“What would our lives be like if our days and nights were as immersed in nature as they are in technology?”
― Richard Louv, The Nature Principle: Human Restoration and the End of Nature-Deficit Disorder

“We have such a brief opportunity to pass on to our children our love for this Earth, and to tell our stories. These are the moments when the world is made whole. In my children’s memories, the adventures we’ve had together in nature will always exist.”― Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder

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As Nature Connection Mentor as well as photographer, I spend half my time engaging in play, exploration, nurturing compassion, connection, resilience with the children. And then, the other half is spent in a kind of quiet awe, observing the many ways that time in nature, with lose parts, vast spaces, trees, rocks, pouring rain, darting squirrels absorbs the children so completely and draws out all manner of learning. I feel very lucky to do the work I do and to be able to witness and record the rich diversity of learning that can happen outdoors.

If you are interested in knowing more about my offerings as a mentor or as a photographer, I’d love to hear from you!

warmly and wildly,

Belinda White

Visit Apple Star Photo and Apple Star Learning on Facebook

forage photography

~ Celebrating Gifts ~

“You have no idea how hard I’ve looked for a gift to bring You. Nothing seemed right. What’s the point of bringing gold to the gold mine, or water to the ocean. Everything I came up with was like taking spices to the Orient. It’s no good giving my heart and my soul because you already have these. So I’ve brought you a mirror. Look at yourself and remember me.”
― Rumi

~ Magic ~

Celebrating Winter in style! So much fun….how I love this magic

When I asked Kat if she and her family would be into a celebratory play session at 8:20am as the sun rose behind the lake, she said, ‘Yes!!’ ~ Always up for some glorious costumed creativity and play. Why not celebrate this way?

Come visit me on Facebook and Instagram at @AppleStarPhhoto and book your session now! 15% Off Sale on Gift Certificates until Dec. 15th!

warmly and wildly,

Belinda White, Apple Star Photo

#celebratewinter#applestarphoto#troutlake#fallminis#miniphotosession#fallphotos#familyportraits#dawn#dawnsessions#troutlake#costume#costumeplay#winterportraits#holidayportraits#vancouverphotographer#candidfamily#vancouverphotography#miniphotoplaysessions

Why ‘Play’ sessions?

When it comes to gorgeous family portraits, there are two ways to go: formal posing or candid. I much prefer the second option. The trick is how to get everyone happy, smiling at the same time.

Play is the answer! I encourage the whole family to climb, jump, snuggle, kiss…this gets everyone feeling silly and warm, and helps the children relax, and those natural smiles and genuine closeness emerge.

“I just wanted to say that we thoroughly enjoyed our session with Belinda – she’s got a great way with kids and I loved her philosophy of capturing the truth, naturally. Highly recommend any family to work with her.”

“Ditto! Belinda was wonderful. Fun, warm, engaging and put our 2 year old at ease. Beautiful photos, I would highly recommend her “

“My family is so pleased with our photo shoot with Belinda White. She made us feel comfortable and at ease. Belinda’s relaxed but professional personality helped our family of five get beautiful photo’s that we can cherish for our lifetime.”

Available for Fall Mini Play Sessions as well as Full Lifestyle Family Sessions. Bring four friends, get 25% OFF your mini session!

I can’t wait to hear from you,

Belinda White, Apple Star Photo

#fallminiphotoplaysessions#fallportraits#applestarphoto#candidportraits#vancouverphotographers#kidfriendlyportaitsessions#fallminis#celebratefall#shiningfromtheinsi#celebratefall

~ Make, Forage Photography ~

Welcome to my ‘Make’ album. Foraging for me is more than just gathering wild food and making good use of it, it’s a way of life that sees bounty and beauty everywhere, that follows a trail of bread crumbs or seeds back into a deeper understanding of why we are here.
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I’m really leaning into what Forage Photography means to me, and wanting to tell the story about how @Forage.followthetrail came to be. Somehow, somewhere we lost the trail, pulled away from our intimate relationship to the land, how we make food, make beauty, make meaning.
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All, around me I see makers who are repairing this and I am so inspired! What happens when human hands gather, tend, create in a reciprocal, loving relationship with the earth? This! These are more than just local hand crafts, or wild crafts, they are stories that weave belonging, responsibility, wisdom into the objects, foods, ceremonies that we need to survive and thrive on a planet that is calling loudly for us to change they we consume. Stay tuned for more images. Come visit me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/forage.followthetrail/ or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/applestarphoto
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Deep gratitude to the many beautiful souls who are tending the earth, and sharing the gifts of their making hands; to the wisdom traditions and teachers who are passing on these vital crafts; to all our relations who continue to give of their bodies so that we can make clothing, food, shelter, art, ceremony; to all those who are gathering around the children these days to take them outdoors to make connections and fall in love with the land again; and with deepest thanks, humble gratitude to the unceded, ancestral Coast Salish peoples who have tended these lands for as long as anyone can remember so that I can live, work and play here.

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~ the river below the river ~

At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled
after a night of rain.
I dip my cupped hands. I drink
a long time. It tastes
like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold
into my body, waking the bones. I hear them
deep inside me, whispering
oh what is that beautiful thing
that just happened?

Mary Oliver, Blackwater Pond

I’ve been thinking about the Waters lately, how grateful I am for their flow, their kissing leaves, drumming on roofs and tarmac to get our attention, caressing the grooves in bark, running down trunks, into gullies, a million drops uniting to flow down deep into the loamy earth, quenching deep roots, carrying all that is nutritious and vital with them to feed underground streams and aquifers, following their original instructions to join the river of life. As we, in the Northern Hemisphere, enter the dark, fallow season, how can we tap into the teachings of the precious waters ~ the river below the river, ‘rio abacho rio’, as Clarissa Pinkola Estes calls it, this subterranean knowing?

“I feel like the earth, astonished at fragrance borne in the air, made pregnant with mystery from a drop of rain.” Rumi

_{^{“Be wild; that is how to clear the river. The river does not flow in polluted, we manage that. The river does not dry up, we block it. If we want to allow it its freedom, we have to allow our ideational lives to be let loose, to stream, letting anything come, initially censoring nothing. That is creative life. It is made up of divine paradox. To create one must be willing to be stone stupid, to sit upon a throne on top of a jackass and spill rubies from one’s mouth. Then the river will flow, then we can stand in the stream of it raining down.”}}

― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype

“Each [human] has potential access to Rio Abajo Rio, this river beneath the river. [They arrive] there through deep meditation, dance, writing, painting, prayermaking, singing, drumming, active imagination.” Clarissa Pinkola Estes

“From ‘the river beneath the river, ‘ I learnt to leap and keep going, to catch the verve of shout places, and if escape be needed, to make myself fine as mist. I learnt from rivers, that going to the edges will lead to Plato’s cave, that slots filled with debris often hold the oldest grandfather trouts, and that the middle of the river like the middle of so much in life, is often not the deepest.” Clarissa Pinkola Estes, The Soul is a River, The River is a Soul

“Silent friend of many distances, feel
how your breath enlarges all of space.
Let your presence ring out like a bell
into the night. What feeds upon your face

grows mighty from the nourishment thus offered.
Move through transformation, out and in.
What is the deepest loss that you have suffered?
If drinking is bitter, change yourself to wine.

In this immeasurable darkness, be the power
that rounds your senses in their magic ring,
the sense of their mysterious encounter.

And if the earthly no longer knows your name,
whisper to the silent earth: I’m flowing.
To the flashing water say: I am.”

Rainer Maria Rilke, Silent friend of many distances, feel

All images are copyright taken by myself as part of a wild being project except for the one of myself gathering bones by the bog, taken by Chantal Solomon, who I am deeply grateful for… it was a big step for me to embody my journey at the waters’ edge in this way, gathering bones form the wild. I am so grateful as well to all those protrayed in the images for their courageous commitment to their own wild paths, inner tacking, restoring relations to the earth through their gifts. Thank you! I thank also the rains, rivers, marsh, ponds, lakes and seas of the unceeded ancestral territories of the Coast Salish Peoples, where I work, live and play. #waterislife Last of all, how can I forget the poets and storytellers who share their #songlines with us so that we may find our ways home. With deep, humble love and gratitude, I thank Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Mary Oliver, Rainer Maria Rilke, Rumi and others whose words have not yet reached my ears.

with wild love, Belinda White

Forage ~ follow the trail….

“And the speck of my heart in my shed of flesh and bone, began to sing out, the way the sun would sing if the sun could sing, if light had a mouth and a tongue, if the sky had a throat, if god wasn’t just and idea but shoulders and a spine, gathered from everywhere, even the most distant planets, blazing up. Where am I? Even the rough words come to me, quick as thistles. Who made your tyrant’s body, your thirst, your delving, your gladness? Oh tiger, oh bone-breaker, oh tree on fire! Get away from me. Come closer.” Mary Oliver
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I’m in love with Mary Oliver, and a courtship with the land! With deep gratitude to the writers, the giants, whose shoulders we stand on, to my dear friend, Qristine, who does love a great questing, to the plant and tree beings ~ today, Oregon Grape, who offer medicine gifts at every turn, and, to the unceded ancestral lands of the Coast Salish Peoples, Cowichan, Tsawwassen, Tsawout, Malahat and Tseycum where this magical moment was captured by Apple Star Photo. For more #wildcrafted #inspirations, visit me on Instagram @Forage.followthetrail
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#leaf #fall #heart #landbody #originalinstructions #maryoliver #forage #foragefollowthetrail #treeonfire #tsawout #oregongrape #courtship #poetry #comecloser