About Poppy
I live in the Pacific Northwest and go back and forth between city life in Seattle and island life on one of the beautiful San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington State. My work is an expression and combination of both worlds. I aspire to live a rich creative life and spend hours surrounded by the beauty of nature.
My photographs are sometimes described as “dark and moody.” I truly love darkness and have always been drawn to it as a quiet inner space without distraction. Although many people fear the dark and experience it as sad or scary, I find it calm and full of wonder.
The light in my photographs is a safe path into and out of the darkness. If you follow the light, you can become more deeply present, always knowing you can leave at any time using the light as a guide. Darkness allows me to experience things deep within myself with more of a knowing than a seeing. The light brings those internal things to life. Beauty creates the magic that joins the two worlds together.
My process is deeply personal and intuitive. I take most of my photographs in the early morning hours just as the sun is rising. I love the quiet beauty at that time of day along with the feeling of hope and possibilities. I’ll often go outdoors in the garden or into the forest and find whatever catches my eye. I always begin my process with something from nature that calls my attention.
My set-up is very simple and I only use natural light. I try to keep the process as meditative and quiet as possible to allow myself to get lost in the beauty. Later in the day when I look at the photographs it can almost feel as if the whole experience was a dream.
