Today I am finishing up with my Mermaid Series and that means it’s time to share! This project kind of came about spur of the moment. I had seen a cool Mermaid portrait online and at first I thought that would make a super cool Maternity portrait idea. It was of a momma mermaid cuddling her young mermaid daughter, simple blue background but looked like they were floating in the depths of the ocean. Well that got me obsessing about Mermaids so this project was born.
My intent this year is to create fine art pieces to enter in to competition, so that will mean I need to stretch my abilities to really create a strong body of work that shows skill and creativity. Not all the projects I do will be competition worthy but the more I create the better my skills become and by the end of the year I should have a collection of really strong work I can compete with. My original thoughts were to keep it simple, like the image I had seen that inspired me. But true to form I tend to overcomplicate things, these images ended up being much more than just a simple underwater background where just the subject and the posing would change.
My original intent too was for the image to be anonymous, not a portrait of “Sally”, but a portrait of any mermaid any person could see themselves in. However, I love portraits of people, I love to see faces and expression and usually care less about the lower half of the body. So it wasn’t much of a surprise to me that these two were the first two portraits I created. Not exactly the scenic art piece I was going for, simple but still very much a portrait of “Sally”. Still, sometimes the images create themselves and these are both stunning!
Portrait Two Model: Sheri Smith
Then I got back on track and created a this one and that pretty much dictated how the rest of the series was going to go, not simple. Ha! But I love it. Little bit of Goonies influence here I think.
When I shot this next image I had a storyline in mind, a mermaid captured, held hostage, taken to a market far away on a ship. She conjures up a storm which sinks the ship and this next image is one of that story line. Perhaps there will be more, but I need some pictures of a ship to use and I am still searching for the right one. If I completed this story I would enter it in to a competition as a collection. But I will need to find the right competition where I can use stock photos as secondary images, some competitions allow use of stock photos and some do not. Or I will need to find a vintage pirate ship to take photos of myself…..so this story is to be continued.
Yesterday I was feeling super inspired and creative. I shot this session in the morning and did both of these images by 8pm last night. Normally a fine art piece will take me between 4-8hours to complete. Sometimes the pieces come together so easily, and sometimes they do not.
Sometimes I have to fight to get an image to take form like I see it in my head. I’ve been working on this last one for a week. This one fought me but I finished it up this morning and now I am tired of Mermaids:) Just kidding.
There may be more to add to this series as time goes, there were several other poses from each session that would make a great image. For now this is where it stands. I did do one of myself as a test run when I started this project and I feel I should share it as these lovely ladies are allowing me to share their images. As per usual I use non-professional models as my subjects and I want to thank Sheri, Ashliegh and Amanda for stepping outside their comfort zones and being a part of this project. What’s next? I will be continuing on with my Fearless project, portrait is titled: Grizzly Bear Hunter.
Available for commissions. If you want to be a Mermaid or have another cool idea, let’s talk!
