“Of course genes can’t pull the levers of our behaviour directly. But they affect the wiring and workings of the brain, and the brain is the seat of our drives, temperaments and patterns of thought. Each of us is dealt a unique hand of tastes and aptitudes, like curiosity, ambition, empathy, a thirst for novelty or for security, a comfort level with the social or the mechanical or the abstract. Some opportunities we come across click with our constitutions and set us along a path in life.” ― Steven Pinker
Magic and beauty
“The appearance of things changes according to the emotions; and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.” — Kahlil Gibran, The Broken Wings
Creating bespke art for your walls starring you…
Where would we be without stories...
“Without stories, we wouldn't be human beings at all” ― Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials
Fra Pavel played by Frank Bourke in the BBC ONE HBO and Bad Wolf serialisation of His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman.
Portrait sessions with me — stories + compassion in South East London
Why am I as I am?
“Why am I as I am? To understand that of any person, his whole life, from Birth must be reviewed. All of our experiences fuse into our personality. Everything that ever happened to us is an ingredient.” ― Malcolm X
Portrait sessions with me… pls DM to find out more…
Ripples on the surface of life...
“As Freud has shown, blunders are not the merest chance. They are the result of suppressed desires and conflicts. They are ripples on the surface of life, produced by unsuspected springs. And these may be very deep - as deep as the soul itself. The blunder may amount to the opening of a destiny.” ― Joseph Campbell
The beautiful life...
“I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.” W Somerset Maugham — The Painted Veil
Singularity
(after Stephen Hawking)
Do you sometimes want to wake up to the singularity
we once were?
so compact nobody
needed a bed, or food or money—
nobody hiding in the school bathroom
or home alone
pulling open the drawer
where the pills are kept.
For every atom belonging to me as good
Belongs to you. Remember?
There was no Nature. No
them. No tests
to determine if the elephant
grieves her calf or if
the coral reef feels pain. Trashed
oceans don’t speak English or Farsi or French;
would that we could wake up to what we were
— when we were ocean and before that
to when sky was earth, and animal was energy, and rock was
liquid and stars were space and space was not
at all — nothing
before we came to believe humans were so important
before this awful loneliness.
Can molecules recall it?
what once was? before anything happened?
No I, no We, no one. No was
No verb no noun
only a tiny tiny dot brimming with
is is is is is
All everything home
Black and White....
.. but a million colour in your mind... creating images for you and stepping into a new year with me // pls DM me with your dates and photo needs and we can make a plan ♡
Being
“At the centre of your being
you have the answer;
you know who you are
and you know what you want.” — Lao Tzu
New Year's Day...
“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.” ― Edith Lovejoy Pierce
Bringing nature home
I believe in God, only I spell it nature” Frank Lloyd Wright.
Bringing nature home with my bespoke floral prints. Pls DM to start the conversation on immortalising your favourite flower…
Bringing nature home
The Very Dark Month
“Anything seems possible at night when the rest of the world has gone to sleep.” — David Almond
The Very Dark Month — prints available to purchase..
Delighting in you..
“Your life is your life.
Don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission. Be on the watch.
There are ways out.
There is light somewhere.
It may not be much light but it beats the darkness.
Be on the watch.
The gods will offer you chances.
Know them.
Take them.
You can’t beat death but you can beat death in life, sometimes.
And the more often you learn to do it, the more light there will be.
Your life is your life.
Know it while you have it.
You are marvelous.
The gods wait to delight in you." — Charles Bukowski
Delighting in you — portrait sessions with me in south east London…
Self love...
“A consequence of female self-love is that the woman grows convinced of social worth. Her love for her body will be unqualified, which is the basis of female identification. If a woman loves her own body, she doesn't grudge what other women do with theirs; if she loves femaleness, she champions its rights. It's true what they say about women: Women are insatiable. We are greedy. Our appetites do need to be controlled if things are to stay in place. If the world were ours too, if we believed we could get away with it, we would ask for more love, more sex, more money, more commitment to children, more food, more care. These sexual, emotional, and physical demands would begin to extend to social demands: payment for care of the elderly, parental leave, childcare, etc. The force of female desire would be so great that society would truly have to reckon with what women want, in bed and in the world.”
― Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth
Impossible is nothing...
“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.” ― Muhammad Ali
Portrait of Nicolas Hamilton #drivetoinspire.
Nicolas Hamilton was told he would never walk due to his cerebral palsy and would spend his life reliant on a wheelchair. Not one to be told he cannot do things, with determination and gruelling training he not only walked unaided, but he started to realise his dream: to be a racing driver.
I heard his story last month at a London event and had the opportunity to photograph him - his ‘anything is possible’ attitude inspires anyone and everyone that hears it.
True seeing...
“After all, the true seeing is within.” ― George Eliot, Middlemarch
The whole of the moon..
I spoke about wings
You just flew
I wondered, I guessed and I tried
You just knew
I sighed
But you swooned, I saw the crescent
You saw the whole of the moon
The whole of the moon… // The Waterboys
The invisible web of stories...
“The universe is one being.
Everything and everyone is interconnected through an invisible web of stories.
Whether we are aware of it or not, we are all in a silent conversation.
Do no harm.
Practise compassion.
And do not gossip behind anyone's back - not even seemingly innocent remark!
The words that come out of our mouth do not vanish but are perpetually stored in infinite space, and they will come back to us in due time.
One man's pain will hurt us all.
One man's joy will make everyone smile.” —Elif Safak
Flower power...
Living a beautiful life with fewer things // bespoke floral Christmas gifts // immortalising your favourite flower with me // giclée printed on fine art paper 325gsm hahnemuhle photo rag...♡
Being human...
There are truths that last because there are aspects of the human condition which remain constant… portrait sessions with me in south east London ♡
