About Pictorialist Photo

Pictorialist Photo Archive is a unique collection of contemporary fine art photography libraries. Following the prinicipals of the Pictorialist photographs of the late 1800's and early 1900's, these images offer a fresh, new perspective to common photography. Images of fauna, flora, landscapes, and the society around us are available for licensing.As well, a select ever changing group of images are available for home decor and commercial interior art presentation.

If you are a photo or advertising professional looking for the unique creative imagery for your project, please search our online collection or contact us directly to request assistance. Many additional images may be available, and special sizes may be available on request.

Pictorialist Photo  licenses imagery for advertising and retail products, as well as for web use, editorial illustration, tv and film set designs, and complicated multi-media presentations. Images have been licensed for use as book covers, hotel art, and more. Commissioned project inquiries are welcomed.

About Roberta Murray

"Photography, as we all know, is not real at all. It is an illusion of reality with which we create our own private world."
- Arnold Newman (1918 - 2006)

I was born in Calgary, Alberta. Although raised in the city, I spent as many of my weekends and holidays as possible with relatives in the ranching areas of southwestern Alberta where a deep love for western living and nature developed. Art was a major part of my life then. I took my first photograph with my dad's camera when I was two. I sketched and painted too. As a child, it was rare to see me without a camera or sketchbook.

I studied photography in the late 1980's, but then spent 14 years working with textiles. It is this work that ultimately lead me right back to photography. My work with textiles taught me a lot about color, texture, and form, which I am now able to use in my photography. The use of color and texture led me to the Pictorialist photographers of the late 1800's early 1900's and their romantic, impressionist images which helped to shape the direction of my photography today.

I am attempting to create impressions of our world, more so than literal translations. I want to enable viewers to interact with the images by creating their own stories. I want to know how a viewers past, upbringing, and social experiences help to shape their reactions with the images.

"The meaning is not in the object or person or thing, nor in the word. It is we who fix the meaning so firmly that, after a while, it comes to seem natural and inevitable. The meaning is constructed by the system of representation."
- Stuart Hall

I use a variety of tools in creating my images. While I work mostly with digital imaging, I also employ old viewfinder cameras, toy lenses and cameras, and various handmade adaptations to achieve my results in camera. Then I will often use handpainted, natural, and created textures and ephemera to further alter the mood of the image. The images aren't truly complete until printed. My choices in printing method and medium are the finishing touch.

In 2009 I was juried in as a full member of the Alberta Society of Artists. My images continue to be influenced by such artist's as Henry Peach Robinson, Alfred Stieglitz, Frederick George Ashton, William Notman, Cornelius Krieghoff, A.Y. Jackson, William Turner, and others.

I produce, license, and sell fine art photographic prints. 

Besides photography I have been known to create the occassional painting, and have a line of one of a kind mixed media encaustic art photographs. I still maintain a strong interest in the fibre arts. I have been a volunteer weather watcher for Environment Canada for over 20 years. I am a lover of nature, puppy dogs, children, and laughter. I am a pessimist, optimist, real, surreal, emotional, calm, keeps secrets, loves to make people laugh; and believes everyone should just lighten up and be kind to one another. I am deeply saddened by the troubled world at times.