When the World Trade Center was first bombed in 1993, Debbie Rosenfeld was there, working behind a desk at a corporate gig as she had done for years.

The incident impacted her and her husband Lee, but it didn’t break them. Then the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 happened, and everything changed.

“I was on the subway into the city when it happened. I couldn’t get a hold of my husband until late that afternoon and when I finally did, the first thing he said was, ‘We’re out of here,’” Rosenfeld says.

Lee embarked upon a random job search that landed the couple in Columbus about seven years ago. Rosenfeld bided her time in the new city by learning restoration techniques for their German Village home and revisiting a lifelong hobby: taking photos of anything and everything.

In 2003, a call for submissions at a Columbus gallery caught her eye and she entered some of her work. Two of her pieces were picked for the show and, on the first day, one was sold.

“That sale changed the course of my life. I decided to officially defect from the corporate world and try to do this artist thing full time. But I knew I had to start from the bottom – I had no art school (background), no idea how to do this at all, and I knew no one in Columbus. I just had to be persistent,” Rosenfeld says.

Her persistence paid off. She began participating in more exhibits and eventually earned representation at Hayley Gallery in New Albany, and at galleries in Indiana and New Jersey. She also exhibited at Caterina Ltd. in German Village several times.

Classifying Rosenfeld’s photography is tricky. While she recently exhibited a Cuban photo-documentary at UCLA, her repertoire includes European architecture, urban settings, nature shots from flowers and butterflies to deserts and ice formations, classic cars, stained glass, pets and more – basically everything but human portraiture.

“People are too conscious and uncomfortable with a camera, and I don’t have the ability to make them comfortable. It’s forced and very unnatural,” Rosenfeld says.

Her techniques are as diverse as her subjects. Rosenfeld has shots in black and white and color, or she’ll pull one or two strong colors out of a picture’s setting for a dramatic effect. She also dabbles in “hyper-real,” which provides a grainy, illustrative quality to the piece. She is becoming more familiar with sepia tones, and recently learned electronic photography, which she says is like “painting with pixels.”

“It’s very graphic and geometric, so I’m drawn to it. The common theme of all of my work, no matter what it is or how it’s done, is strong geographic lines. Geometry draws me aesthetically and subconsciously,” Rosenfeld says.

While shapes and subjects catch her attention, the camera in general attracts her for more obvious reasons.

“Photography is therapy for me. It’s thrilling, it’s empowering and it’s healing. It motivates me and keeps me going,” Rosenfeld says. “I can control the whole universe and make it exactly the way I want it in my art. I can make the world perfect through my camera.”

To see more of Rosenfeld’s work, visit www.debbierphotography.com.

Alicia Kelso is editor of CityScene.