Photographer Builds a Career and a Life in Stonington

Noelle Wolcin is bursting with artistic energy. Her fingers tap on her coffee cup at the Yellow House Coffee & Tea Room in Stonington Borough as she talks about her photography.

"I have to be constantly drawing," she said with a laugh. "Even while I'm on the phone or doing some other sort of project, there is constantly a pencil and paper near by for me to draw."

That constant artistic energy is serving the Stonington 30-year-old well. Wolcin was a recent finalist in the Ron Howard and Canon Long Live Imagination photo competition, and her photography business has become successful enough that she is thinking about opening up her own studio.

While she doesn’t yet have a space of her own to call home Wolcin started Photography by Noelle Elizabeth Wolcin about four years ago. She liked creating artistic photographs with her friends and after she started putting the photographs on Facebook she began getting requests for photography work. A friend asked her to shoot her wedding and through word of mouth she began shooting people who weren’t just friends.

“I had been telling people I just kind of fell into photography, but I recently found a journal from fourth grade where I had wrote that if I could be anything I wanted to be in the world I’d be a photographer,” Wolcin said. “Now thinking about it, I always had a camera as a kid. I had a very strong imagination and I always felt the need to express it.”

The self-taught Wolcin grew up in the area, but moved to Los Angeles for school. After half-a-decade in L.A. Wolcin who hadn’t yet found a place or a job that made her feel like she belonged decided she needed a change and moved back to the area. For the past five years she has been working at Skipper’s Dock mostly just during the summer months which gave her time to focus on her art the rest of year.

“It’s easy to settle back in here,” Wolcin said. “It’s so beautiful and the area inspired me do to more creative things.”

A versatile photographer, Wolcin has participated in photo shows at the Hygienic and Mystic Arts Center. She likes to take artistic photographs more than the standard portrait and all her photographs have an artistic flair that she says she believes makes the images look unique.

"I love to photograph children, especially in black and white. They have such an honest beauty behind their eyes. When I capture a timeless expression of a child and I'm able to share it with their parents, I find it very rewarding." 

Wolcin will spend on average over a week editing photos from a typical one hour shoot.

"I spend hours paying close attention to detail, I strive to portray my style with each picture and I've found its true, when you enjoy what you do, its no longer work. I feel very grateful to have found what makes me happy."