The capturing of images for this project began over a decade ago when my lovely daughter Theresa was bordering on adolescence.
As her twelfth birthday neared I decided to record this delicate transition with a unique portrait session. Since I had always enjoyed mystical folk tales and more modern fantasy based books and movies, I had generated for myself a fairly comprehensive impression of the faerie realm and this seemed to fit with what I perceived to be a “between” state in my daughter’s stage of life. Not quite a child and yet not quite an adult… just like my personal vision of the faerie folk.
The resulting image of a faerie stepping into her reflection in the water, as if preparing to enter a magical world through a portal, impacted me so much that I was inspired to enter it in competition with the Professional Photographers of Ontario. It scored high enough to be included in the prestigious Salon Print Exhibition at the convention later that year where it was further honoured with a People’s Choice award.
The image was titled Into the Mystic (thank you Van Morrison) and generated many comments and discussions along with the award. This positive feedback and the fact that I had enjoyed every aspect of the creation of the image series, from the costume designing and fabrication to the capturing of several satisfying images during the session, gave me the idea and desire to create more mystical styled images as a special offering through my studio for my clients. It also started a flood like volume of ideas and inspiration towards what would become my Mystic collection of images. I knew I wanted to create images that reflected the raw natural beauty of how I saw the faerie realm.
My imagination had always been quite rich growing up and, although I enjoyed the pixies and fairies presented to me in films and picture books, I had always perceive the faerie realm to be a wilder more unpredictable world. My exploration of these concepts generated tremendous interest in those I asked to model for me over the years. I am grateful to each and every one of my willing models for allowing me to portray them in sensual and more expressive poses and costumes. I believe the decision to create more layered and storytelling images early on made for a tremendous foundation from which to build on towards this series and deck now being released.
To think it all began with the desire to capture a delicate stage in a young girl’s transition. Thank you Theresa for inspiring something so grand.