Ethereal

As a photographer I’m always looking for new ways to push myself and my photography. I am someone who is very reserved, quiet, and suffers with body image issues. The idea of turning myself into a being that symbolises such beauty while posing nude and putting my insecurity on display was a scary boundary I wanted to overcome. While this drone image has a very personal meaning to me, I want the audience to both add their own interpretations and see it for what it is. A lost angel who has found herself in a beautiful yet barren landscape, trying to find her way back home.

It took a total of 6 months from the idea being born to the execution of the final image. Between August 2022 and January 2023, I planned every element of this image from location scouting, posing and props. Not only am I the subject in the photo, but I also made the angel wings by hand. Individually cutting out hundreds of ‘feathers’ from polyfoam wrap and glueing them to wing shaped pieces of cardboard. Every aspect of this image comes from my love of bringing a vision to life through unusual subjects and unique salt lake locations. To capture this image I had to find the perfect location which meant travelling 16 hours to South Australia in my small van with the wings taking up the majority of my storage. I spent New Years day 2023 camped outside the salt lake in anticipation of capturing the image I had been dreaming of the following morning. At first light I walked out to the centre of the salt lake, wearing the giant angel wings and nothing else. The moment I was most nervous about was here, and yet I felt empowered. I’m delighted for this image to be my first one captured in 2023.