ABOUT
Hi, I am Mel Collie, and for a long time, I though photography was about getting the shot right.
The correct exposure, using the rules, perfect composition, the image I would take that would finally prove I was good enough, worthy.
It took me well over a year, and a lot of quiet unglamorous inner work, to understand that the camera was never really the point.
It was a mirror ( and its not lost on me that my camera is mirrorless!)
Along the way, I became a student of something else entirely, understanding my own nervous system, my past history and the ways a childhood spent trying to be easy, agreeable, and invisible, had quietly shaped how I moved through the world, camera in hand or not.
I am a recovering people pleaser, a childhood trauma survivor.
I say this not because its the most interesting thing about me, but because its the thing that changed how I teach.
I stopped believing that creativity and healing were separate paths, and started understanding them as the same walk, seen from different angles.
I believe that:
Our creative work carries the imprint of our earliest stories whether we notice it or not
A dysregulated nervous system will always struggle to see clearly, creatively or otherwise
Rest, safety and slowness are not indulgences, they are part of the craft
Photography can be a genuine practice of coming home to yourself, not just a skill to master
If you are here, maybe some part of you is already looking for a way back to something quieter and more true. I would love to walk that road with you for a while.
Mel
Some days the lesson is technical, most days its this: slow down, breathe, look again.
