Giglio joins The Millerton News staff

MILLERTON — The Millerton News would like to officially welcome its newest reporter and photojournalist, Stefanie Giglio, to its team. Giglio is replacing Cory Allyn, who recently left the paper and moved to Brooklyn.Giglio, who was born in Stamford, Conn., originally moved to Millerton as a young third-grader. She graduated from Webutuck High School in 2004. She then moved to Lugano, Switzerland, where she studied photojournalism at Franklin College and earned a bachelor’s degree in international communications with a focus in news production and digital photography.During her time in Switzerland, Giglio took advantage of her school’s academic travel program as well as the other travel opportunities, visiting more than 20 countries on four continents.Her travels provided the perfect chance for her to hone her photographic skills. By her sophomore year, she was working as the official photographer at her university and operating a freelance photography business on the side. In 2006, she was a semi-finalist in the Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition hosted by the Natural History Museum of London, and in 2008 she won an award for the Best Student in Studio Arts and Photography from her school.She also worked hard improving her language skills. Besides learning the basic phrases in every local language of the countries she visited, she studied French and Italian throughout her time in college. “The only Italian words I knew when I got there were pizza and pasta,” she joked, “but between taking classes at school, au pairing and just living in the Italian-speaking world, I am nearly fluent in Italian now.”After a short stint working as a photographer for a music video production company in New York City, Giglio began working toward a master’s degree in photography at the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, Calif.While attending Franklin College, Giglio went on three academic travel programs to Africa and took a fourth trip to the continent on her own. She completely fell in love with Africa — the people, the lifestyle, the culture, the languages, the land — from her very first trip, so when her time at the Brooks Institute was up, she knew exactly where she wanted to make her next home.She moved to Malawi, a small country in central Africa, in early 2010 and set up shop as a freelance photographer. As one of the few professionally trained photographers in the country, she was able to secure assignments in a wide range of photography niches, from portraits to aerial architecture shoots to food photography. She also maintained a blog that detailed her time living in rural Malawi and told the stories of some of the local Malawians she befriended. This gave her the opportunity to hone her writing skills as well.Giglio recently returned to the United States, and she is very excited to begin working at The Millerton News. She is also looking forward to spending some time in the town where she went to high school while she takes a temporary break from her nomadic lifestyle.