Turla Peterson
Eagle River Camera Club Featured Photographer for December 2019
Photographer\’s Statement
Within the confine of my imagination, I construct and build a world that is uniquely my own. I am always fascinated about art, how one can create something out of just imagination and bring to life to captivate audience. I am hoping that when they looked at my photograph, they can see a reality that takes us deeper and deeper in our inner emotion. It is my goal in photography to explore our experiences, our pain and the unexplored, bring it all to light and find beauty in each experience.
Art is subjective and each one maybe read or analyzed in many different ways. My photography comes from experiences, dark places hidden in the crevices of my mind, disturbing, provoking, sensual and beautiful. Our life is not so different from the world I created in photographs and yet oddly similar to many that fails to explore. My edited images are far from the original that comes out of a camera. I added texture to create a sense of old world photography or a painting quality. Each scratch, strokes, dirt, grimes gives the photograph a timeless quality. Light and tones are carefully played to highlight the subject and the surrounding.
I want my photograph to move beyond tradition, to mimic painting and explore a different form of art. I cannot paint and to express my love of painting I emulate painting through the use of textures over my images. This gives a unique feeling and touch to all my images that anyone can experience.
Portfolio
Lost – This is a story of girl that ventured in the forest, got lost and could not find her way back. Tired and hungry she decided to rest and take refuge under a tree not knowing the danger that awaits her. The idea comes from my childhood stories of creatures known as Busaw. They live in the trees and forest, comes at night to take children wondering in their realm.
The Entrance to Nowhere – is all about the journey we all take no matter how hard, difficult and dangerous it was. Often time we question ourselves if the path we took is the right one or sometimes we questioned if we should turn back and go back to the one that is familiar. In the end the decision is made, we look back on the life we left behind or should we go forward and face the unknown. Where to go? Only you can decide.
Secret Passage – this is a story of a forgotten child named Aithusa whose destiny is to save a great kingdom during the time of myth and magic. She was taken to a passage by the winged fairies, secret passage only know to the High Priestess of the Old Religion and will only return in time to battle the Great Evil Dark Witch. She herself alone has the power to wield the great staff of life, defeat the evil witch, bring life to land and fulfill her destiny as the bearer of the great staff.
To Free a Spirit – This is a story of a young woman known as the Bone Gatherer. She is plague by ghostly images in which most of them have been brutally dismembered and decapitated. The spirit will ask her to gather their bones so they may be whole again. She will gather these bones, take them deep into the forest, there she performed a ritual to free a spirit so that they can moved on peacefully in the place they called Stolvakor, the afterlife.
Whispers – is all about those nagging feeling we all have when we were young and do not know what it’s all about. Those nagging feelings or voices deep within ourselves are called whispers. It comes only once in a lifetime when the universe align itself and guide us to our hidden destiny. Once we missed it, it’s gone and lost forever. So many of us ignore this feeling or whispers that we missed it, never finding that there is something special about us. We never found out that we are here meant to do something great, beautiful and meaningful.
Miss T – Have anyone ever called you and wondered why the hell they called me that. One of my coworker before addresses me as Miss T at work, very rare anyone address me by my name. I take into consideration that he addresses me as Miss T out of respect for my intelligence, beauty and courage. This is paying tribute to the name that was bestowed upon me, which to me it meant as a sign of courage, grace, humility and for the love to those who respect others.
Time Forgets – is story of a woman who seats silently asking for spare change, clothes weathered, wrinkled face and grayed hair. People passed her by like she was not there, forgotten, abandoned and never existed. Time forgets is her story, a woman who experiences such tragedy in life and bear witness to the cruelty of time.
Forgotten Dreams – is all about choices in life and regrets that follows. We dream of life we all going to have when we grow up, a childhood dreams. Dreams that we have forgotten due to the passing of time. There will be a time when we will regret the choices we made that we wish we all could have made a different choice. We looked back on those forgotten dreams and wonder what could have been.
Coralynn – This is a story of a simple girl whose beauty and grace is unrivaled among her peers. Her life changed when 5 man abduct her, brutally assaulted her and left her to die. Found by a wandering strange woman, she utter a word “I need vengeance” on her last dying breath. With her dying wish, the strange woman perform a ritual where she cursed Coralynn to never rest, never sleep, never dies. Coralynn rose from the dead, more radiant, more beautiful and ready to take revenge. Many had said that on day time she is most beautiful, most innocent looking maiden you will ever see. At night she turned to a creature where her body divides into two, grew wings, fangs, claws and flies everywhere hunting, and hunting, and hunting. Coralynn a simple girl, born in simple life, in a simple family becomes the mother of all creatures known as “Mananangal”.
Amelia – is the most beautiful, most enchanting, most alluring and most of all; the most desirable courtesan. She was sold by her parent at very young age in the life of prostitution for a mere spare change. She was groomed in the art of seduction by an aging prostitute and soon become the most desirable of all. Although she had a choice of any powerful wealthy man, she chooses a simple life from a poor penniless farmer. Amelia; the most beautiful, most enchanting, most alluring courtesan chooses a life of happiness over the life of luxuries.