Self-portrait
Patricia Merlino first discovered photography as a teenager using a box camera. In her twenties, she purchased her first single lens reflex camera (SLR)-a Minolta. Patricia used her SLR Minoltas, from the 1970's, for her earlier work and continued to use film until 2011.
Since 2011, her photographs are taken with a Lumix compact digital camera. She finds her Lumix a perfect camera for street photography. She worked as a stringer for a weekly newspaper and later worked full-time for Times Graphics, Inc as a staff photographer for three weekly newspapers. In 1981, she covered the Miss America Pageant. She left Times Graphics in 1982. After that, she took a long hiatus from photography.
In 2005, she was awarded a Dodge scholarship for the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA. She studied Street Photography under Costa Manos, a Leica Medal Award winner, for his work in Street Photography. From that point on, her photographic style became redefined as a street photographer. Although street photography is her primary genre, she does pursue others that include travel, macro, and landscape photography.
In 2019, she published a photography book, "American Culture: A Traveling Carnival" of her ten year street photography carnival series.