Sarah Cudney Photography

“You don't make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.”
― Ansel Adams

As Adams said, so much more goes into a photograph than what meets the eye. My photographs stem from a passion for photography that first developed when I lived in Vienna, Austria for two years after college. My friend Kathleen taught me the art of composition and we would walk around various European cities with our cameras trying to capture the essence of each place in a unique way. We would then compare our pictures and I loved seeing our differing perspectives of the same place. She challenged me to look at each place in a new way, and I found myself starting to see the world like a photographer – seeking the best subjects, angles and light possible.

A defining moment for me in photography was the birth of my first child. I wanted to capture images of my son despite his continuous squirming, and I needed a fast shutter to do that. I upgraded my camera and gained a wide variety of experiences through courses at the Pittsburgh Filmmakers. Before my son was born, I was a high school science teacher and I love the technical aspects of photography because I liken manually taking each picture to a scientific experiment in capturing light.