Photos Inspire New Home Line

Alissa Rosenberg discovered her passion for photography six years ago during a vacation in Italy. She developed her Painted Ladies photographs into a home decor collection available at the Nest on Main in Northport.
Photo by Sophia Ricco

By Sophia Ricco
sricco@longislandergroup.com

Since beginning her photography career, six years ago, Alissa Rosenberg has taken off ith a month long exhibit at the Northport library and a home decor collection that just arrived at the Nest on Main.

The fine art photographer has loved her journey in this field which allows her to dabble in many different styles and subjects. The 32 piece collection that she is displaying at the library’s gallery for all of October, shows her Painted Ladies and Unique Water Drops series and landscape photographs.

In her time as a photographer, Rosenberg has been featured in juried gallery exhibits, libraries, and even the Wine Cellar, winning a variety of awards. After showing her work at the Harborfields library, Rosenberg was contacted by the Northport library to have her own exhibit.

Each of the series displayed evokes distinct emotions with the viewer. Her Unique Water Drops images are thought provoking, as she captures a subject through the perspective of a water drop, while calming because of the water drops perfect form. The Painted Ladies series has a nostalgic feeling to it with a mixed media overlay of vintage paper and images, but is vibrant with the inclusion of the color red in either the women’s dress, scarf, or hat.

“I think it’s a strong color and I think it just shows strength inside of beauty. . . I want to portray these women as beautiful but strong women, it’s not just on the outside but on the inside too,” Rosenberg said.

As a way to celebrate the strong women in her own life, Rosenberg made her mom and mother-in-law, a tote bag and pillow that featured a Painted Ladies image. After getting positive feedback she created an entire home decor collection from the series. But she needed a place to sell the pieces and stumbled upon it when walking around.

“I live so close to Northport and walked into the Nest on Main one day and thought, ‘Wow I love this store, it’s such a pretty store. I would love to be here, how do I do that?’,” Rosenberg said.

Rosenberg approached the Nest on Main about the possible collection, bringing them coasters and note cards as samples and was welcomed with open arms. She debuted her line of home decor pieces at the beginning of September.

Along with home decor items, Rosenberg sells prints of her photographs. Whenever she sells one of her pieces, she is curious where people put her images.

“It’s such a huge honor and that will never end,” Rosenberg said. “I will always feel grateful and amazed that someone wants to put something I created in their house. It’s like the best feeling.”

Rosenberg first picked up a camera during a family trip to Italy, and quickly fell in love with taking photographs.

“It’s not something that I grew up doing, it’s not something that I thought I would do,” Rosenberg said. “I didn’t even pick up a camera until six years ago.”

For Rosenberg, photography has become her “happy place” and blossomed into a second career. For 15 years, she has worked in the Harborfields school district as a speech therapist while being a mom of two children.

“I found myself with photography,” Rosenberg said. “I love my career and I bring photography into my job because as a speech therapist, I work with kids on the high school and middle school level, and I’m always bringing in the idea of taking photographs, describing photos.”

As she develops her career as a photographer, Rosenberg wants to keep expanding her reach by applying to more juried exhibitions. She also recently joined the group, Arcangel Images which will allow her to sell the rights of her images to appear on book covers.

“Being a photographer has really defined who I am and I did not know I was that until six years ago,” Rosenberg said. “It really changed everything for me.”

Rosenberg came into photography with no art background, and taught herself color theory through video tutorials and painting classes. She wants to continue experimenting with different styles.

“I feel like there’s an endless amount of growing,” Rosenberg said. “I don’t ever see myself stopping, because that’s what’s exciting about it, y’know? When I get bored of one section I move on to the next, that’s why I have so many different things I like to do.”

Rosenberg covers a wide variety of subjects in her images, from landscapes to portraits to fine art. Her images can be viewed by visiting alissa-rosenberg.pixels.com.

“I love both equally,” Rosenberg said. “In the summer I really love to travel and want to take these beautiful pictures, I have so many places on my bucket list that I want to go and photograph. But then I also really love taking pictures of people, doing a photo shoot and having a concept in my head.”