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You don't know photographer's name, but her faces look familiar

By Anna Bakalis
Gannett News Service

	DAVID BERGELAND / GANNET NEWS SERVICE New Jersey photographer Dawn Wilde has sold rights to some of her photo portraits to retailers and picture-frame makers. Many of the frames sold in stores across the country hold photographs of Wilde’s friends and relatives.
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But who are they?

They might be friends of Dawn Wilde, a Raritan, N.J., photographer whose informal photos have appeared in thousands of stores nationwide.

She is a wedding photographer by trade, but her hobby is to photograph her nieces, nephews and children of friends in casual settings.

In 1996, while working at a photo store in Readington, N.J., she decided to slip some of her portraits into frames being sold there.

"It's the picture that sells the frame," Wilde said.

She said she noticed the frames holding her photos sold the fastest. Soon the distributor of the frames came in and told her she should send samples to his company. She did, and it paid off.

"Burnes of Boston (a leading maker of frames) called me and asked if I would like to work with them. I said, 'Sure.' "

Since then, Wilde has sold Burnes the rights to about a dozen pictures.

In exchange for the original negative, she gets a percentage, as do the subjects in the photos — all of them children.

"These pictures are all over the place," she said.

Nicole Balogh, Wilde's niece, was one of the first subjects of the photos used by Burnes of Boston.

From small specialty stores to larger department stores like Macy's, Balogh has seen her own face in frames for sale all over the country.

"I used to ask people, 'Hey, did you ever see my picture?' But it's been awhile," said Balogh, now a freshman at the University of Florida. "I don't have that cute baby look anymore."

Discount retailer Target has also taken an interest in Wilde's photography — in particular, her photo of a friend's daughter, Lindsay Campanelli.

"I'm really flattered they decided to use it," Wilde said.

The brown-haired girl can be seen above the shelves of frames, as part of a display headboard that includes other children's images.

The photo was taken when Lindsay was 7. She's now 15.

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company