Birds being fed in the Tuileries
Born and raised in Boston, she was encouraged by her father to take up photography from an early age. Vanessa went on to study Classical Archaeology at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, where she combined her academic interests with her passion for photography in a thesis paper which analyzed the visual impacts of social stratification within ancient Roman amphitheatres.
For the last 10 years Vanessa has lived between London and New York and now resides in London with her husband and daughter. Vanessa is commissioned by both editorial and advertising clients. She regularly shoots campaigns for the London Borough of Camden and has also worked extensively for travel publications, shooting for Condé Nast Traveller as well as guidebooks for Frommer's and Fodor's. Vanessa is also a Getty Images advertising photographer. She was commissioned by Phillips to create a collection of images for their FIFA World Cup Sponsorship and has also recently completed an advertising campaign for Badminton England.
Vanessa's current personal work focuses on intimate documentary portraiture. Projects include a portrait series set within the historic Columbus Theatre in Providence, R.I., an historic vaudeville theatre that was purchased by her grandfather in the late 1950s and has been run by her family ever since. Using the entire theatre as a stage, she is photographing the building and her extended family who have grown up, performed in and been operating the theatre over the last 60 years.
