Welcome to the Forest. I'm Whitney.
Mine is not a story of a young girl picking up a camera for the first time and immediately falling in love with the art form.
No, I got my first camera in my late teens, a Nikon Coolpix, circa 2005, purple if memory serves, which was unceremoniously stuffed into the back pocket of my jeans and taken to the bar to document drunken (mis)adventures otherwise destined to be forgotten.
My first foray into photography as art came along later, quietly and unpredictably, when I was 30 years old and in darkness, in the midst of changing my life as I had always known it. In 2017, I got a Nikon D3400, which is the camera I still use to this day.
I nearly quit in those first years, many times. Nearly tossed the camera to the back of my closet and moved on. I am no gracious and patient beginner, I'll be honest. I saw things with my eye and quickly grew frustrated that I couldn't capture it the same way.
But something continually pulled me back to photography. Nature and I had become acquainted in those years, and I found her company to be everything I needed, even when I couldn't capture her in a photograph. She brought peace. Solace. Comfort. And immeasurable beauty.
And so I returned again and again to nature, always my camera slung over my shoulder. And I learned. I learned many things. To use the device I held in my hands, yes, such things come with practice. But more importantly, I learned to slow my pace; to notice, to look, to feel.
Now, photography is something I cannot live without. Just as I cannot live without regular time in the deep quiet of the forest.
And with my photos, I hope to capture a sliver of the magic I am surrounded by. I hope to bring to life the small and often overlooked beauty, the things we walk right by without ever noticing. I hope to share a reprieve from the chaos of the world, a space and moment in time to just be, to just breathe.
Thank you for taking a moment to get to know me, to get to know my art, and to pause for a moment in a quiet forest.
With love from the forest,
Whitney
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All my work is captured around my home, in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. ♡
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Oh, and this was a neat experience—thank you, Substack.
