Arts & Entertainment

Taking a Moment With Workhouse Photographer Sarah Sertic

See her work in building W-9 of the Workhouse Arts Center.

Workhouse Arts Center artist Sarah Sertic can't get enough of rust, chipped paint and dirt. And it's all about texture, light and getting the perfect photo.

"I've always loved the colors of things that decay," Sertic recently told Patch. "For me, decay doesn't mean something negative. It has an aesthetic beauty, and grittiness is something that I expect to see in my photos." 

Sertic, 30, is a lifelong resident of Fairfax County and graduated from St. John Neumann School in Woodbridge and studied photography at Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA). She knew she wanted to be an artist at 14, when she took her first summer course at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. 

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"I couldn't draw, but I could always capture color well," Sertic said. 

When Sertic was 15 her mother gave her a 30-year-old Olympus OM-1, and that summer she took it with her on a two week trip to Paris. 

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"I got my hands on every type of film that I could get into the camera," said Sertic. "I was hooked." 

But being a professional photographer can be a lofty ambition, and Sertic was grounded in a different reality. She took a two-year break after her second year at NOVA, and moved to Louisiana, Wisconsin and California - and left her camera behind.

"It was just a hobby, I thought, not something that could actually make me money," Sertic said. 

Sertic moved back home to Northern Virginia and took a job as a veterinary assistant at a clinic in Fairfax County. After six months at work, a friend recommended she pick the camera back up. The hobby soon became an obsession and Sertic enrolled in photography courses at the Art Institute of Washington and NOVA. 

"I like capturing a moment in time. I love capturing the grittiness of a scene, from people to industrial stuff," she said. 

Sertic, who has switched to digital with a Nikon D300, was juried into the Workhouse community in the fall of 2012. Her professional photography business focuses on portraiture, freelance photography, events and fashion. 

"Business is very good," said Sertic. "I love the Workhouse. It's been a big source of inspiration for me."

Sarah Sertic will be the featured artist in April at the Workhouse Arts Center. See more of her work in building W-9. 

Sarah Sertic's five favorite locations to take photos

  1. Bull Run Battlefield
  2. Old Town, Alexandria
  3. Belle Isle State Park
  4. Workhouse Arts Center
  5. Union 206 Gallery in Del Ray, Alexandria 

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