MARY DANIEL HOBSON

At the age of 14, my camera taught me to pay attention. A garbage can, a crack in the sidewalk, ivy climbing the side of a building could create a frame full of beauty. I began to see the world in all its fine detail, and a life-long passion in photography claimed me.

A native of San Francisco, I traveled east to Vassar College where I majored in art history and wrote a thesis about the fascinating photographer Lee Miller, apprentice and lover of Man Ray and one of the first female war correspondents during World War II. In her, I found a role model of a woman embracing photography as a medium of self-expression. The sincere pleasure I found in studying her work inspired me to enroll in the masters program in the history of photography at the University of New Mexico. There my fascination with Surrealism was confirmed. For my MA thesis I addressed the photographic work of Dora Maar, most often known as the mate, model and muse of Picasso, but also a very talented photographic artist in her own right. Maar’s haunting collages taught me to dig deeply within myself for the source of my own creativity.

Today I am gleaning much creative inspiration from the natural world of Muir Beach, CA where I live and work, and also from the intense and marvelous process of raising two young daughters.