Mary Jayne, who turns 90 next year, was born and raised in Munising. That’s where in 1946 she learned how to take and develop photos for her high school’s yearbook.

“There wasn’t a photographer around to take pictures, so the secretary at the high school dabbled in photography herself,” Hallifax said.

The secretary, Lucille Buckley, was Hallifax’s first photography teacher. It wasn’t until a teen dance that she considered a career in photography.

“I was at a social occasion, they used to have social occasions for teenagers at the KofC hall, and one young man I was dancing with said, ‘I hear you take pictures” — just conversation– and then he said, ‘I’ll pay you to take my picture,’” said Hallifax. “Oh, the light bulb went on. He’ll pay me!”

During that time, Hallifax had a job at Peoples State Bank in the insurance department. She would work at the bank during the day and go into the darkroom at night. Her mother noticed that her busy schedule correlated with a negative change in her disposition.

“I was crabby, she told me,” Hallifax said.” “She told me I had to quit one job or the other.”

Needless, Hallifax kept on taking pictures. She married Richard Hallifax, a local funeral director and coroner, in 1948. Soon after he became a photographer as well, attending the New York School of Photography in 1953. In addition to raising “four great kids” the pair would work together on many occasions throughout the years.

During her career, her images were seen in print across the Upper Peninsula in The Mining Journal, Munising News and Escanaba Daily Press, to name a few.

“I took weddings, babies, graduations, crime scene photos; I’ve done all that,” Hallifax said. ” In those days a camera was a luxury.”

After retiring and the death of her husband in the early 2000s, Hallifax took a break from professional photography. She gave Jack Deo of Marquette 100s of negatives from all her newspaper assignments over the years.

Hallifax’s work can still be seen through Deo’s reprints available at the Art of Framing in downtown Marquette.

Then about two years ago, Hallifax submitted some photos to the Munising News from an event she thought they might not have covered. This submission resulted in the beginning of the column “All about town with Mary Jayne.”

Now weekly readers can see and read about what’s happening in the city through Hallifax’s lens. However, Hallifax has traded in her film camera for a digital one.

“It’s fun being needed at this age,” Hallifax said. “Yet, I don’t have a commitment.”

Mary Jayne chooses her assignments based on her interest and what she thinks the paper might not already be covering. Her weekly pay is a free newspaper and the positive feedback she gets from community members.

“Generally folks say my column brings a lot of positive attitude of how things are going in the area,” Hallifax noted.

Readers can find “All about town with Mary Jayne” weekly in the Munising News.

“I’m very grateful to have lived so long and to have had this wonderful life,” Hallifax said.