A Whole New (Fairytale) World

She knew she couldn’t calm the storm, so she calmed herself.  She bravely turned her face to the skies and allowed it to carry her away.  She embraced it.  She accepted it.  She became one with it.   She was tossed and torn by it but never gave up.  She learned from it.  She survived. When it was over, she was thrown back into the water.  She knew she could never be the same again.  She didn’t want to be.  She had endured the tempest and won.  She faced tomorrow with strength and dignity……..Livonne

And it all came to this! This page has been very quiet over the last year or so.  It’s been a crazy time.  I started working on the story of my life, with all it’s twists and turns, in the form of a fairy tale back in 2016.

Whilst in the middle of planning the next chapters and making props and sculptures for it, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  During treatment and recovery I pushed on to finish all the photography I needed to build the images and am still finishing the editing on that.

And now, it’s only just over 2 months until exhibition, so the pressure is on to get everything organised to do it credit.  There are 6 chapters to this story and they deal with childhood sexual abuse, domestic violence, grief over the loss of a child, mental illness, displacement of home and cancer.  Sounds gloomy doesn’t it?  But it’s really not.

Told in the form of a fairytale with each section having it’s own setting which explains what helped me get back up and keep going, it is full of hope.  It is a fully immersive exhibition where you get to walk through a story book and into new worlds.  There are lots of things to see, feel, original music to hear and lots of other experiences.

Hopefully the viewer will be left feeling inspired knowing that life can always get better and happiness is our birthright.  It is told as a fairytale as I have always identified with them.  They were my safe place as a child when awful things were happening and they are still my safe place today.

The dates of the exhibition are particularly significant.  It opens on May 1st which is my angel daughter’s 34th birthday and a year to the day since I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  It closes on 27th May which is the 24th anniversary of my angel daughter’s death.  These 27 days are usually hell on earth for me, full of sadness and ‘what ifs’.  This year they will be spent celebrating the roller coaster that has been my life, of which she has been such a huge part of.

My precious granddaughter was born on 31st May and from the day she was born I knew I had to make May a month of celebration again.  She deserves that and I know her angel auntie would say that’s exactly how it should be.  So the 27th of May this year closes the book of  unending grief and I begin a new story of celebration and hope.  The grief will never go away but it will be used to create rather than to destroy.

The exhibition will be held at Wild Valley Art Park which is located at 321 Blaxland Road Wentworth Falls NSW from 1st – 27th of May 2019.  It will be open Wednesday through to Sundays but appointments can be made on other days.  This is a brief video to give an idea of what to expect.  Special thanks to Nick from Filmclass Pictures for the fantastic video

Writing your own Happily Ever After – A story of survival & hope.

Do you trust me?

Trust Your Dreams…Trust Your Heart… Trust Your Story…….Neil Gaiman

As a photographer, trust is such an important commodity to have with your model.  If a model doesn’t trust you, they won’t relax and do what you ask of them as they aren’t really sure if it’s going to look right.

Most poses don’t feel natural and unless you have that trust, your model will feel silly doing some of them.  If you haven’t had a professional shoot yourself you probably need to so you can feel what it’s like on the other side of the camera.  Your photographer will ask you to strike a position that feels awkward and you won’t want to because it will feel unnatural and you’ll think it will look that way. In actual fact, some of the most unnatural feeling poses produce some of the most beautiful photos.   It’s important to understand that feeling so you can understand your model’s reluctance to do some poses.

I’m not talking about  standing on your head with one foot touching your ear kind of poses but getting someone to extend their hand instead of holding it close to them.  Or asking them to twist their shoulder to the camera in a way you wouldn’t do in everyday life. While they may feel unnatural, the camera will love them. If there is a good dollop of trust between model and photographer, they’ll be comfortable enough to feel uncomfortable for a few seconds.

And while it’s important to make sure you capture the essence of a person, try to get them to step outside of their comfort zone a bit.  That’s where all the exciting things happen. It is possible to catch their essence while doing something that is not natural for them.

My beautiful model Trish is always smiling.  It’s very rare to see a photo of her without a huge smile on her face.  In this photo I wanted to capture her not smiling and that was difficult for her to feel comfortable with.  When you’ve been told all your life, as most of us  have, to SMILE for the camera, it’s hard to go against the grain and remain serious. Everyone has a more pensive side and that was exactly what I wanted to capture with this photo.  After all, if someone was aiming an arrow at an apple on your head, you would probably feel a tad apprehensive.

Whilst nowhere near as drastic as in the story of William Tell, where Tell had to shoot an apple off his son’s head to save his life and absolute trust was necessary to achieve the result.  It’s still imperative to have the trust of your model if you want to get the right shot. I would always suggest not to rush the process, but don’t drag it out either.  I always snap a few shots off and tell my model these are just for lighting, not for the photo.  It relaxes them immediately and the photos always turn out to be some of the best.  When I find the best of them, I show them in camera.  Once they see that they really do look beautiful, they relax even more and that’s when the magic starts to appear.

And we all know how wonderful that magic is.

 

 

One (hundred) bites

The only person who is tricked into believing that one bite can make all their dreams come true is the person who doesn’t know what their dreams are.  Dream big but be sure of what it is you want.  Once you’ve worked that out, go for it with all your might.  Keep trying until you’ve achieved what you’ve set out to do, no matter how long it takes.  Success tastes 100 times better when you’re hungry for it……Livonne

I took a series of photos about 2 years ago.  I was practising my emerging photography skills and wanted to play with costumes and characterisation.  I used to do theatre and anyone will tell you, once you’re in costume, you become the part.  I find it’s the same with photography.  Put a person in a costume and they automatically become more comfortable.

This particular series of photos was one of my favourite ever.  I’ve always loved fairy tales and wanted to recreate a Snow White scene.  A medieval dress on a gorgeous woman, an overgrown garden and a bite out of an apple and my photo was done.  Until I decided I wanted more.  So late last year I started playing with it,  adding some garden dwarves I’d seen in my travels, a tomb from Cimetière-de-Montmartre in Paris, another tomb from Edinburgh Cemetery and some trees and ivy from various other photos I’ve taken along the way and I was closer to the original vision.

I wasn’t happy with what I’d done. It  looked too dark and heavy but I was really at a loss as to how to fix it as I was just starting to attempt composite photographs.  So I parked it and walked away.  Today I decided to revisit the composition again and finally achieved something I was happy with.  I didn’t destroy the original last year when I was unhappy with it because I wanted to study it and find what it was I didn’t like and what I did like about it.  I didn’t like the heavy textures or the way her face blended in with the background. I also disliked how much detail I lost with the darkness.  The tomb behind the gate was always something I loved and it got lost in the first creation.  I did like the original concept  though but I knew I wanted a bit more wildlife involved.  Yes, I am a Disney tragic and wanted a more cartoon like feel.

If it didn’t work today, I would have been quite happy to park it again and walk away.  It sometimes takes a few steps backwards before we can see clearly.  Don’t be afraid to leave something and come back to it at another time with fresh eyes.  If you try something 100 times before you get it right, eventually, you still got it right.  You just found 99 ways that didn’t work.  That my friend is NOT failure.  That is what makes a success.