Biography
Dr. Sangeeta Dey is a California based pediatric neuropsychologist as well as a landscape photographer. Her work and interviews have been published extensively worldwide in a wide variety of media and prestigious magazines such as National Geographic, Digital SLR, Outdoor Photographer, PetaPixel, Natural History, US Department of Interior, USA Today, Weather Channel and many others. She was also interviewed by the BBC radio about her interests in traveling and capturing natural phenomenon via photography. Additionally, Sangeeta's photographs have been licensed and used by prominent television channels such as BBC, CNN, ABC, NBC and Fox.
Sangeeta’s work was recognized as being amongst top 101 International Landscape Photographers in 2017. More recently, Nikon celebrated their 100th Anniversary milestone. For their centennial celebration, they included Sangeeta in their “#Nikon100” program, which identified 100 photographers as rising photography stars. As per Nikon, it is the list they have curated based on the work of photographers who have been creating inspiring work and telling amazing stories.
Artist's Vision
I often tell people that photography is one of the four languages I speak. We’ve all heard the old saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” As a pediatric neuropsychologist, I have always been fascinated with the non-verbal communication that takes place when I am working with children. During my clinical interactions with them, what they “don’t” say is more important to me than what they verbalize. I am highly cued in to their non-verbal body language as that is the truest indicator of their internal world. This can even be observed in the world of writing where writers often use the power of writing between-the-lines. As a photographer, I find myself writing everything between the lines unless it is a documentary photograph. In both my clinical and creative practice, I have observed that the communication via non-verbal/visual medium is one of the most powerful and honest one.
Photography for me is not just looking through the lens and firing the shutter. My photographs help me communicate my emotions and feelings that I experience as I immerse myself in the beautiful and yet powerful forces of nature. Nevertheless, camera is just one of the many tools that help me capture that moment. I have realized that there is a difference between looking at a scene versus looking at the photograph of the same scene. The pictures come to life only after having gone through post processing where the digital darkroom helps me bring to my viewer what I had experienced with my five senses. Often times, it is at this latter stage, I find myself appreciating the influence of image in terms of my psychological response to them. This is where my emotional world takes life and helps me communicate what I had experienced in the field as well as what I am going through in life at that point in time.
I am quoting Rollo May to sum up my artistic philosophy: "The greatness of a poem or a painting is not that it portrays the thing observed or experienced, but that it portrays the artist’s or the poet’s vision cued off by his encounter with the reality. Hence the poem or the painting is unique, original, never to be duplicated."
Sangeeta Dey