I have lived on Long Island, NY most of my life. Though I lived in New York City during my college years and after, I have always been drawn back to Long Island to photograph the many towns, beaches, clubs and communities that make up this area of land east of New York City. It has always offered endless opportunities to capture glimpses of this place I call home,

As an art student in the early 70’s, I was studying drawing and painting, sculpture, printmaking while always photographing. By the time I graduated Cooper Union, photography was pulling at me the most. Color printing was becoming available for a home darkroom and at the same time Joel Meyerowitz who was my teacher at the time needed someone to print for him. And so I learned to become a very good color printer doing his prints while squeezing in my work after hours. My 1951 Rolliflex which I bought at a garage sale seemed to feel like the right tool to capture the people, places and landscapes within a short or longer ride from where I lived. I liked looking down at the ground glass of the camera rather than aiming it at someone. And with only 12 exposures on a roll, I want to believe I was more thoughtful in the process. It was all much slower and time consuming to make the images that now at age 70 I look back at and see the passage of time.

Within the last two years, my photographs of the Fire Island communities, The Pines and Cherry Grove have generated a good deal of interest. From the mid 1970’s to about 1986, I made numerous day trips to those communities which I found fascinating and challenging.  Presently, eight of my Fire Island images are at The Long Island Museum in Stony Brook in an exhibition of Fire Island. The Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington has recently acquired 11 Fire Island photographs in their permanent collection. 

More of my work can be seen on my website: www.joannemulberg.com

My work is represented by the Daniel / Oliver Gallery in Brooklyn, New York.