For photographer/artist James Lohrey, the dream of turning his hobby into a career was slow brewing. The Mentor High School graduate didn’t begin his work until he was well into his 40s. Some of that work will be displayed throughout January at Willoughby’s The Enclave, 4124 Erie St., and, beginning Jan 10, at Little Italy's Scaravelli Design and Studio Gallery, 12414 Mayfield Road.

What, at first, innocuously began with the purchase of a camera 12 years ago eventually let the manufacturing engineer to numerous photography and art classes at Lakeland Community College and Willoughby Fine Arts Association. However, as his talents required more of a challenge, Lohrey sought other schools of knowledge and insight by attending workshops and taking correspondence courses from around the nation.

Realizing a mid-life change of career was in order, the Mentor native didn’t look back as he moved to Paris for eight months in late 2000 to attend the highly respected Speos Photographic Institute. By this time, Lohrey realized fashion photography was what his heart wanted to pursue. “Basically, I didn’t know how to become a fashion photographer,” Lohrey said, “ What do you do? Do you knock on doors? That is one of the reasons why I went over there. The Parisians are very good a art. I really learned a lot over there. I developed my own style. Basically, it is a concept of being radical and doing you own work, rather than trying to please somebody else.

The epiphany of realizing a distinct style didn’t happen overnight. “(As a student there) you go through all of their art galleries and photography galleries, and look at people’s style. It just is kind of beaten in your head that you need a style and I didn’t really know how to do this until one day, they say you just have to be yourself and do your own work,” He said. “And when I started to do that, things change for me quite a bit. I stopped working in the studio completely. If you are a painter you don’t put your subject on a white seamless background, you would photograph somebody on location. So I learned to pick up more of a style.”

Lohrey's work so inspired his professors that they allowed him to pick and choose which of the aspiring fashion designers attending Atelier Chardon Savard he would like to work with for his photographs.

Perhaps it was Lohrey’s photographic style that blends in artistic elements that caught their eye. Lohrey credits his ability as a painter and numerous art classes, for sharpening his photographic vision. “It’s and evolution,” Lohrey said. “I want to get better photography and that was just my approach. Actually, I feel that art students understand composition and design, and the painting is basically a vehicle to get better photography. I was taking a portrait painting (class), and you (begin to) understand the face and how light works. If you could actually see good, see the subject, you could actually draw right now that it is. “ The reason why you can’t draw something is because you can’t see it. It’s not because your hand is funny or something like that. It’s the training in your brain. It was brought to my attention while I was in Paris that my photography and my painting are close.” See examples of my paintings

Although Lohrey is at the beginning of what he hopes will become a successful career as a fashion photographer, his creations can be quite spellbinding incorporating varied degrees of sexuality, mystery, elegance and beauty. “It’s about beauty,” said Lohrey. “It’s about enjoyment. It’s about feeling. It is something you can look at much longer than you can a normal photography. There is something more interesting than just the picture.

“People want to sit there and look at it.”