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Leslie Hanes was born in Virginia and grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Her earliest artistic impressions included the masterworks of The National Gallery of Art, The Phillips Gallery and other museums which she visited frequently. While attending DePauw University in Indiana, she spent her junior year abroad in Athens, Greece. She spent countless hours at Acropolis, The National Archeological Museum, and traveling throughout Greece and the Middle East soaking in the major treasures of art history.

After graduating college, Leslie moved to New York City with husband, photographer James Pearson. Here she continued her studies of fine art and photography. They came to know Lee Witkin, gallery owner, and George Tice, photographer. These times greatly influenced Leslie as she viewed first hand classic works and met master photographers. It was then that Leslie began to investigate photography using early types of cameras including large format view cameras, early Kodak, and Holga-style cameras. Her work was black and white enhanced by toning and hand-painting.

In the late 1980’s, she and her husband opened a business specializing in graphics, animation and special effects in a loft in Chelsea where she continued to develop her photography and artwork. In the early 90’s after starting a family, Leslie returned to teaching art and obtained a Masters Degree in art from Teachers’ College, Columbia University. She also turned with renewed interest to her photography and was one of the early photographers to investigate the use of digital printing in her show at Columbia on imagery from Nova Scotia.