Nowotny was born and grew up until her teenage years in Königsberg in the former German province of East-Prussia (today better known as Kaliningrad, Russia).
During the invasion of the Red Army towards Königsberg she fled to Wilhelmshaven in the North of Germany with her mother.
As a child of a midwife and a policeman she had no possibility to visit a university to study arts and therefore decided to learn the artisanry of a photographer.
After 1977 she specialized in portraits of children and babies for advertising and international photo agencies (e.g. Tony Stone Worldwide).
Nowotny died on March 18, 1989, in Berg, Upper Bavaria at Lake Starnberg, near Munich from bowel cancer; she was 60 years old.