In my ongoing series Envisioning Habitat, I look beyond the
everyday world and create a new reality shaped from the
exquisite and sublime beauty of nature.
The images in the Envisioning Habitat series were photographed
in the wild: the flamingo in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, the
great blue herons in the Viera Wetlands and J.N. Ding Darling
National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island in Florida and the
saddle-billed storks in the Maasai Mara, Kenya.
When working in the field to photograph birds and landscapes
and then later in my studio to select and combine the related
imagery to include in my final images, I take creative liberties by
commingling the bird, their scale and their fantasy
environments. I imagine the essence of paradise and weave a
visual narrative echoing the Hudson River Valley artists who
blended multiple scenes from field notes and memory to create
their idealized, romantic and emotional paintings.
Examples of how my images turn into fantasy are apparent
when juxtaposing roseate spoonbills next to ocean waves rather
than the calm, shallow wetlands of Florida or the surreal image
of a great egret in Death Valley.
Passion, preservation and a life in harmony with nature are
some of the reasons I am a photographer. My hope is the
viewer will connect with those ideals through my images,
artwork and be mindful of the fragility and beauty of life.
Santa Barbara photographic artist Cheryl Medow creates images that entice the viewer to enter the natural world and envision her wild birds, in imaginary and real environments. Using classical and contemporary tools, Medow layers her photographs, weaving them together to create visual narratives.
Awards IPA 2014 Special Digitally Enhanced First Place Award; TPS:23 Texas Photographic Society 1st Place Award; published online in
PROOFPhoto Unrealism: Seeing Birds in a New Wild
http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2015/06/30/the-art-of-birds-revealed-through-an-altered-reality/ and http://www.socialmail.com/emails/national-geographic/11638212/sunday-stills-altered-reality-new-horizons SUNDAY STILLS; Juror's Award PhotoPlace Gallery 2016, Middlebury, Vermont; Cover, featured artist in the August 2017 publication of LensWork #131. Best Of Show and Judge's Choice awards in the Altered Reality category in NANPA's Showcase 2018; 2018 San Francisco Bay International Photo Show, ACCI Gallery in Berkeley,
CA
