Like a lot of young people, Dominic Milanese did not know what he wanted to do when he graduated from Brookfield High School in 1965.
He decided to study art at Youngstown State University, although he did not have a lot of confidence in his own art skills.
“I was just studying art for the sake of studying art,” he said.
That changed when Milanese took a photography class.
“When I took that photography class, it all clicked for me,” he said.
Milanese has taken industrial photographs, wedding photographs and, when he owned Creative Images Photography in Hubbard from 1983-2002, portraits, school photos and school events.
But, that was in the days of film photography. When digital photography came in, he didn’t want to buy new equipment, so he closed the studio.
Fast forward a few years and Milanese decided he wanted to buy a digital camera. He consulted with a friend before purchasing a Canon model, and discovered it was easier to capture the image he wanted through digital photography. No need to enlarge and dodge and burn in a darkroom, as with film photography.
Although he has won awards for his photographs dating back to college, Milanese was pleasantly surprised to come away with two awards in the 2024 Canfield Fair photography contest. He won a first-place award for a senior-division black-and-white photo of a fountain and pond taken at Middletown Place, Charleston, S.C., and a third-place award for a color photo of a path in the woods at Mill Creek Park as the leaves were starting to change.
The South Carolina photo was actually taken in infrared. Infrared sensors absorb some colors and reflect others, resulting in greater contrast than in a traditional black-and-white photo, he said.
If he could, Milanese said, he’d go out every day to look for subjects to photograph. He’ll drive to Lake Erie or New Castle, Pymatuning Lake or the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, stopping to photograph fields, barns, waterfalls, rock formations and stream beds. If he finds a trail he can walk for exercise, so much the better.
“I just enjoy it,” he said. “That’s what I do for a hobby.”
Once the photo is taken, he loads it onto his computer and uses editing software to lighten or darken areas, or make the photo look more like a painting.
The Canfield Fair awards have encouraged Milanese to want to try to get a show of his work so people can come to see it.
“I’m just getting into it,” he said of promoting his work. “I’m not good at marketing. I’m good at taking pictures.”
Milanese’s images can be seen at creativeimagesbydominic.com, and prints are for sale.