Mihaly, Julie. Julie Mihaly: She Began to Realize.

Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts, 1985. Artist's book, oblong wraps, unpaginated, 104 square color photographs (possibly SX-70), two to a page with short texts about a woman's feelings. Distributed by Blue Sky Gallery. VG+ with a few crimps and evidence of a reader's thumb on right edge. 

Julie Mihaly is an American photographer, artist, and writer. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, she attended Vassar College and went on to earn her BFA and MFA in photography from the San Francisco Art Institute. Early in her career, Mihaly taught photography at institutions such as the School of Visual Arts, Rutgers University, and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, before transitioning into editorial roles as a photo director, editor, and researcher for major publications including Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Entertainment Weekly. Drawing aesthetic influence from the candid, unpretentious qualities of snapshot photography, her work frequently explores personal memory, irony, and social commentary through visual media and published photo/text projects. Her fine art photography has been featured in several books, exhibited widely in solo and juried shows, and included in public collections.

She Began to Realize is an intimate, humor-infused artist's book by photographer Julie Mihaly that explores female identity, adulthood, and emotion.

Key Focus Areas

• The Narrative Structure: The book utilizes a diptych format, pairing square color photographs side-by-side on each page. Accompanying these visual pairs are short, poignant text snippets or captions written from a third-person perspective that reflect a woman's internal feelings, anxieties, and observations.

• The Medium: The imagery consists of vivid color photographs taken over a two-year period across San Francisco, New York City, and Madison Mills, Virginia.

• The Themes: Through its juxtaposition of snapshot-style imagery and brief text, the book navigates the gap between expectation and reality. It addresses themes of personal history, isolated modern living, unavoidable adulthood, and the quiet, often humorous absurdities of daily life.