Elise grew up in New Jersey and returned there to raise her family of three children and help manage the family business. Prior to 1995, photography was limited to the snapshots to document the growth and activities of the family. With the transition of retirement, she had more time to travel which led to more serious photography. A travel photography workshop with Nevada Wier, in 1998 and a subsequent trip to Central Asia with Nevada solidified the interest and the realization that she had a good “camera eye” and works well in color. Color photography is all about the light. Colors are not inherent in objects, in things, but change with the changing light – and light is always changing.

Following the permanent move to North River, New York in 1996 and space planned for photography activities, Elise developed a line of photo note cards of images taken in the Adirondack Park, travels in the USA and abroad. Community slide shows and print exhibits followed. Countries visited for the purpose of photography included: China, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar (formerly Burma), Ecuador, Jordan, Turkey and the Central Asia countries of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Along with Woody Widlund, her life travel partner, Elise is a founding member of NANPA (North American Nature Photography Association).

Film and a Canon camera have been the tools. Now with the advent of digital technology, Elise is transferring her photographic endeavors to the Digital Canon. This allows for use of all the lenses that are a staple in the photography tool box. Images available through this website are digitally sized and printed. Using minimal exposure corrections images can be presented with the clarity of real life. Future challenges will be to digitally manipulate photos for the purpose of fine art photography.

Woody is most interested in photographing ordinary people doing everyday things – the daily story of their lives. He prefers to establish a relationship with the subject, working in close, in natural light, waiting patiently till he has become part of the background for his subject.

Woody has been photographing since he purloined his mother’s Kodak box camera and had to wait a whole week before Brown’s Drug Store received another delivery of the little scalloped edge B & W prints. Next came the Ansco 35 mm. At age 27 he made the huge leap to a Ricoh 35mm with a 35 – 105 zoom lens. What an advance! Woody traveled to the Far East a great deal on business, and developed a “cultural reportage”, B & W style of photography that he practices today.

Woody and his wife, Elise, are very fortunate in their mutual enjoyment of photography. They travel the byways of upstate New York, the US, and have been extremely fortunate to travel with a small group of photographers to visit indigenous peoples living in traditional ways in the nations of Southeast Asia.

Woody is moving, glacially, from film to digital capture and the digital darkroom.