Occasionally on my blog I spotlight a member of the Rockport Creative Collective, a loose collection of diversely artistic people who live in Rockport, and are looking for that smokey cafe - albeit metaphorical - in which to meet:  to share pain, joy, good luck on a great sale, frustration at none, and maybe to collaborate. Deceptively petite and youthful, Esther Mathieu is a professional photographer with a definitive style.  Her portraits shine with the white cast of natural light on water in New England.  She loves to pose a family on a beach at sunset.  Dunes are good, she says, but she loves the smaller beaches, like Plum Cove.

She’s also a hard-working professional, struggling to build a modern business.  She shoots portraits, interiors, and would love to capture more families on vacation in Rockport, everyone rested and happy, the perfect time to grab a photographer for a portrait in a beautiful setting. Mathieu grew up in Quebec, Canada.  At sixteen, with absolutely no experience, she walked into Sears and applied for  - and got! - the photographer’s job, manning the portrait camera for baby shots and Christmas cards.  She continued to work for more creative photogaphy studios through college, but then Rockport snagged her, and defined who she was as an artist.

Mathieu first came to Rockport with her now husband in a Wrangler jeep, and she thought, “This is too beautiful to pass up; why would I live somewhere else?”  Photographer, husband, (an analyst for Timberland who once had a hard core band called “Guns up!”) and their 2 year-old son now live in a 19th century house on Granite St. “I’m always trying to show in my images,” Mathieu explained, “that it’s really beautiful here.”  Her point of view always starts there, Mathieu says.   “I have a very New England style.”

Esther Mathieu, photography:  http://www.esthermathieu.com/ 

photo of Mathieu on the homepage by Samantha K. photography.