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She doesn't work in a darkroom, doesn't order special handling for enlargements and she has never worked with a digital camera and computer enhancing.
'What you see is what you get,' she said.
What local art patrons are seeing at her exhibit at the Greensburg Garden & Civic Center is 'Captured Moments,' a collection of 43 photographs that Thomas shot mostly in the hills and rural areas of Fayette County.
What they get are good feelings, nostalgia and an opportunity to appreciate the beauty of nature.
She knows what appeals to patrons because she likes to ask: 'What is your favorite, and why?'
One woman told her that the beach scene brought back memories of her childhood. Another said that the sunflowers framed in blue just made her feel cheerful.
It's Thomas's intent to capture such beauty and impressions with the simplicity of her 20-year-old camera. A longtime photographer and first-time exhibitor, she's taken only one course in photography, a session offered at Touchstone near Farmington. Otherwise, she's been on her own traveling the back roads and mountain tops looking for the right scenes and finding them.
'I have my camera with me, and most of the time I just jump out of the car along the road,' Thomas said.
She found a perfect setting with roses by a wooden fence that heads down a country path. 'Serenity' focuses on a wooden bridge in a yard near Confluence and another scene is of Deer Lake near Farmington. Water splashes 'Over The Rocks' at Black Water Falls in West Virginia.
Thomas pursues textures and colors in her work. The flowers and wildflowers in her own backyard present those qualities in her closeup flora portraits. She also finds agreeable subjects along roadsides. There are daisies, Queen Anne's lace, lilies, sunflowers, thistles, tulips and azaleas.
Patience paid off in combining those subjects with their surroundings.
'I took 'Evening Meadow' at the top of summit (on Route 40),' Thomas said. 'It was just toward sunset, and there were all these high grasses and the sunset was like an orange glow.'
Friends encouraged her to make an exhibit, and Civic Center Director Mazie Kurcharski agreed when she saw her portfolio.
Thomas is thrilled to have her first show and is waiting for autumn to start focusing in a new direction. 'I'd like to get into foliage against real old barns, the ones with a lot of character,' she said.
