The Beauty of Collaboration
Sharing a mutual admiration for our natural world with the Robert Bateman Centre has resulted in many magical moments. The most recent has been the launch of a brand new nature-based map that includes the artwork of Robert Bateman, photo tips from yours truly and the opportunity to work with my long-time cartoonist friend Nelson Dewey. I’m grateful that the team at the Robert Bateman Centre was open to this concept that came out of a meeting to find ways to help people connect with nature and being the project lead was very satisfying.
This project was unveiled to the public at the Third Annual Creatively United for the Planet Festival, held this past April 26th, at St. Ann’s Academy.
The map is available free of charge at the Robert Bateman Centre (470 Belleville Street Victoria, B.C), The Royal BC Museum (675 Belleville St, Victoria, BC) and at Creatively United for the Planet events.
Celebrating Community
Check out the upcoming Third Annual Creatively United for the Planet Festival, April 25+26 at St. Ann’s Academy, 835 Humboldt St. This passion project celebrates where we live, eat, play, study and work.
The line-up of speakers, exhibitors and entertainers is incredible and the support of the community is fantastic! More than 5000 people attended last year’s event.
For more details, please visit the Creatively United website
Victoria Leadership Award
I’m delighted and honoured to be nominated for another Victoria Leadership Award.
Thank you to everyone who has supported me in my creative vision for a beautiful future for us all. If I had known when I started developing Creatively United for the Planet that it would be this much time, effort and work I may not have done it, but seeing the positive impact it is having and the growing community connections resulting from it has been so rewarding even if it remains a labour of love.
Big thanks to all the volunteers who embrace the vision and recognize that we are all leading by example and learning as we go!
Great Start To The Year
Thanks to wonderful clients like Kristia Di Gregorio and other fabulous musicians like Danton Jay, the band GoWest My Friend, plus media folks like Mike Devlin of the Times-Colonist, a super benefit concert for Creatively United for the Planet will be held this Jan. 11th from 7 to 10 pm at St. Ann’s Academy Auditorium, 835 Humboldt St.
Grateful for Wonderful Friends & Clients
I have made some of the most wonderful friends over the years from the connections I have had the privilege to make through my profession as a photographer and community connector for both Creatively United for the Planet and Vancouver Island Green Scene.
Thank YOU to everyone I have had the honour to meet and share in the mystery and wonder of this beautiful life. Here’s to a rockin’ New Year filled with hope, joy and infinite possibilities!!!!!
Petra and Paleo
If I hadn’t seen the before photograph I would never have believed that the beautiful woman in front of my camera was just one year earlier overweight and out of shape and bold enough to share it with the world. Check this out (scroll down to see the before photo)!
Santa Fe Photo Tour
Having just returned from leading a photo tour to New Mexico with 12 wonderful women, one can’t help but crave the beautiful warm russets of the landscape and food. It’s like having fall twice with the added spice of red peppers. Being one of the major art centers in the world, Santa Fe is truly a feast for the eyes.
At 7,000 feet above sea level, I should have been better prepared for the cold, but it still surprised me how much warmer it is here at home. In fact, it snowed!
Watch for more photographs to come as there are lots to share and stories to tell. Thanks to Cathy at Niche Travel for arranging such a wonderful trip!!
Daily Thanksgiving
Please enjoy this compilation of photographs I created as a daily gratitude and feel free to share it.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your loved ones!
Sidney Fine Arts 2013
And now for something completely different!!!…
Trying to determine what to enter into the annual adjudicated Sidney Fine Art Show is always a fun and creative process. Fortunately, the judges have rewarded my efforts and given me the opportunity to show my work annually in this show for a number of years now.
This year, I came up with something so different than anything I have done before and each piece is truly a limited edition of one.
While it is not visible in the photographs on the left, each of these pieces is printed on fine art paper, has a slight encaustic (wax) finish on them and are hung from custom-created wrought iron gates that carry on the theme of the images.
The image on the left is titled “Ethereal Gate” and has a ghostly image of some lacy weeds that juxtapose against the gate itself and when the light shines through the back of the print, it glows in such a way that it appears as though the viewer is looking through a gate to the weeds.
The larger of the two is called “Gatekeeper” and the name really says it all.
The colour photograph on the far right I titled, “Resilience” and I love the way the texture of the plant and stone work in harmony and are equally strong in their own individual way, yet come together beautifully.
The Sidney Fine Art Show opens Oct. 18-20th at the Mary Winspear Centre in Sidney, BC and all three of these signed limited edition art pieces will be for sale and on show there during this time.
Back-Fit in Alignment with Core Values
One of the hazards of being a professional photographer as long as I have is that it can be very hard on the back and neck. Thanks to a variety of amazing health and wellness practitioners in Victoria, I fortunately can work pain free and the staff at Backfit can take a lot of credit for that.
Being a Backfit patient has given me the opportunity to really get to know how dedicated everyone there is. So when they gave me the opportunity to photograph them and do the chalkmanship on their blackboards it was great to see them express their core values for all to see. Here are but some of the images I have been creating for them. Watch for more to come!
Uniquely Tina
Photographing artists and their work is such a pleasure, especially someone like Tina Fyfe who creates unique ceramic art chandeliers and candelabras. Each of her art pieces is one-of-a-kind due to the dry, cracking, bone or shell-like surface she creates using an unpredictable orange glaze affect that creates rust-like lines coming through the clay as it dries. This surface is in complete contrast to the known subjects she chooses to sculpt, which are usually symbols of life and nature for which she determines the overall shape in advance, then due to the drying process, each piece becomes completely unique. No wonder her work is such a hit with galleries and interior designers whose clients want original art as a part of their environment.
Photographing her work was an intuitive process whereby I created a mood and used backgrounds and lighting to compliment her work.
To see more of Tina’s work you can contact her at 778-350-2764 or email tinafyfe@hotmail.com
Sharing Robert Bateman’s Art Photographically
If you want to train your eye to see beyond the obvious, experience Robert Bateman’s art in creative, new ways and enjoy the new Robert Bateman Centre, please consider joining me for an Integrated Arts Event Saturday, August 24th at the Bateman Centre located in the Steamship Terminal, 470 Belleville St. (formerly the Royal London Wax Museum building)
I will be leading a 50-minute creative photography challenge for pre-registrants at noon, 1, 2 and 3 pm. Walk away with your own digital photographic masterpiece and a heightened visual sense.
This is an all-ages event and no photography experience is required.
Bring your camera, tablet, phone or whatever you would like to use to take digital images.
Reserve your spot by emailing events@batemancentre.org. Space is limited. FREE with gallery admission.
Yay to Sante Fe in November!
Want to catch the last warm sun of the year, learn more about how to use your camera and take better pictures, or just want to savour art and great food? Well you can have it all because this is one of those trips that leaves you very satisfied on all accounts. I’m delighted to be Niche Travel host for this fabulous art, food and cultural getaway and welcome you to join me. For more information, please contact Cathy Scott at Niche Travel, 250-480-0008.
Gorge Swim Fest and Esquimalt Arts Festival
It was wonderful to be Creatively United as both an exhibitor and participant in this year’s Esquimalt Arts Festival held in conjunction with Gorge Swim Fest. As a photographic artist and the founder of Creatively United for the Planet, this was a wonderful opportunity to create and collaborate on an even more eclectic and colourful display that also promoted our affiliate year-round new green resource guide and business network the Vancouver Island Green Scene.
With the help of Creatively United volunteers Brian Bury, Tom Smith and Roxanne Duigou we kept busy answering questions all day.
Thank you to everyone who dropped by, including Mayor Barbara Desjardins and council member Lynda Hundelby. Kudos to Creatively United volunteer Morlene Tomlinson for her work organizing a great event. We appreciated the invite
Maestro Bob Nelson and Sooke Fine Arts
Bob Nelson has music in his veins. Part of the Nelson’s Music family, Bob is a multi-instrumentalist with a voice of gold!
It was lovely to be serenaded while I photographed him in the studio. His new CD has just been released and if you would like to have the pleasure to hear him play, he will be performing at the Sooke Fine Arts Show from 2-4 pm July 31 and 11-1 pm August 2 with keyboardist Darcy Phillips.
Photo Tour Reunion
A good time was had by all at a recent get-together enjoyed by the lovely women who I had the pleasure to travel with to Croatia last October on a photo tour led by yours truly.
We enjoyed a wonderful visit at the beautiful Abkhazi Gardens, complete with super-star guest Tamara Taylor, the daughter of one of our group members, who was visiting from LA where she plays Dr. Camille Saroyan in the television series Bones.
Belle Epoque
Kristia di Gregorio is one of those gals you can’t help but notice – the belle of the ball! I was delighted when she contacted me to create some images for her. Given she is a fabulous musician and comfortable in the limelight, our session was very productive. Here is but a peak as she is working on an album now and making decisions around the look for her new CD.
“There’s a lot of storytelling on this album. I’ll be taking listeners to faded old bars in New Orleans to wait for a lover that never shows, to Paris in the Belle Epoque living the live of an artist’s muse. Love, loss, longing… lots of those themes too, but hopefully with enough wit or hope for it to never get too dark,” she says.
Check Kristia out at the Spiral Café on June 22nd… Gorgeous Coffee on July 6th and Victoria Folk Music Society on August 18th… more info and some of her tunes from recording projects in the past can be found at www.reverbnation.com/kristiadigregorio.
She’s #1 in folk right now for Victoria! Way to go Kristia!!!
Bateman Birthday Gala Evening
Hard to believe Robert Bateman celebrated his 83rd birthday this past weekend and what a birthday!!!
Besides being in great health and having 200 people attend his gala party, his new legacy gallery just opened to fabulous reviews and he’s off and running all over the globe continuously sharing his art and conservation message with adoring audiences.
What a thrill to be a part of this event. Here are a few images snapped with my iphone and some of the people I had the great fortune to share conversation with: including the Lieutenant Governor’s official escort whose medals are almost competition for my necklace, the one and only Alex Fisher, Claudia Lia of sharktruth.com and Wade Davis who also gave an incredibly passionate speech during the course of the evening.
Honoured and Inspired
Robert Bateman is not only one of the world’s most respected and highly regarded wildlife artists and conservationists, but is an inspiration to many, myself included.
I jokingly say it is Robert Bateman’s fault that I have dedicated years of my life advocating for the protection and preservation of the natural world, most notably through the founding of Creatively United for the Planet. Hearing him speak in person moved me from being more than just a financial supporter of environmental charities to wanting to find ways to ignite the passion in others to see the beauty and significance of the world around us.
When I was given the opportunity to photograph Mr. Bateman in his new soon-to-be-opened gallery (in the former Wax Museum on Belleville St.) and capture the visit from HRH Prince Andrew I was more than delighted. Given his time was at a premium, I can only express gratitude for Mr. Bateman’s patience to allow me this honour. Here are two of my favourite photographs. I’m not able to share the photographs of HRH at this time due to official protocol and approvals required but hope to in the near future.
West Coast Beauty
Cue the crows! These lovely birds certainly added to the beauty of this west coast scene when they flew past in almost perfect formation echoing the windswept veil cloaking these newlyweds.
To see more of this beautiful wedding please click here to view the full album.
