A little bit about Andrea (also known as Andy)

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Self portrait while filming the gannet colony on Bird Island Marine Protected Area in Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa, 2008

There is a fundamental universality to our experiences of life: the details vary yet we recognise our own stories in those of others. Although my photographs grow from my story, it delights me that each picture carries a unique tale for every viewer.

My conceptual photographs are visual metaphors for the less tangible emotional aspects of personal life experiences, while my nature cameos and landscapes are simply for the delight of sharing the ‘breathspace’ nature conveys.

Over the years photographing nature organically became a meditation for me. With my camera in hand framing my vision, I slip into a calmness and focus, a complete presence in the present moment, be it during the process of capturing light in my camera or later moulding what I've caught in my digital lightroom.

BIOGRAPHY:

More autodidact than academic, I found I learned less through institutions and more through reading, observing, questioning, and good old ‘trial-and-erro-oh-wow!’

After somehow surviving a stifling schooling with my creativity intact, I skipped both tertiary education and Jo’burg to venture abroad, alternating between freelancing as a self-taught graphic designer and hitching rides to go hiking around some of the wilder places in the world, directed by whim, happenstance, and intuition. My backpack/pet monster carried all I needed: tent, stove, and sleeping bag as well as a pair of lightweight film cameras, a few rather heavier lenses, and an even heavier tripod.

Six years, four continents, and plenty of University of Life education later, I landed in Cape Town and started my own business: primarily graphic design until photography overtook it completely. For over a decade I played with various creative styles of interior, portrait, and wedding photography, which I found both thoroughly enjoyable and, thanks to my perfectionist tendency, extremely stressful. Photographing wild natural places, although requiringa a lot of energy, was always rejuvenating. Life events and wellbeing eventually determined that I ease my pace and I came to focus purely on selling my fine art and nature stock photography via my online gallery and exhibitions.

Equal to my enjoyment in wrangling light into stories is my fondness for wrangling words into images which, over the years, has found expression via my 'Breathspace pic of the week’ (a slightly erratic, sort-of-weekly e-prezzie) and a work-in-progress titled ‘Life Light’ — a mingling of my delight in words, pictures, drawings, and natural wisdoms.

Inspiration comes to me from so many varied sources — mainly in the natural world although I’m always looking to create something new, something that either conveys the emotion of the time and place or evokes a unique emotion in the viewer, something that hasn’t been done in quite the same way before. And I am compellingly drawn to beauty, and quirkiness, and interestingness.

I currently live on a sea-breeze-swept mountainside of the Cape Peninsula with no cats or dogs,  which means frequent visits from porcupines and field mice, and the rare encounter with tiny klipspringer antelope.

My artworks have been displayed in various group art exhibitions and art fairs around South Africa and online.

 What makes me go "ooh!", "aHh..." & "yum!"?

Even when we're not able to do all the things we love, our enjoyment and appreciation of them is still present, and so I thoroughly enjoy hiking, kloofing, boulder hopping, rock climbing, tree climbing, tree planting, tree hugging, hugging people, marvelling at wild flowers, marvelling at wild animals, and at human nature, unzipping my tent at dawn in a remote spot, writing (or doodling) with a fine pen on smooth paper, swimming in wild places, swimming in a calm sea, surfing, travelling with nothing but my pack and instincts, making plans then spontaneously changing them, snowboarding on fresh powder, photographing nature with a wide angle lens, photographing nature with a macro lens, photographing people to show them their own intrinsic beauty, walking barefoot, talking nonsense, reading inspiring literature, napping in a hammock, hearing snippets of conversation by passers-by, watching just about everything (occasionally even some television), learning about anything, eating, drinking (rooibos, rooiwyn, and the fresh tannin-tinted mountain water of the Cape), enjoying friends, enjoying solitude, running around madly, sitting quietly doing nothing, laughing (especially at myself), experiencing life...

Thank you for reading this little snippet about me. May you enjoy a sense of breathspace while you browse, and please feel free to share your thoughts with me!