Deceptive simplicity.

Point-and-shoot digital cameras make the art of photography seem easy to achieve, but there’s a mile-wide chasm between a strong snapshot and a professional product, says acclaimed photographer Jennifer Klementti.

“The thing people need to remember is that it takes more than professional equipment to produce an image with strong visual impact,” reports Klementti, who, as a graduating student from Victoria’s Western Academy of Photography, was named Canada’s 2003 Emerging Artist by Photolife Magazine.

More recently, she was chosen Barrie’s Favourite Photographer in a 2007 Barrie Advance Readers Choice award.

“A trained and experienced professional photographer will have the necessary technical knowledge, as well as a solid visual style and artistic approach. Not only do you need the ability to capture the best exposure in camera, but you also need to be an imaging specialist providing high-end post-production services in order to deliver the best possible end product.”

Specializing in documentary, lifestyle and portrait photography, Klementti stays on top of her game by continually seeking out new innovations and technical advances.

“I don’t think there’s a day that goes by where I’m not learning something new.”

Happily for the uninitiated, consumer cameras do most of the processing work inside the camera. Some manual settings can override automatic features and Photoshop will allow input after the fact, but the equipment is designed to lend a helping hand in the process.

“A jpg is an already processed image,” she explains.

Although she acknowledges a place and time for snapshots, they don’t take the place of a professionally crafted image.

In her state-of-the-art Barrie studio, Klementti uses a series of cameras to capture a “raw” file, which is really only half the job. Post-production requires attention be paid to the white balance, exposure fine-tuning and density of the file, for example.

“You have to have a perfect or near-perfect capture to start with,” says Klementti, who is the only certified member of the Canadian Association of Photographers and Illustrators north of Toronto.

“Then you want to sharpen the image, do a CMYK conversion if you’re going to print to pre-press, people often want touch-ups – there are all kinds of things that go into making an image.”

A self-proclaimed artist, Klementti initially began shooting the world around her when she started travelling at age 18 and took along a camera for company. She turned to photography professionally after an abbreviated career as a high school teacher in Midland and at her alma mater Barrie Central Collegiate.

“Studying French and Spanish Literature opened my eyes to a rich and diverse world of art, language, history and culture,” she has said.

“Living abroad and speaking these languages has enhanced my interpretation of being. Consequently, through my travels, I became enamoured with the camera as a tool of expression. The language of photography is not confined to words or sentences. It is a language that transcends borders and connects with the soul.”

Some college courses and an amateur exhibition opened her eyes to the natural talent and innate passion for the craft and sparked the career change. She then sought out training that could get right to the point.

“I wanted to go to the best school available,” she recalls. “I wanted pure technical courses because I already had the academic background. I chose Western Academy because of its reputation and small classes. And the professors were experts in their fields of photography.

In her relatively short career to date, she is well on her way to being regarded as an expert herself. Klementti’s fine-art work has been published in Boulevard and Photolife magazines. Her editorial work has shown up in a flurry of Kiwi publications, including the Air New Zealand in-flight magazine, New Zealand Life & Leisure and New Zealand House & Garden.

She has also been recognized as a member of the Glitterati by the high-end Canadian wedding magazine WedLuxe.

“The WedLuxe Glitterati are the elite purveyors of panache – leaders and trendsetters in Canada's wedding industry,” according to the magazine’s site.

The accolades are piling up, but Klementti is on to the next project. Whether it’s capturing the perfect business portrait in her studio, documenting a family’s day-in-the-life at their Muskoka cottage, or representing the reality of life in Vancouver’s gritty lower east side, Klementti is always on the lookout for the images that “celebrate the art of life.”

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