Photographer’s passion began at Oceanside High School

Caroline Bert, of Island Park, discovered her passion for photography as a student at Ocean-side High School, from which she graduated in 2012. Her work has been on display at several exhibits, including at the Island Park Library as well as in Oceanside, on Town of Hempstead calendars and at the Alfred Van Loen gallery at the South Huntington Library.

“I started photography in high school, and stuck with it ever since,” Bert, 27, said. “I was really passionate about it, and was always really excited with all the possibilities of photography, and the ways I could express myself or preserve moments in time. I had a dual passion growing up, and they were both art-related. I was a dancer and a photographer, and I didn’t know what I was going to choose. And then I wound up photographing dancers, and photographing anything in motion, and just delved into photography more.”

She studied photography in college as well, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts and, last year, a master’s in photography from LIU Post. “As I got into college, I started to explore cameraless photography,” Bert said, and … really got into the mechanics of the camera and started making my own pinhole cameras, which is what I showed at the Island Park Library recently.”

She is now a full-time photographer, and has had the chance to shoot pictures in a number of locations. “Over the summer, I did a residency in Hudson Yards” on Manhattan’s West Side, she said. “I got to live in the city for a month, and my studio was on a rooftop, so I got to expose all my cameras to the rooftops on the New York City skyline for a month.”

Bert has also done work in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania, where she has a home, and has worked overseas as well, studying street photography in Japan. “I’ve had shows in Italy, but I’ve also had shows in random towns in Pennsylvania,” she said. “My art has taken me places that I wouldn’t have explored.”

And where would she like her photography to take her? “I want to see everything,” she said. “Especially with photography as a tool of expression and a way to capture memories, I feel like there’s a lot that I still want to see and photograph.”

“I enjoyed working in New York City,” she continued. “I was used to photographing in the suburbs and in the Poconos, and then, when I went to New York City and saw how bright it was at night … that really excited me.”

Bert is enjoying living out her passion, and has several shows planned. “I want to continue to put my work out there,” she said. “I’m working toward a show that I have coming up in Valley Stream” this month. “I’m also starting to do workshops and teach photography courses through the libraries, starting with Oceanside Library, and I’ll probably continue to propose it to community centers as well.”

She would also like to teach photography later in her career. “Eventually, I want to be a professor,” she said, “because I feel there are so many possibilities with photography. It goes beyond the camera and beyond the equipment. All you need is light and passion to do it. I would love to teach people the creative side of photography and its accessibility. I want to get more shows under my belt and more experience before I teach, but my end goal would be to be a professor.”

Bert does her own freelance work — including for the Herald — and works at the photography studio Storybook Experiences in Rockville Centre. She is passionate about her work, and grateful that she has had continued support from those around her. “I’ve always been very into the arts,” she said, “and had support from everyone around me, whatever I did, as long as I was working hard and doing something I loved to do.”