About Melissa

From a young age, my curiosity always led me to investigate my father's film canisters, unknowingly exposing rolls of film from his travels as a location manager on films sets. Yet it was in my early twenties, after graduating art school in England, and during teacher training in Australia, I felt called into the life of a photographer. I was a student of the late Dr. John Diamond, practicing the arts, and music, as modalities for healing for myself and those in my professional care. 

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At his encouragement, I began curating, editing, and printing his photographs and art. Later he urged me to purchase my first professional Nikon camera and macro lens. I still remember the feeling the first time I looked through the viewfinder; a new sense of my surroundings that calls to mind the words of John O'Donohue: "If we could look at the world in a loving way, then the world would rise up before us full of invitation, possibility, and depth. The loving eye sees through and beyond the image and affects the deepest change."

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Since then, photography, teaching and healing have brought me across four continents into the lives of children, adults, and elders. In sharing they're life stories, they have shaped my own, most especially the girls and young women who grow through their personal challenges, trauma, or illness upon discovering and developing their creative abilities.

I am so thankful that photography also opened my eyes to the natural world, and in doing so renewed my sense of belonging. In learning to read the textures of the wild, I've experienced perhaps what the Japanese call ikigai, a motivating force and inner fulfillment that follows when people pursue their passions. I hope to express gratitude to Mother Nature through my art and writing about the environment and the encompassing cultures, folklore, myths, and science, while inspiring younger generations to learn from and heal through Her.

I've traveled to photograph nature, bringing the outdoors indoors for patients in hospitals and healthcare, and it is always deeply reassuring that even in our closest surroundings, our backyard even, that we may find that special sense of wellbeing for others, as well as ourselves.​

I continue to create, to educate and I hope, to heal.​

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