Patty Tuggle  

"Nothing can compare to God's creations, I merely want to capture those creations or situations that you may have missed."

I live in the wonderful state of Florida and I have always wanted to be an artist/photographer, even as a child. A talent and appreciation for the arts was passed down to me from my grandmother and mother. I attended Ringling School of Art and Seminole State College. Next were studies with private instructors covering different types of visual arts such as pastel portraiture, pottery, glass bead making among others. While I have taken many courses in visual art I have never taken one in photography or Photoshop in person but I have started to attend/watch some online through Creative Live. I look forward to learning more about Photoshop and believe it will shape my photography work in the future.
While I am still an amateur I have been fortunate enough to have several pieces picked up that are currently available online at major retailers such as Overstock, Target and Sears. Through my work I hope I am able to evoke hope, happiness, and understanding, while with other images even sadness, despair or anger.

I am a happily married mother of 2 wonderful homeschooled children, and I love my pets (two dogs, two parrots, and one cat). I enjoy capturing all types of images but my favorites are wildlife (birds mainly), people, pets, and flowers. I collect art of all types and love antiques. I love facebook and spend too much time on it. I can be found at
https://www.facebook.com/PattyTugglePhotography

UPDATE: AUGUST 2014 - APRIL 2017

Update since 2014
It is still my desire to be able to evoke many emotions with my images such as hope, happiness, solace and sometimes even sadness, despair or anger. Some of my personal fine art images have a dream like quality encompassing both elements of light and dark. These images combine several of my own images as composites – I will not use others stock images.

My schedule is still hectic and it doesn’t leave a lot of time for my photography. My mother has MS and is now currently in hospice and it has been a sad long hard battle for her, my father and our family as a whole. I know my love of art comes to me from my beautiful mother and her beautiful mother (who has passed since my 2014 update). I no longer homeschool my boys, one has graduated with his Computer Engineering degree at 20yrs of age and the other will have his Electrical Engineering degree in about 2 years at 21years of age. I now work a full-time job outside photography for a utility company. I still have 5 pets along with my two boys and wonderful husband at home to take care of.

Pet photography is a love of mine and I was hired to do several Grand Openings for Pet Supermarket in the Central Florida area. I would love to do pet photography full time at some point in the near future. I feel that pets are some people’s children and to others they are a valued member of the family. Unfortunately, their lifespans are not that long and we ultimately lose them far too early. I want to be able to give people a lovely, lasting portrait that is considered a piece of art to remember their cherished friend. I write this with my male Eclectus, “Mr. Pickles,” a mere few inches from my hand – he thinks he’s a dog and is a big talker but has recently started “meowing” so he is really confused.

In this age of digital photography, it can and is a real heartbreak when digital goes wrong. Case in point: my son got me a new larger hard drive that I used to back up my old images and then started putting my new ones on and then it went belly up. I cried for probably weeks and contacted all sorts of people to try and recover the picture. In the end, I never could find a reasonable service to recover them. Even having a son with a computer engineering degree didn’t help!! Those lost images of our kids and puppy are still hopefully inside and one day can be recovered. You would think I had learn my lesson

…in October of 2016, I mistakenly erased all my phone photos AND videos (again with newest puppy images). Just as before, these couldn’t be retrieved - so again, I cried for days.

I have photographed several weddings since 2014 and have enjoyed them all and produced books for each of those. I printed a book of my bird images as gifts for friends and family in 2015 and I really loved how it turned out.

Being a typical woman, I always have taken care of everyone else before myself. This proved to be a big mistake on my part as I ignored a small pimple-like thing on the end of my nose for about two years. Turns out it was Basel cell cancer, and when I finally got it looked at it was already deep. They removed it but had to do plastic surgery to close it up. That surgery didn’t turn out well and I now have a scar that runs down the length of my nose! However, I have taken this as a call to action to alert others about the dangers of not wearing sunscreen. In my own unique way, I let family, friends and Facebook followers learn about my scare with a rare image of myself with my lovely sutures being pulled by a crow under a full shining sun. I shared the image with my physicians who really liked it.

I attended Photoshop World in 2017. What a guilty pleasure for 3 1⁄2 days being around so many talented people. Having models to shoot was a dream come true. I hope to use all this new-found knowledge to further my photoshop abilities. I also saved enough to finally purchase my newest Canon (7d Mark II) for my birding and pet photography.

I have also been uploading my work to a site called Viewbug where my gallery can be seen here: https://www.viewbug.com/member/PattyTuggle .
I have been a member since July 2014 and I really like the site and feedback from other photographers. The website lists me as being among the top 10 percent most popular photographers on the site.

My work has appeared in print in FL Agriculture Magazine, the Osceola News Journal and the 2014 Best of Photography yearbook 2014 by Photographer’s Forum .

Solos shows of my work have been held at: St. Cloud Community Bank, Osceola County Main Library, St Cloud Branch Library, The OUC Building in Kissimmee, FL, The Osceola County Tag Services Main Branch Building, Susan’s Courtside Café, Joint Maneuvers Chiropractic Center and multiple sidewalk Art shows in downtown St. Cloud FL.
As of 2017, some of my work is still being licensed through Trademark Fine arts and sold through many online retailers such as Amazon, eBay, Overstock, Sears, Staples, Kohls and many more. I have just started selling some of my work through Adobe stock and am hopeful it will bring more recognition and sales.

I’m still currently working on an ongoing personal project centered around a very large dying pine tree in my neighbor’s yard. I have probably taken a thousand or more pictures of this tree since 2009 – I plan on creating a book of images soon. I fear it will be very soon as it is leaning and bare but still has signs of life otherwise. It currently (2017) houses a pair of Red-Bellied Woodpeckers and their young. I am also collecting images of truck backs for another book that I will produce in the future as well as hopefully a book with nothing but church steeples.

Another project I am currently working on is collecting old family photos and preserving them for future generations of my family to enjoy and pass along one day as well. Collecting old photographs and cameras is another passion of mine.

Awards:

Multiple 1st place awards in Osceola & Volusia County and State Fair Photo Competitions 2001 - 2014

Honorable Mention in Women in Photography International’s Faces Juried Exhibition 2010

Multiple different awards 2nd 3rd and Honorable Mentions at the Osceola Center for the Arts, FL

“The Crow’s Garden” was chosen as an Image of the day by Daniel Miller at Duncan Miller Gallery
Staff Selection for image in 2015 at Viewbug.com

Member Selection Award for Egret Image in 2016 at Viewbug.com

People’s Choice in Fancy Dressed Pets in 2017 at Viewbug.com

Finalist in Black and White in 2014 Photographer’s Forum Best of Photography 2014.

Finalist in Fine Art Category in Julia Margaret Cameron Awards for my image “The Crow’s Garden”

2nd Place in Children’s Category in FL Agriculture Magazine.

2015 i Women in Photography International juried competition, juror Clive Waring, editor /Silversots "i AM woman i AM digital" Exhibition n the categories: Animals, Objects and Cell / Tablet

My image “Do not cross” was featured as one of the most interesting by Smashing Magazine in their World of Signage Contest

Charter Member of Women in Photography International

Patty Tuggle
St. Cloud, Florida
pattyt@cfl.rr.com
http://pattytuggle.zenfolio.com

©Copyright for all images remains the property of exhibited photographer, and promotional use for Women In Photography International. All inquiries regarding use of and purchasing image use rights must be directed to the photographer.

File GALLERY & BIO complete August 30, 2014
s-8/30
UPDATE: Photographer response new UPDATES  AUGUST 2014 - APRIL 2017


UPDATE FINAL: May 2017 website content 1999-2017
womeninphotography.org file transfer to the Beinecke.
All organization files, computer, external hard drive, printed materials, photographs,
DVDs, books, competitions files and onsite installation art work