Anna DeStefano and the Healing Power of Her Art

ulti-talented Anna DeStefano has enjoyed a successful career in technical writing, has written over twenty-five romance and family centered fiction novels, done some amazing photography and has combined her ability as a creative photographer with her writing skills to create nature inspired children’s books. Having obtained her degree in Computer Science, specializing in Technical Writing, at Georgia Tech, Anna worked in the field of technical writing until her son was born. Around this time, Anna began tapping into that creative side of herself, turning her writing skills to writing novels. More recently, she has been using this creative side of her for photography.

Anna’s love of photography and subsequent success as a nature and wildlife photographer came about through her love of nature and the great outdoors, specifically the mountains. Wanting to capture some of the beauty that surrounded her, Anna began photographing what she saw, starting out with her phone camera. Eventually, she replaced that with increasingly more sophisticated cameras as she grew in her love for photography. This has led to her becoming the award-winning photographer that she is. Even though her photographs have been displayed in many galleries and art centers, one of Anna’s most cherished opportunities came when an art consultant offered to place her beautiful and calming floral photographs in Emory Healthcare facilities throughout the Atlanta area.

Anna is always on the lookout for new things to learn and new ways to grow. But she also uses her photography to educate others and help them to grow. Her writing and photography skills combine to create educational children’s books that can be enjoyed by the entire family. She travels throughout the Great Smoky Mountains capturing wildlife through the lens of her camera to use as illustrations for these books.

Bears are one of her favorite subjects, and she especially loves to photograph the bear families she has found populating the Cades Cove area of the Smokey Mountains. These are the photographs she uses to illustrate her endearing children’s books. Having already published two – Baby Bear’s BEST Morning and Baby Bear’s GREAT Day – she is presently working on the third. These books can be found in local businesses (listed below) as well as on Amazon. Through these books Anna hopes to help her readers to see bears not as just another animal or even worse, pests or nuisances, but as families not so unlike our own families. Even though written in simple words and sentences that young children can easily understand, there is a message and enjoyment here for the whole family. Anna’s vision is of families sitting down together reading her books and discussing the wildlife they depict.

As diverse as all this might seem, there is a definite unifying passion and theme that underlies all of Anna’s work. Beginning with her family centered novels, Anna’s goal is to create work that is healing. She says that you might call this her specific voice that resonates throughout her work, as well as her calling. She focuses on the positive. Even the name of her business – Affirmation Photography - reflects this. The work that she places in the waiting rooms, exam rooms and public spaces of the Emory Healthcare System help bring peace and a sense of wellbeing to the patients and their families, uplifting and encouraging them. Through her photographs she is bringing nature and its beauty inside. Through her children’s books she is accomplishing the same goal, as well as helping people to appreciate, respect and cherish wildlife.

Tricia Moore is a retired teacher, having taught both English and Art in public and private school settings. She is currently an active member of the NGAG and has held several positions on the board. With her background in both art and writing, she feels that writing the NGAG featured artist article in the Laurel of Northeast Georgia is a good fit and something that she will greatly enjoy doing.

Anna states that photography is a totally different way of connecting with people – through the sharing of the beauty found in nature and the stories that are told through the photographs. With this connection, she feels she can make lives better, more positive, and more enlightened. In viewing Anna’s beautiful photographs and reading her Baby Bear books, one can see how very true this is. Anna’s healing art has “evolved over the last couple of years into being featured by interior designers both in the mountains and with art consultants in healing spaces in Atlanta and other large cities.” She has also recently been juried into two traveling exhibits – one with the Wilderness Photography Foundation and the other, The Marietta Arts Council.

Anna’s work can be seen online at www.affirmationphotography.com and at several local galleries and businesses including Timpson Creek Galleries, Ladybug Landing, Julep Farms, Gallery 441 and Hemlock Studio Galleries in Clarksville.