When Nicola Berry and her family Were traveling for business and pleasure this summer one of her stops was New York City. Lucky for me, I live about two hours from NYC, and even luckier for me, Nicola and her adorable bunch of four girls made the trip from New York to my home for the day! We had a great time chatting and visiting a favorite spot in the Salmon river for a nice cooling dip. Then in the afternoon, we set out to my own personal “field studio”to create one of a kind HumanNature images followed by a twirling, flower crown caped digital field shoot!
While the other girls ran around and twirled and danced in the field of flowers… each girl, including Nicola, came one at a time, to sit with me in the sacred quiet of my HumanNature Studio.
That afternoon, the summer sun was shining, the bees and butterflies were buzzing, the deer were sleeping just out of sight… the tall grasses were swaying in a gentle breeze, bright purple clover and Black Eyed Susan flowers called to us…. the meadow was truly in its full summer glory!
Amid all of natures chaos and glory, It feels amazing to create the stillness of these images. It truly is a collaborative effort! After I take the “human” image, they gaze around to find whatever tiny piece of nature is calling to them, and we work together to frame the flowers, or grasses, or leaves that create the overlay.
There was so much going on that afternoon, after all of these film images were created, we made beautiful flower crowns and captured images of twirling girls back lit by a sun that was sinking lower and lower in the summer sky…. Those memories will have to be shown in a different blog post as these HumanNature images are demanding to stand on their own, and I have to listen to them!
HumanNature image creation shoots are all one of a kind film photo shoots done with either my Microcord TLR or my Mamiya Medium Format camera. I absolutely love to create these unique, one of a kind images with people. It is quite a process! The subject sitting in front of a plain background and then working with me to pick a beautiful nature image to layer over their film portrait. Every time I create these images they surprise me in the way the images subtly work together to create these