About Sparky Campanella

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Sparky Campanella is no stranger to the Weekly's Photo Contest. Two years ago, he won first place for his Peninsula Images photo. The win gave him the confidence to work professionally as a photographer. He doubles that with a career in Web site development.
Now 39, Campanella has been photographing since he was a child. He currently exhibits in a gallery in Los Angeles.

Hiking in Arastradero Preserve one foggy morning, he was photographing landscapes. He had the park to himself, when out of the solitude, a lone biker appeared. He grabbed his camera and took the picture, he said. The biker reminded him of a good friend who is an avid biker and who also likes to ride very early in the morning.

The idea of apparitions is a theme in his current work, he said. He focuses on photographing light, which takes on an abstract quality in his photographs. "Light's this beautiful thing that we are constantly bathed in," Campanella said. He tries to take pictures of light in ways so that we are looking at the light rather than at the distraction of the objects around us, he said.

-- Sue Dremann