Paula Riff?s first career did not involve taking pictures. After college, she lived in Tokyo, Japan for several years and upon returning to the states became an interpreter for Japanese film production companies in Los Angeles, but she switched careers while landing an internship at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in the photo department. During the same period she worked at the California Institute of the Arts, taking photos for a number of the school?s publications. She has also worked as a still photographer. Paula Riff finds passion and inspiration photographing everything from people, landscapes to still life, and more often than not, hand colors her black and white photographs. She recently purchased a digital camera but her film cameras continue to drive her soul. Her work has appeared in galleries and group shows in Los Angeles, Texas, Oregon and New Mexico.?? To see more of her work please visit her website: http://paulariffphotography.virb.com
Russian Postcards
first went to Russia in 1993 on a photo exchange with American and Russian photographers. Russia had just begun to relax its borders and they were offering a trip along the Volga River. It was meant to be an exchange of ideas and art between our two countries. So much seemed to be changing in Russia at that time, statues of Stalin were being torn down and I felt it was a time in history that needed to be captured. It felt like a period of possibilities and dreams. Now twenty years later Russia is again changing and it no longer seems like that same place of potential freedom. I have revisited these images from twenty years ago and added color, as if I could add some color into the lives of the people, colors of potential hopes and dreams. Hand painting these images and making them small like postcards reminds me of turn of the century photographs and is also a nod to pre-color photos and postcards.
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