Allison Tyler Jones spends her days capturing spontaneous portraits of children and their families for both retail and commercial clients. She has authored four photography books, her most recent title, 100% Kid focuses on photographing kids in gorgeous light. Her studio has been ranked as one of the nation’s Top Performing Studios according to PPA’s Benchmark Survey. Allison owned a retail store for 12 years in a former life and uses her business and photography expertise to help mentor other photographers. For more about Allison, go to www.atjphoto.com

As a child growing up in the fifties, I was given a Brownie camera by my father, a newspaper publisher in New England. I remember feeling encouraged by his kind compliments about my sensitivity and composition.

The beauty and nostalgia of New England as well as my mother's eclectic eye for beauty and her appreciation of art and design, were gifts which contributed to my developing eye. While I was an outwardly friendly and social young person, I cherished solitude and daydreaming and entertaining fantasies of motherhood. Perhaps these were the seeds of what would come forth in my imagery.

As a young mother, I was trained as a wedding photographer after years of studying black and white photography. Later, my love for children, spurred by my experiences with my son Zachary, led to an inspired career creating childrens' portraits.

Along this journey, as I exhibited and lectured my way to becoming a Master of Photography through Professional Photographers of America, I was fortunate enough to have been coached by some of the great photographers: Marie Cossindas, Morley Baer, Ruth Bernhard, Robert Farber, Sara Moon, and Josef Karsh.

What motivates me always is the moody and sculptural effect of natural light on a myriad of subjects, creating a sense of place or feeling of timelessness.

I have recently established a digital darkroom, always hoping to avoid what I consider Photoshop cliche, when the effects are obvious. Recently I have been experimenting with photographing appealing textures and surfaces and blending them with an original photograph.This is a spontaneous and intuitive process which has endless possibilities. Another great advantage of my darkroom is the ability to use textured fine art papers and archival inks.

Above all, I seek beauty.

"Beauty has a dignity and poise that takes us beyond our smallness and negativity; beauty brings us in to remembrance. Beauty is the bridge between the real and the ideal. Not everything is beautiful; yet when we develop a graceful and gracious eye, we can find beauty in the most unexpected places." - John O'Donohue