facebook giveaway

Please join me before November 15th for a chance to win a WHP print of your choice ....

www.facebook.com/walterhelenaphotography

xo,
Nadine

new series

It's dark.

Midnight images by the light of a full moon. Sounds of owls deep in the forest, short waves below the edge of the grass, deer picking up their hooves ever-so-gently through the orchard.

Stars and mist. Little eyes beyond the lens. Magic. And dark.

Series yet unnamed.

new white series

Full images in the catalogue. Oh crisp, mysterious, delicious white.

Imagine them big. Like, reallyreallyreally big.

Enforcing the space and atmosphere of a room in subtlety found nowhere else. A canvas. A backdrop. A place to dream.

With a pocket knife he reminds me

There is still something so schoolchild-romantic about having someone carve your initials into wet cement. Little shallow reminders around the city.

WHP on facebook

Please join me on facebook for updates, experiments and giveaways. The first giveaway will be on June 15th for one print of your choosing....

Walter Helena Photography facebook page here.

xo,
Nadine

Horse and hay

A horse in a field. Alone and content. Brooding is left to the barn.

Bucerias 010

Creativity and production is so much about discipline. I get frustrated with the world when I forget this. And when I recall and again put myself in motion I have a chastising moment for forgetting.

Then I share my pizza crust with the dogs and move on.

A capture from a midnight moment

Midnight fireworks along the bay of banderas. The sparks growing smaller and darker the farther along the grandiose cove. Feet in the warm water with waves pushing against knee caps and the dark water encompassing much. So much. Dolphins below and bats above squealing softly over our heads.

And earlier that day, an invisible whale.

Bucerias 004

A morning to myself. It's been a while.

I spent it with coffee, dogs on lap and feet, angling the computer screen so the sunshine would not interfere with the images, treating myself to new music by St. Vincent, and thinking of the woods I will enter. Now.

A celebration of a short day and much darkness

Just a quick moment to wish you a lovely holiday season and a brilliant new year. Bless.

xo.

Iona 004

In time for the holiday season, the start to a new series (Iona!) and a gift idea or two in the shop with the flexibility built in for you to customize for your special someone....

In my family we are forgoing all gift giving this year in lieu of packing a small suitcase and travelling to a beach far far south. All six of us together for two weeks. No responsibility other than yawning our way out of bed and meeting the days with whatever hope each of us leaves with.

A small year of great proportions

Today I celebrated one year in my new position in a new industry. A year can be a flick of an eyelash. A coy reminder of how quickly a moment can turn into a day can turn into a week can turn into a blur of activity.

A reminder to consider each moment as a whole. To make those moments come from your core so that the blur amounts to something that pleases you greatly and reflects who you are and where you had hoped you might be.

Because it seems that if you are true to every moment, everything falls along and tumbles where it's meant to and leaves you with a discernible and sensible pattern of how you got from A to Z, even when it was not clear in the moment. And it leaves you feeling like yourself.

On the way to Iona beach. A landscape icing and slowing. Except for the small fast paws low to the ground searching every nook for a mouse that may be delirious enough by the cold to allow a dog to present itself and say hello.

A beach a sea a day a wind

Black and white films. New toys for the dogs to distract them from the whistling wet outside the window. Finding snow. Boiling kettle after kettle of water. Exploring farther with jackets pulled tight and Hunters rubbing against new soil and rock. Weekly lillies opening fast against the heat from the radiators. Holding a hand and looking outward together with cold noses and warm hearts.

Kootenay 004

Rain. Moving forward. Slowly. 

My Crate & Barrel framed print came in the mail this week. The quality of the print made me smile for 24 hours. It came in a box as big as a house.

Planning a trip to the windy city and beyond. Steeling myself for ten flights in as many days. My apartment smells like lilies. I bought myself a pair of teetering heels. Like a note of intention in a wallet or under a pillow. I will have a needed cause to wear these heels before the month is through.

And if not, I'll wear them to Sunday brunch.

I feel the need to depart, if only for a moment, from the warm burnt palette I've been working with. And so, cool and quiet are the boat sheds and their reflections.

Kootenay 003

Today the blackberries in the forest were sweet and falling. There were no blackberries in the burnt meadows of the Okanagan.

New series forthcoming

Back from a two week vacation to the Kootenays. Taking a ferry back and forth from Nelson to the East Shore to jaunt between the cappuccino at Oso Negro and the americano at Mojo. 

Midnight ferries to Procter and wedding parades with flowers in hair and trumpets in the air. I had to travel to the ends of gravel roads and cafes near the water to get internet. My work blackberry made infrequent appearances. I even let the battery die for 1.5 days. It felt devilish and delicious.

There was a lot of naked and a lot of swimming in fresh water. Quiet conversations in the garden while gathering vegetables. Waking to chunks of freshly plucked cucumber with salt. A lot of hand holding. Skies so many layers deep with stars that the black was easier to pick out than the sparkle. A lot of silence -- outside and in.

I went away for many reasons. One of which was to take photographs. I took a lot of photographs. The landscape begged it. I could barely keep up.

To give to give to give

Finding beauty has always been a quest of mine. The unworded and uncommon beauty. The beauty of love.

These last weeks it has come to me. I did not have to search. It has been waiting in the sidelines for months with me pushing it away and ignoring and blindingly turning a cheek to natural interest.

This beauty has unwaveringly, diligently, and persistently made itself clear and known. And then I gave it a moment. Took a breath. Stumbled backwards for how much was already waiting in me to meet it.

And I learn what I already knew: reacting wider with trust and warmth is a sure way to glow, and a sure way to again hear the whispering of what my own self has desperately been repeating. And I learn to allow.

A girlfriend recently noted: have the confidence in your power to allow yourself to be vulnerable and girlish. I relish in the girlishness that is making itself known. And I have never felt safer.














Snippets from a weekend away. Where I had many, many hours to contemplate and not ignore the blossom inside.

Homes and strangers

A song my colleague has been playing incessantly throughout our open concept office while making his newest short film. Thank goodness there are no walls to keep this song from me while he edits, edits, edits.

And some rosy-apple-cheeked news for WHP! Landscape 020 was requested and taken on by Crate & Barrel for their Fall line.

I am in a stage of yes. A yes stage. You could ask me near anything.

Saying yes to this was different for me -- I have been in the habit of shelter and protect. My work. The quality. The client. The pathways. Myself.

There is much to shelter and protect against, I know this, but pushing myself just enough to place trust -- in others, in fate, in making mistakes -- this seems vital. I see thick walls and metal hearts and deep protection damage artists I have known. Damage people I have known.

It is liberating to have just enough control of quality and rights, and leave the rest to strangers I have never met.

And with this I will hope against hope to create small but meaningful relationships with more strangers across North America who may not have otherwise met my photographs and brought them into their lives.

Les bisous.

Little snippets for women I love

I like the small writings of Brian Andreas. He verges on childish but is eclectic and fantastical enough to keep le fromage at bay.

I was reading some of his writings this morning and found some bits that reminded me of women I know and love. Some timely, and some classic.

For Susan: In those days, we finally chose to walk like giants & hold the world in arms grown strong with love & there may be many things we forget in the days to come, but this will not be one of them.

For Claire: Deciding everything is falling into place perfectly as long as you don't get too picky about what you mean by place. Or perfectly.

For Sara: I sometimes wake in the early morning & listen to the soft breathing of my children & I think to myself, this is one thing I will never regret & I carry that quiet with me all day long.

For Taryn: If you hold on to the handle, she said, it's easier to maintain the illusion of control. But it's more fun if you just let the wind carry you.

For Nicole: Most people don't know there are angels whose only job is to make sure you don't get too comfortable & fall asleep & miss your life.

For Faye: You're the strangest person I ever met, she said & I said you too & we decided we'd know each other a long time.

For me: In my dream, the angel shrugged & said, If we fail this time, it will be a failure of imagination & then she placed the world gently in the palm of my hand.

I would like for us all to jump on that trampoline with cocktails in sippy cups.

Large format in Madison, Wisconsin

How WHP landscapes are intended: four feet high.



Thanks for the installation shot Carol!

xo,
WHP