German Girl

If you have visited my website recently and looked through previous blog posts this image will be familiar to you. I have used it often and I'll be using it again for my website opening page and for website promotional postcards.

It is one of my favourite pictures for several reasons. Having the photograph taken is one of my first memories. I can clearly remember the photographer sitting at our dining room table filling in the hand colouring sheet, "blue eyes, oh no green eyes, um no blue eyes, yes blue eyes" (I actually have green eyes). Also I look more like my father in the photo - German with blonde hair and blue eyes. Now I am definitely more like my Italian mother. It reminds me that I am both, and this European heritage is important and influenced what I do. Also the image is a photograph and photography is the first creative area I studied outside of school. At 15/16 I spent each Saturday for a year studying at The Australian Centre For Photography and it was fabulous. I went onto study photography at TAFE and East Sydney Tech and had several darkroom and was passionate about Diane Arbus. I really didn't enjoy taking photography or was even any good at it but I loved manipulating images in and out of the darkroom. Again I'm sure this affects what I do now, and more so as I add printed images to my work later in the year.

I want to thank Miss Rebecca Ward (Kellee Uhr had called me Miss Liana and now it is one of my favourite terms for my favourite people - thanks Miss Kellee) and her lovely partner Wayne, for spending the time in PhotoShop resizing and adding text. Your efforts are appreciated and there is a Tiramisu coming your way (they are terribly dessert deprived).