April Photo of the Month

Alison Humphrey captures a bit of nature.

Alison Humphrey is a late-blooming photographer. A lawyer by training and stay-at-home mother of three, she didn’t take up the craft until more than a year ago, when she signed up for an intermediate photography class at the Minnetonka Center for the Arts.

“I have taken snapshots forever, but I wanted to become a more thoughtful photographer and learn how to be a photographer as an artist, not just someone who takes snapshots,” Humphrey says.

With camera in tow, she headed to Crystal Bay on Lake Minnetonka last summer—the locale of the Noerenberg Gardens and also where Humphrey’s photography instructor suggested she go to find beautiful flowers and interesting light. “I was on an adventure to look for colors, lines and light,” she says.

And that’s exactly what she found in her photo Lily at Noerenberg Gardens. “I really like the lines, particularly the implied movement in it, which I try to look for even when it’s a stationary object,” Humphrey says. “I like the way the photograph implied motion and movement.”

When Humphrey isn’t taking care of her family or volunteering with her golden retriever as a therapy team at local hospitals and schools, she tries to get out of the house and take photos a few times per week—a feat that, Humphrey admits, is much easier in the warm months. The Minnesota winters, however, do not deter her from taking photos of her favorite subject: nature.

“I really am primarily an outdoor photographer,” Humphrey says. “I love taking photographs of flowers and anything that’s beautiful outdoors.”