Thursday Inspirations: Kirsty Mitchell

If you haven't looked at Kirsty Mitchells work then please do so right now! 

I first discovered Kirsty's work back in 2009 on Flickr, the first photo I saw was The Lavender Princess. I was taken back by the soft blue hues, blanket of lavender and puff of smoke pouring out of an umbrella made of buddleia, I was in awe that a place like this existed and and someone had captured such an awe inspiring photograph. I subsequently began following her work and reading into the story behind the Wonderland series.

Wonderland is a personal project that started as a platform for Kirsty to celebrate her mothers life after she sadly passed away from a brain tumour. It is an exploration and journey reliving the stories her mother read her as a child and using her skills as a fashion designer and photographer to create a fantasy world to escape in. 

Her strength and determination to stage and create such beautiful scenes is truly inspiring to me and it something I wish to adopt in my own work. It is far too easy these days to rely on the use of Photoshop to morph objects and change their scales but this isn't something Kirsty wanted to do. Everything you see in her photos was real and made or found specifically for a shoot. Large cakes, chairs made from lavender, fields of flowers and half a dozen ships made from steel were carefully planned, designed and made so they could physically appear in the photo rather than being cloned in. It excites the imagination and that belief that fantasy worlds can truly exist in reality. 

You can find Kirsty's website here and Facebook page here.

What do you think of her work? 

Stay sweet,

Chloe x

Thursday Inspirations: Tim Walker

I thought I would start a regular feature where I talk about people that inspire me, so I'm kicking this off with one of my biggest inspirations Tim Walker.

I first discovered Tim's work back in 2007 when I was studying for my A levels, I was doing a project based on fairytales and after scouring the internet for what seemed like eternity for suitable artists to research I stumbled upon his work and a whole avenue of ideas instantly hit me. It opened up a whole new way of thinking about how I could photograph people, how I could incorporate my love of crafts and story telling within the medium of photography. 

I love painting and writing, but I'm not very good at either of them, however I'd like to think (and hope) photography is where my talent lies. Every report I would get at school parents evenings since I was a small child all said there same thing "Chloe has potential but she's away with the fairies a lot" which I think is quite ironic now that a lot of my practice is centred around trying to create ideal magical worlds that only exist in a persons mind. 

Since then I have studied Tims work and he always features in everyone of my research books, I'm pretty sure my tutors must get fed up of my love (read as obsession) for him. I have the Pictures book and it's one of my prized possessions, whenever I'm feeling uninspired or down I'll grab myself a cup of tea and sit for hours studying the photos and letting my mind wander into a little fantasy land and inspiration seems to hit me from many directions!

I could probably go on for a while talking about my love for him but I'll  leave it at that for now, if you've managed to read through all of this then well done! I promise to buy you a cookie if we meet!

Who inspires you? What do you think of Tims work? 

Stay sweet,

Chloe x