[To see all the photos mentioned below, pick up a print copy of April Town&Gown or view the complete online edition at townandgown.com.]
Go on a walk with photographer Laurie Roffol, and you’ll find yourself making frequent stops. She’s always on the lookout for subject matter that speaks to her. Few others would have noticed that a tall weed and its shadow against a snowy background (Photo 1) form a perfect heart.
“Many of my photographs create a sense of tranquility,” says Roffol. “I like that people can lose themselves, even if only for a short time, in these pictures.” Photo 2, taken at Bald Eagle State Park, evokes serenity. “It was a morning shot with the fog lifting,” says Roffol. “The blend of colors and the water’s reflections helped create that mood.”
Roffol’s background in photography began early. “My grandfather was a freelance photographer after his career in the coal mines was ended by an accident. I was intrigued by the darkroom he set up in his house, and watching the images appear. My dad liked photography too, as a hobby, so I grew up around cameras.
“I started with a box camera, and then came the Instamatics. Photography was always important to me, but with college, and then getting married, having kids, and working full-time, that interest took a back seat except for pictures of family and friends. But by then I had at least upgraded to an SLR [single-lens reflex] camera.”
Roffol grew up in the Philadelphia area, and her husband, Dan Roffol, near Pittsburgh. They met at Penn State University Park and later moved to the Pittsburgh area, where they raised their two children. “In 2012, after working in IT for a regional grocery chain for twenty-eight and a half years,” says Roffol, “I decided the time had come to leave that career and launch my photography business.”
She took on portraits, weddings, and similar work between 2012 and 2019, in addition to building an image collection focused on travel destinations and nature. “I enjoyed portrait and wedding photography, and still do some of it for my existing client base, but wanted to narrow my focus.”
In 2019, Roffol and her husband, who was in the process of retiring, moved to the Bellefonte area. She now specializes in photos of wildlife, travel destinations, and sites in Centre County. “Dan’s love of fly fishing helped us decide to relocate here,” says Roffol. “So I’m working on a series of images from Spring Creek to line the fourteen-foot entry hall in our new house.
“We relocated in mid-2019 and ran into more issues than anticipated with building. And then COVID hit.” But eventually art and craft fairs began again as Roffol’s online sales through her website continued. (She organizes her frequently updated website photos into galleries by subject matter.)
In spring 2020, Roffol heard about Andrea Skirpan opening the Belle Mercantile collective marketplace in Bellefonte. Renting space there allows Roffol to showcase her high-quality matted prints. She also sells notecards there on thick cardstock in packs of four with related themes such as butterflies, flowers, Penn State scenes, etc. “But rather than sending the cards,” says Roffol, “people often decide to frame them as a group.”
Her month-to-month sales vary at Belle Mercantile. “But when I look at the end-of-the-year totals and see I’ve sold 200 or 300 pieces,” she says, “it makes me feel good to know people appreciate and enjoy my work.
“Right now I’m using a Canon 6D Mark II. It fits well in my hands,” says Roffol. “I manipulate some of my photos to turn them into digital art. With my Spring Creek pictures, for example, I take a long exposure that smooths everything down. Then I saturate the colors in the stream’s flow to bring them out further. Sometimes the result is more like a painting than a photograph.”
That’s certainly the case with Photo 3. “I found this old wooden shack along the backroads of Montana,” says Roffol. “The colors, textures, and setting drew me in. If only that shack could talk!”
Roffol’s inventory contains numerous travel photos. Each year she plans a trip calendar. “In 2023 I’ll be going to Texas, Glacier National Park in Montana, Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, Ohio, and North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Someday I hope to get to Iceland. The northern lights also are big on my bucket list.”
Photo 4, says Roffol, “is one of my favorite images from a two-week trip to Alaska. It makes me think about the workers who laid the rail lines through the mountains, and what they must have experienced.”
Another significant gallery in Roffol’s offerings consists of snowflakes captured through macro photography (extreme closeups) as shown in Photo 5. “I’ve been fascinated by individual snowflakes for years,” she says.
Roffol refers to Photo 6 as “probably my all-time best-selling image.” She encountered this cow at a working farm that’s part of a county park in Allegheny County. “I like direct eye contact,” says Roffol. “It creates an immediate connection.”
View more of Roffol’s captivating photos or contact her through her website at lroffolphotography.com. She also accepts commissions from individuals or businesses, performing custom work with unique print requirements (canvas, metal, acrylic, etc.). T&G
Diane J. Leos is a State College freelance writer.
