Valerie Fernandez: Cultivating Artistic Expression
INTRODUCING VALERIE FERNANDEZ
Based in Vanuatu, Valerie was born to a Vietnamese mother and a French father. After spending a decade living in France, she has now settled back in this gorgeous island in the South Pacific Ocean. She is a mom to her three year old daughter, Moïra, and wife to Oli. She works closely with her couples to create absolute magic – she describes the drive behind the images that she creates in four words: intimacy, connection, passion and vulnerability.
Hi, I am Aida, host of My Wedding Season -The Podcast!
If you prefer listening, this blog post is also available in audio format on my podcast: Episode 09.
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MAIN TAKEAWAYS
Valerie specializes in underwater photography. The water is a key element in her art. In our time together on the podcast, she talks about how she has recently found her way back to the ocean. We discuss how loss and pain play an integral part in her story and work. We dive deep into her journey to find herr authentic artistic expression and voice.
One of my favorite quotes from Valerie during our conversation is when she said:
“And so, I started just going deeper and deeper and deeper into this underwater photography and what it means to me, not just in terms of creating something new and something artistic but I just realised the main thing was that I was feeling absolute joy.
I was just freeing myself as well. And allowing myself to still admire all of this beauty that you see on Instagram. But also thinking, that is fantastic. But this is not the way that I can go. But I can go down this way, and this way is also fantastic.
And the joy that you feel from creating something that is coming 100% from you, it’s free of influence, it’s free of trends, it’s free of whatever pressure we put on ourselves, because it is all coming from us. Nobody is telling you you got to be like this person, or this person, or this person. This is entirely us.”
– Valerie Fernandez
Based off of the quote by Marcel Proust “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes”, Valerie says “we don’t need new destinations, we need a new set of eyes”. She explains that photographers sometimes limit their creativity with excuses about where they are located – because as Valerie puts it “no matter where you live, it will always be easy to make up excuses like, oh I live in an industrial town, there is no big outdoors, there is no this, there is no that.”. She continues to explain that when you find not only your why, but also your practical physical space, magic can happen. Valerie feels that if people “just allowed themselves to look at their environment with kindness, rather than judgement, I am sure that magic is just around the corner.”
Episode & show notes: Cultivating Artistic Expression
Website: Salt & Shores Photography
Instagram: @valeriefernandezphotography
HERE IS A LOOK AT HER INCREDIBLE WORK
