TAKING pictures in black and white helps bring out aspects of the photograph that you usually won’t pick out in a coloured picture.
At least that’s what amateur photographer Michelle Neeling and her poetry friend Peter Sipeli seem to think.
Walking through the Waisiliva Gallery at Leleuvia Island Resort last week, I was struck by the amazing captures.
We were at Michelle’s first ever photo exhibition.
Attended by close friends and artists, the guests were treated to some interesting photography.
Most of the pictures were of Michelle’s trip to Leleuvia Island over the past year.
The pictures captured a carefree island life, of her two sons enjoying the beaches of the beautiful island in the Lomaiviti Group and the daily life on the resort.
“My father was a very keen amateur photographer so he had a dark room at home and he did a lot of his own work in developing photographs and I had a keen interest in photography,I studied it at school then I left it for a long time. It was only in the last ten years or so that I started to take it very seriously,” she said.
Michelle is a travel, lifestyle and events photographer based in Suva, Fiji.
She graduated from the Photography in the UK, and spent the last 30 years travelling the world using her camera to document her experiences.
She has lived in Australia, Japan, England and Palestine, Switzerland, France, Pakistan, and Fiji where she has been residing for two and a half years now.
She is adept at capturing the small moments that add up to long lives well lived. “The work that I do in Fiji is all for charities,” she shared.
“I do a lot of events for organisations such as Homes of Hope, WOWS Fiji – events photography that hopefully can raise some issues. I take pictures of WOWS kids families. I create a lovely occasion for them and take photographs of families and create memories for them and hopefully a few hours away from a difficult time in their lives – the initiative is called Asha Bula Project which started in April last year.
“So I send the entire image gallery to the families – I’ll send them two sets, we haven’t got to framing them yet. I created a Facebook page called Asha Bula Project and with each families I ask each of their consent if they would like to share their story. So I have friends who accompany me to the photo shoots, friends who are counselors and psychologists who interview the families, and find out more about their story and the children and we share it on our Facebook Page in the hope of raising awareness on childhood cancer.”
More on this story in today’s The Sunday Times and eEdition
