My name is Monroe Payne, and I’m an artist.

(You respond in a quiet monotone “Hi Monroe…”)

Being an artist is weird. You aren’t “normal” in that you don’t have a “job” and run the rat race like other people, you don’t do the same thing day after day for the money, and you surely aren’t understood by the vast majority of people.

You live your life allowing your little gray cells out of their cage, so they can do wild, weird and sometimes wonderful things.

I spent nearly 30 years being the reliable little drone, making widgets, taking measurements, delivering projectors, selling insurance and fixing electronics; absolutely NONE of which gave me any joy or fulfillment. I was always yearning for that release – the thing that would let those emotions and excitements out of their cubicles to do some really delightful things.

I cut the corporate cord in 2004 and went full time into my photography business – feeling the beginnings of that direction I yearned for – but not quite finding it.

Taking a class by Michael Barton from Aurora Illinois was the beginning of the change – making my photography just a little more than images and crossing the line into art; transforming the photographic image into something just a little more, personal and impersonal at the same time.

To those who appear in the images, it is very personal. To those unrelated to the subjects, it speaks in a totally opposite manner, bringing forth feelings that speak to them on a universal plane.

Photography, photographic art, is capturing emotion in light, and dark, and color. With just a little piece of the artist’s soul mixed in.

My greatest wish is for some of these images to touch you; to make you think, dream, wish or appreciate those closest to you.