: Hi there. This is Toni Reece. Welcome to the Get Inspired! Project for Berks County Living Magazine. Today I have Tania Colamarino here. How are you today, Tania?
Tania Colamarino: I’m doing great. How are you doing?
Toni: I’m great. So Tania, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Tania: My name is Tania Colamarino. I’m 35 years old. I have three children, and I’ve been married for 16 years. My husband is Tony, and we live in Shillington. As a profession, I am a professional fine art photographer.
Toni: Thank you for being part of the Get Inspired! Project.
Tania: Thank you for having me.
Toni: Let’s go into the first question. What does inspiration mean to you?
Tania: Inspiration to me means drawing from everyday life and using that to be your motivator, whether that be in my line of work an art, or really anything that you do in life, using it to make you better at your craft, whatever that may be.
Toni: Can you give me an example of a motivator?
Tania: My biggest motivator I would have to say in my line of work is being different, and having people recognize my work from the masses that are out there. Just making sure that I have my fingerprint, so to speak, on everything that I do.
Toni: Give me another example of something that you might look at every day, but you see it in a little bit more of a unique way.
Tania: One of my biggest things that I’m known for is my cupcake portraits that I do. I was on the show “Cupcake Wars” with Ady from Ady Cakes in West Reading, and we won. It was fabulous.
Toni: Congratulations!
Tania: Thank you very much. I might look at a cupcake, and a lot of people see it as food, and I look at it as having a personality. When I take a picture of a cupcake, I dissect it for what it is, not just something that’s edible. I look at it for its shadows and the light that it casts. I look at the icing and see what kind of shapes it emits. From that, I start to plan my props and how I’m going to make that cupcake come to life.
Toni: Fantastic. You’ve given us a bit of an example of this, but how else do you put that type of inspiration into practice here in Berks County?
Tania: I try to lend my services by working with Berks County Living, which I am totally in love with. They’re very good about allowing me to have some creative control in what the final product is. Once I give them all the images, they always pick the ones that I would pick, which is great. I take what I do and then I definitely try to make sure that you can see that once the final product is laid out.
For example, we’re doing a project for November’s magazine, “Boot Camp.” Of course, you can just take pictures of boots – that’s fine, too – but as the models were standing there, I said, “I want you to turn your feet a different way. Show me the personality of the shoes that you’re wearing.”
When you see the final product in November, you’ll see that maybe the sassy boots weren’t standing uniform. Maybe they had their feet twisted, and maybe one leg was up a little higher than the other. It’s all about making that thing, whether it be a cupcake, a boot, a fork, whatever it is that I’m photographing, I want to make it come to life. I want you to look at that picture and know that that was the focus of that particular image.
Toni: What does that do for you while you’re going through that process? How does that make you feel?
Tania: It’s a natural high. I absolutely love, love, love photography. When I look at something and I look at the photo and it speaks to me after I’m done taking it, I know I’ve done my job.
Toni: So you are literally waiting for it to jump off the page for you.
Tania: Absolutely.
Toni: Who in Berks County inspires you?
Tania: There’s many, many amazing artists and businesspeople in Berks County. Ady Abreu is a fantastic businesswoman. She is a very good friend, and she’s definitely a motivator. Nikki from Berks County Living, and Robyn, have been great inspirations and great friends. There’s a lot of artists in the area. There’s a lot of photographers who have been in business for years that I look to as really pillars in this business. Dave Zerbe is one. He did my senior pictures when I was in high school, and he’s still in business and doing well, and that is definitely motivating for me, being new in this.
Toni: Of the people that you’ve listed (which they are all amazing people and I can understand why they inspire you) what do you think the common theme is for you of people who inspire you? What characteristics do they display?
Tania: They’re positive people. They don’t get caught up in the craziness and in the drama. I like to have what I call a “drama-free zone.” I think that when you allow negative influences in your life, it does project in your work, and that does get around, if you have a bad attitude. I think that people with good attitudes are ones that I want to surround myself with.
Toni: I think in a future interview we may need to dive into how you keep those negative influences out. Actually, I can ask you very quickly, have you ever been in a situation where you were inspired; however, it turned negative? How did you turn it around? Or, did you make a choice not to do it at all?
Tania: There’s a lot of times where you’re faced with situations that you may have to use better judgment. I’m a Jehovah’s Witness, so a lot of my business comes from my faith-based practices. A lot of things that I do are, “How this will reflect on me later?”
As a Christian, I think that that’s something that I try to put into practice. “How is this going to reflect? How will this show on me as a person? How will this show on my family?” I think that’s super important to me, to make sure that I always leave a good legacy. I think that so many people get caught up in the moment they forget that what you do now will not only affect you but generations to come, so you have to make good choices.
Toni: You have to live by your own golden rules, don’t you?
Tania: Absolutely.
Toni: What do you want your legacy to be?
Tania: I want my legacy to be that I practice what I preached, literally; that I treated people well; that I took care of my family and my husband, and that what was most important to me is not money or things, but making sure that those around me are happy.
Toni: Fantastic! Thank you so much for being part of the Get Inspired! Project.
Tania: Thank you for having me.
