Amy Haslehurst’s self-portraits are truly awesome! She is bright and talented like a movie star. Her photography is very refreshing and engaging. You can keep looking at her vibrant photos that are full of life! She is pouring all her efforts and emotions in her photography and that creates stunning effects and results. She is a magician creating wonders with her camera. It’s lovely glow of warm light and enchanting ambiance in her photos that impressed us a lot. Let us ask her how she creates such awesomeness:

Hello Amy! To begin with, tell us about yourself:

My name is Amy Haslehurst, I’m 19 years old and from Perth, Western Australia. I study Fine Art and Photography at university full time, part time doing hair and makeup. Other than that my time is divided between writing, watching films, reading and spending time with my love.

How did you land at a full-time photography and art course?

I was a pretty arty kid when in primary school, so naturally my teacher advised me into this PEAC photography course when I was 12. From there it was macro, and landscapes, using a really bad camera. Then I started seriously getting into it when I saw Lara Jades’ portraits (specifically her self portraits) and I was amazed how portraits could be more than portraits. They could be creative and expressive and almost like paintings. Then I took on a 365 project when I was 15, and that’s when I really grew. From then to now, its just been a steady process of photographing whenever I felt I needed to.

During the 365 project I had to balance school, and naturally my academic performance suffered a lot. It’s difficult to photograph when you have things to do in the day, but the best light around here is around 6:30 anyway so there’s always opportunities to shoot.

Tell us what interests you most in photography:

My main areas are fine art, portrait, and conceptual photography. What drives me is self expression, and I hope to create a finished image that is both aesthetically pleasing, dreamlike, or contemplative to the viewer. I use a Canon 500D and mostly my 50mm 1.4 lens.

I kind of switch between different editing software, I always recommend GIMP to people because its free and has most of the things you need. Other than that, I’ve been using Lightroom a lot lately and Photoshop CS6 sometimes as well. As much as I understand and appreciate the view that photographs should be true representations of reality, I think photo manipulation has opened up realms of both good and bad but I love to mesh art and photography together and that simply couldn’t be done as easily without it.

How do you define your method of taking photos:

When I shoot I get into a completely immersive head space, that I don’t even really register what I’m doing, it just happens. I can get myself into pretty risky situations for a photo though! I like to bring my own head space out into the environment of a photo. The landscape inside the photo that I exist in becomes my solace.

Aren’t we seeing too much of teen photography these days?

There has always been an influx of young photographers out there, mostly people who see others on Flickr or wherever else and wish to emulate them. That usually goes past in a bit of a phase (I’ve had so many friends and family follow in my footsteps for a while). But those who stick with it, I’m talking about the long term, highly viewed Flickr members who have really grown and matured in their photography, they are the true photographers. They do their own thing. I’ve been on the site for over 5 years and a lot of my older work was not really what people were doing at the time, but self portraiture has really become big. I didn’t really know many others who did similar photographs to me.

But it does turn into images which look all like:

Unfortunately, the cliche element comes in when people really copy others to the point it is unquestionable. You can tell by a persons stream if they are doing it for popularity or if they really want to express themselves. I have come across a few people (shall not name) who I just sat there in awe, recognizing every single photo they had copied, saving their work, and making power-points of them alongside the originals, just so I could see the extent of the copying. There’s no denial about those. When you’ve been on Flickr for so long, you know the big works and you can recognize when they are copied.

How is the landscape around your place, Amy?

The landscape is pretty barren here, and there’s a lack of rain and green forests, tall mountains or snow. I work with what I can  though - the low, golden sunsets, perfect beaches, what greenery is left. I think the light is very unique here. I shoot wherever  the light is low. I guess when you have been photographing for so long, you start taking visual photographs in your head if you  see something beautiful. Your always framing the world.

Who do you turn to get inspiration and motivation?

I browse my Flickr friends works often, but they influence my own work pretty minimally. The way I feel inspires the photos -  emotion is the driver of almost everything in the world I think. I have tones of favourites but at the moment I am really loving  Mattjin, Vincent Bourilhon, and Billeh Ratsphangthong on Flickr, and I always, always love Jenn Violetta.

Keeping motivated is difficult for me. Especially when you shoot by yourself, of yourself. Carrying equipment is a struggle. My  boyfriend is a brilliant landscape photographer so he helps me out sometimes.

Tell us how should one take pics like yours:

My advice would be stay true to yourself, and don’t be reluctant to tackle dark themes.

Amy Haslehurst links: Website * Flickr

Note: All images appearing in this post are the exclusive property of Amy Haslehurst and protected under the International Copyright laws.