Hoffman's photography captures life through a lens

STILLWATER — An affection for the camera that began in a junior high school dark room has evolved with time to both an expression of art and now a business for Tina Hoffman.

The Stillwater resident took a photography class in 1983 and loved the whole photography process. Back then, it certainly was quite the process. There was no instant gratification like today where we snap and shoot with our phone, view the shot, realize it's a little blurry and erase it only to try again. Back then, taking the photo was a small tip of the iceberg as it then had to go through pools of water, a drying procedure and at last, the finished product.

For Hoffman, taking that class coincided with a family friend named Tony Valentine doing well enough in the sport of track and field to qualify for the Vitalis Meet at the Meadowlands. Hoffman filmed him in action — her first though unpaid, photography gig.

Fast forward 18 years and Hoffman found herself again drawn to the camera but this time for a very different reason. The advent of eBay had her fascinated and presented a good way to make some extra cash. Now the mother of four boys, she took pictures to document their various activities with a little digital camera she purchased to fuel her eBay sales.

"I couldn't get enough of them spitting out their food and smiling for the first time," Hoffman said.

Bathtub photos and the first day of school, all too quickly turned into following them around to running events with the Bears Running Club.

Then, around 2009, bad luck came with a silver lining. Hoffman's eBay camera broke.

"It placed me at a crossroads," she said. Should she replace the point-and-shoot or pony up the cash for a digital camera with lenses which would give her so much more flexibility with her photography? Hoffman took the plunge and purchased a Nikon digital camera with a few good lenses.

That decision changed her life.

She stared taking photos more and more and as she did, something peculiar and wonderful started happening. People started taking keen notice of her shots. A talent that had been dormant since perhaps the day she photographed Valentine running at the Meadowlands all those years ago came to the surface. It turned out that Hoffman had an uncanny knack for capturing the essence of the moment through the lens of her camera. Where others would just take a picture, she waited for a particular expression, used backgrounds others would not see and got into her subjects' hearts and souls to capture feelings, emotions and the heat of the moment in her pictures.

As her boys grew, they started running in area races and then, doing triathlons. Hoffman and her camera were along for the ride not just as her sons' number one fan, but their personal photographer to capture their joy of victory, agony of defeat, and the wonder and sometimes blunders of triathlon transitions between the three sports. She even found herself photographing complete strangers because they were doing something extraordinary.

"It was too much to just stand there and not capture those moments," she said.

Hoffman's compelling photographs didn't stay secret for long. They've been featured on many a web sites and running stores grace their walls with her action shots. With the encouragement of friends, Hoffman found a merchant site for photographers and bought a domain — www.multisportimages.com. She's also been hired for private photography jobs throughout Sussex County. Most recently she has photographed the Girls on the Run 8.2 mile race around Lake Mohawk in Sparta.

"There are photography companies who shoot races and focus on the finish line. I focus on the people in the race and what's really happening," Hoffman said, "I have a different approach. I take time capturing the participants and think about what I'm doing. I want the pictures to tell a story. That's important to me. It's all about emotion."

Hoffman can be reached at multisportimages@gmail.com or 862-684-5275.