The Dark Beauty Workshop
Revisiting our story, personal power, and reason for creating.
Using Photography as our Voice for the Emotional Story Telling others deserve to hear.
A Workshop to make our Art mean more by recognizing the beauty many choose to fear instead of embrace in moments of darkness.
What you’re looking at are my personal images captured through out the Dark Beauty Workshop I hosted using a modern camera paying homage to the classic Polaroid. Every image was shot on instant film using a Lomo Instant, scanned in, and very lightly (if at all) retouched in Photoshop.
This isn’t a review of the Workshop I hosted as much as it is a celebration of how inspirational the day was for me thanks to the people involved.
I dreamed up, organized, and advertised this event in less than 3 days. I was able to do that not because I’m talented at last minute tasks, but because it came pouring out of me, straight from my heart, totally in alignment with who I am and everything I feel passionate about. When things are so “you” they just flow, they are second nature, there is no thinking, there is just organic action being taken, there are no moments of your head saying- Is this right? Will people relate? Should you rethink this?
There’s no reason to ask those questions because if you’re dreaming and creating from a pure place it most certainly is right.
I’ve always been drawn to Dark Beauty, but was never exactly sure why. I have never sat down and analyzed what it is, visually, that makes me drawn to it. I just knew it spoke to me. Writing out this Workshop forced me to look deeper into WHY these images visually and emotionally feel so powerful to me. I had to break down the system, create a method, explain story, emotion, light, color, texture, location, wardrobe, editing, What I found out, when broken down, was truly enlightening for myself, which made teaching it in detail such a gift.
The main thing we talked about in detail before we went out to shoot was our why, our story, our voice, our power as photographers and artists.
We also talked about where the darkness comes from and that was the moment I finally realized why I am so obsessed with dark beauty.
It’s not the creepiness factor, it’s not the shadows or the mystery, it’s not even the controversial aspects.
It’s taking a part of our lives that everyone, if they were being truthful, could relate to, shining just enough light on it, and making it beautiful, even in a way that feels uncomfortable. I think it’s life- as we truly know it. Dark Beauty doesn’t allow us to paint a picture of life like how some of us pretend to know it when we are in denial. Dark Beauty is not a portrayal of what we wish life felt like every day. And Dark Beauty is certainly not what we tell people when they ask how we are and we respond with “Good, thanks!” because we think they can’t handle the truth, relate to it, or will judge it.
Dark Beauty is everything we all feel or experience at some point in our lives and are finally brave enough to celebrate it in a way that reassures us- it’s not all darkness.
You might wonder how we can take dark things or dark times and celebrate them. Well…. I think there comes a point in a confronting and difficult journey that we decide to go under with it, or we decide to come out of it, and for me, there’s just something that sparks, and creating an image to physically and visually remind me of my power is the process of coming out of it.
It is in that moment when you realize you will fight back, you will rise above, you will conquer, you will be set free, you will tell your side of the story, that the darkness can no longer ignore the beauty and power that surges through you. That is what I teach at workshops like this.
That is Dark Beauty.
Building the sets with my husband in the woods, organizing wardrobe with the models, location scouting over coffee and car rides, wracking my brain to break down such an emotional process and give it text book instructions… it was small steps that lead me to standing behind a group of inspiring photographers capturing their own stories, shooting in a way that said something, reinventing themselves, re-finding themselves… it was a day filled with dark details to be beautifully captured and felt. As I watched and guided I randomly slipped in, plastic camera in hand, shooting with what left like a toy. The film would slide out and I would hide it in my inner breast pocket of my coat to develop, as the open air was a bit too brisk for the process. Through out the day I just kept adding to the pocket, no clue what I was creating until the very end of the day when I took them back out.
I can’t remember the last time I went into a creative process so free. And sure- these may not be ground breaking or technically right- but the whole unexpected experience of creating, painting with light, in the moment with just my heart and not my head was a pure joy and the end results are SO far from what I normally create that it has inspired me on a whole new level, all over again.