WENDY HURST PORTRAIT

I have a phobia of swimming in open water. It's not because of the movie Jaws  or all those episodes of Shark Week on the Discovery Channel I grew up watching, I just hate not being able to touch the bottom when I'm swimming. I didn't learn to swim until I was 12 and the bottom of the pool, lake, ocean, or whatever was my safety. It's what kept me alive. You're probably expecting me to say something like, "Now that I took this image underwater my fear of swimming in open water is cured!" but it's not. In fact, I'm not even underwater in this image. In preparation for last Valentine's Day I took some images intended to develop into a beautiful heart gown flowing in the wind. It never worked out the way I wanted but I still had images in motion on hand. I also went to the zoo this week and took some quick snapshots of the seal aquarium for an image just like this--all without getting wet. Someday I might conquer my fear of swimming in open

Here's the short of it: I'm officially uninvited from seasonal yard work--specifically pruning. For some reason whenever I see branches cut away from the trunk of a tree my instinct is to connect them to something artistically. Could they be arms? A bed of leaves? What color could they become? This year I just went for it and recruited the help of the one who cut down the branches in the first place: my husband. Self portraits are more fun with help. And, as it turns out, an unintentionally sneaky way to avoid future yard work. (I'll still help anyway.) "Pruning Day", Self Portrait Wendy Hurst Portrait

I've had face paint burning a hole in my bathroom drawer for years and never took the opportunity to take it out. What if it looked ridiculous, I thought. What if I couldn't make it look good? And then one day I decided I didn't care and recruited Melissa and Maren to model it for me. No story ahead of time, no real plan, we just met at a local trailhead and ran around smearing face paint, throwing flour into the air and dashing across a shady field with different colored fabrics--which made me absolutely believe our shoot together was meant to be. Without prior discussion, I simply asked each of them to wear a dress and I would bring some fabric to meld into their dress. Cross my heart, I didn't change the shade of the blue in Melissa's dress to match my fabric; the colors were identical . I also brought a black, stretchy cut of lacy fabric--and Maren wore black. See? Meant to be. Whenever I do a photo shoot I try really hard to go in with intent and a story. N