Welcome — I’m Nick Parrella, and this is my Photo Forum.

 

I’ve been creating images for more than 30 years as a photographer, photo editor, and imaging technologist, evolving alongside the rapid shift from traditional photography to today’s digital, web-based, and AI-driven landscape. Since the late 1980s, I’ve worked hands-on with emerging digital imaging, internet, and content management technologies. Today, my focus extends into artificial intelligence, robotic process automation, and cognitive computing, applying them to information, visual content, and imaging workflows.

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My passion for photography began in junior high school, where I took my first formal photography class. I went on to study at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), earning a BFA in Photographic Illustration and an AS in Imaging Sciences in 1989. My studies spanned photojournalism, electronic imaging R&D, and early digital desktop publishing. As a senior, I collaborated on the creation of E.S.P.R.I.T. (Electronic Still Photography at RIT)—one of the first electronic publications—using early versions of QuarkXPress, Digital Darkroom, PhotoMac, and Photoshop, while working with first-generation CCD technology that later became foundational to modern digital cameras.

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After graduating, I moved to Washington, D.C., and joined the Smithsonian Institution as a Photography Editor/Technologist within the Office of Printing and Photographic Services (OPPS). There, I worked with emerging digital imaging and content management technologies to digitize, catalog, store, and manage more than 500,000 images held in the Smithsonian Archives.

Throughout my career, I’ve worked with organizations including Agence France-Presse, Associated Press, Kodak, Picture Network International, eMotion, Accenture, CGI, Deloitte and now The Library of Congress, designing digital imaging, database, collections management and content management solutions that help modernize, manage, and locate mission-critical records, photographs, video, and audio assets.

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My passion for photography remains strong to this day, and I continue to create images that capture the "Decisive Moments" [1]  that shape and inspire my life.

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1. The Decisive Moment - Texts and photographs by Henri Cartier-Bresson