Photographer Finds Her Start in Imperial Beach

Out her midtown Manhattan apartment window, Julie Lance keeps an eye and camera lens toward the Empire State Building and the city. 

Before she moved to New York, she spent her time looking toward the San Diego skyline and the beach.

Lance taught photography at the Coronado School of the Arts and lived in Imperial Beach.

“I definitely made some wonderful friends, and most importantly I found myself,” she said.

Photos of surfer Dane Crosby got her accepted into The School of Visual Arts at the State University of New York in NYC and The Eddie Adams Workshop, she said.

“I was pulled in so hard by the sport and the passion of the surfer and how they defy gravity, that once I started documenting the sport, I never stopped,” she said.

“I particularly loved when a surfer took a wave like a bird, flying off and landing perfectly on top of the water. I compare that maneuver to that of a ballerina or a skater on ice.”

An image titled “It’s Not Always Sonny in the Subway” won first place in the Sappi/Magno Intensity Photographic Competition and more than $11,000 in photo equipment.

She is currently taking pictures of people getting their first tattoos to document “their emotional road that led them to get one, the facial expressions and body language, the passion of the artist and the passion of the subject as they get their first tattoo.”