Lenore Leitch has been a “shutterbug” for as long as she can remember, but right from childhood she has never been a traditionalist.

Not for her the standard group shots, sunsets, special events and pretty scenes favoured by many. Instead her lens has always sought the unusual - the sort of detail the average eye takes for granted.

As a child, she remembers capturing insects in the family garden with her mother's polaroid camera. Today, it may be peeling paint, the texture of cobblestone streets, or smoke, as viewers of her exhibiton, ‘Smokin', will discover, that fascinates the Canadian photographer.

Growing up, Miss Leitch was an avid reader of National Geographic magazines, whose stunning photography she would study for hours, and which instilled in her a love of travel. Ironically, a few months ago she had the good fortune to meet one of the magazine's renowned photographers, Flip Nicklin, who had seen her work hanging in a mutual friend's home here.

“He told me that my work had rekindled his passion for photography,” the delighted amateur said. “That just blew me away. It makes me not doubt myself so much and think I can do anything I want to.”

Further encouragement came last week when one of Miss Leitch's photographs, ‘Waitin' for the A Train', was featured as ‘Picture of the Day' on the Kodak website.

Although she discovered a talent for writing, graphic arts and photography while working for the newspaper at Ontario's McMaster University, it wasn't until four years after she arrived in Bermuda in 1995 that Miss Leitch really became serious about her art, when digital technology offered a way not only to record high-quality images, but also to control, process and print those images herself.

Today, she scours the Island with her Canon EOS digital SLR camera looking for what she calls “quirky, out of the ordinary” images that also incorporate another quality she loves: humour.

“I must have humour in my work. People relate to humour. It's what sells,” she says.

An experienced exhibitor, Miss Leitch is also encouraged by the fact that her work is proving marketable.

“I think I would have done really well on Madison Avenue. I enjoy the creative process of selling something based on psychology. It's thinking positively, and that's a whole new direction for me.”

The photographer is particularly pleased with the creative possibilities digital photography affords, and the fact that she can process the images herself, thus giving her total control over the finished product.

“You can shoot so much, and cull and pick and choose from so many images, and end up with a nice series in a very short time without the worry caused by having someone else do the printing,” she says. “That is something I enjoy very much.”

It also helps that she has developed “an eye” for an interesting photograph - a satisfying change from what she once deemed “pure luck”.

“I enjoy my eye, and I trust myself with my subject matter, then I become delighted,” Miss Leitch says. “I would have to say that my greatest joy in doing what I do is seeing people smile when they view my work - making them think outside the box. Making them pay more attention to their surroundings, and realising that there is so much to see. You don't always have to see what's there. You can imagine.”

Among the accolades already coming her way (Canadian Art Prints has recently expressed interest in her images), the successful amateur photographer is looking forward to being ‘Guest Artist' at the Bermuda Arts Centre at Dockyard's new exhibition, which opens on Sunday, March 2, for which she chose smoke as her theme. Armed with incense and matches, she set about capturing the wisps of smoke as they curled into the atmosphere and were affected by air movement.

“I would sit there and look at it and see what I wanted to photgraph. It was so fleeting that I literally stayed there with my camera on a tripod and my finger on the shutter, continually snappying shots for 30-40 minutes at a time,” the photographer recalls.

“The patterns of smoke and how its path is affected by the slightest of air currents were something I'd never given much thought to. Trying to photograph the elusive wisps and catching interesting shapes as the smoke spiralled upward, and often sideways, was a challenge.

“There was no image you could decide you wanted in advance. It was all split-second timing. In fact, I had no idea what I could come up with. That was the fun part.”

After several sessions and much experimentation with backdrops, types of incense, camera angles, and more, the photographer wound up with approximately 350 digital pictures from which to whittle down her final choices for her exhibition. With a firm, objective hand she allowed herself only two options: ‘Keep it' or ‘toss it', and she spent many, many hours cropping the shots until eventually she wound up with a series of wonderfully creative shots.

“To finds such images in a puff of smoke - God, who knew, but it is important to note that I didn't change them at all, other than colouring them,” she says. “For example, I would never insert a wisp of smoke to produce an image that I wanted. If it's not there I don't use it. I will, however, remove elements, as I did in the case of the smoke images.”

With typical humour of her own, Miss Leitch says that, what began with incense and a camera, has left her “addicted to taking pictures of smoke”.

“On the bright side, my apartment has never smelled so good,” she laughs.

Her show will also include one floral shot of beautiful old roses which she took in Mexico.

“One of my favourite photographs of all time is Edward Steichen's ‘Heavy Roses', and my dream was to emulate it,” Miss Leitch says. “It was a platinum print which I had a poster of for a long time. I always wanted to record that myself. In Mexico roses were $3 a dozen, but my particular bunch of roses had begun to face rapidly and I ended up with a shot that I am very pleased with. It brings back memories of Steichen.”

While such abstracts are a particular fascination, they are by no means all that interests the dedicated amateur photographer. Her next exhibition will feature a much-loved piece of family jewellery.

“I love history and the thought of family and continuity,” she says. “My grandmother had a pin with forget-me-nots, so my next series will be based around floral arrangements and antiquities that belong to my family and my friends' families. Each photograph will have the forget-me-not pin in it somewhere.”