Posted on July 30, 2019
forage ~ iris leaves
Posted on July 17, 2019
Clay Portraits
Taken at Firemaker 2019 during The Elemental Spa
“Firemaker is a bridge between worlds, a thread that connects present and past, that weaves us back to our ancestors. It is a place where we scrape away the layers of machine made paint society coats us in, dip our hands into warm clay and paint ourselves in the flesh of Mother Earth. As our wild selves we gather, painted in her skin, One with all living things; we are kin.” Jade Cobain, Herbalist
“Elemental spa is a great way to feel physically connected to nature and the elements around you. Free from shoes and clothes we instead cover our bodies with the Earth. A layer of warm detoxifying clay, some splatters of charcoal and mud, wrappings of ferns and a sprinkle of pine needles we blend into the land (except when parading throughout the Firemaker property wolf-calling with instruments sounding off). After arriving at the river for a cold plunge to wash off the clay we gather around a warm fire heating a pot of fresh seaweed and massage stones. The warm fresh water bursts the cells of the seaweed producing a nourishing gel. We wrap ourselves and others in the warm fronds and soak up the benefits of our coastal seaweed. A hot stone and oil massage, songs and more dips in the river continue to raise the bliss. It’s an experience not to be missed at Firemaker.” Taylor Mar, Primitive Skills mentor and co-owner of Ragnarok Studios
“A long time ago, when kayaking the coast, I shipwrecked on Wolf Island. Badly injured, and my whereabouts completely unknown, I utilized the only things I had available to heal my bashed up body: fire, sun, seaweed, rocks and clay. It worked, applying the warmed up seaweed and sloshy clay to my body, then the hot rocks, I healed my wounds well enough to fix my boat and journey home. Thus the Elemental Spa was born.
I have brought the Elemental Spa to Firemaker to help bring out the Wild Thang in each of us, and modified it to incorporate primal chanting, wild adornment and river re-birth. I can’t imagine doing Firemaker without bringing the Spa there every year now.
The Elements provide deep healing and nourishment for body, mind and soul. 🔥🌲💦💨. Breathe deeply and conjoin these powers into the marrow of your being. Aho.” Dante Chicano, Rewilding Mentor at the Elemental Academy and Member of The Shire at The Elemental Collective
Thank you to Dante and Tom for offering The Elemental Spa at Firemaker Traditional Skills Gathering. I am ever grateful for your generous, playful, beautiful offerings. I am grateful as well to the community we weave together and the safety of the container we all hold as a village. Thanks, finally to the land, The Brown River, and the glorious Salish Sea, the unceded territories of the K’omocks, Coast Salish, Nuu-chah-nulth, and Kwakwaka’wakw peoples.
wildly,
Belinda White
To learn more, please visit http://www.firemaker.org, http://www.facebook.com/applestarphoto, https://www.facebook.com/ragnarockstudios/, https://www.facebook.com/SoulFireFamily/
Posted on April 20, 2019
Just in time for Mother’s Day ~ One spot Left!!
>>>Spring Minis Photo Play Sessions!<<<
Friday April 4-5pm Queen Elisabeth park – Booked Up!
Saturday April 9-10am Trout Lake Park – Booked Up!
Sunday April 4-5pm Stanley Park / Queen Elizabeth park – Two spots left
Choose either a $45 ~ 5 / $65 ~ 10 High res, Pro-edited digital images.
Special 15% discount for Single Mamas
To Book, DM me at www/facebook.com/applestarphoto
Posted on April 20, 2019
A Beautiful Belly ~ apple star photo
A Beautiful Belly ~ Maternity Sessions @AppleStarPhoto . . .
There is really nothing more stunning, more precious, and life-altering than carrying your baby.
A woman is transformed by this experience in ways that words can’t capture…whether it is your first or your third child, those 9 months that your baby is growing within you, when you have them so close, so silent, right there, are a precious time worth remembering for ever.
For many of us, the changes to our bodies and hormones are shocking, if miraculous, and can have us travelling waves of emotion. Each of us experience this time in our own unique ways, and each pregnancy is different, and yet we are all woven into a shared experience when we begin this journey, aren’t we?
You are beautiful, you are strong, you ARE MIRACULOUS!
I am honoured and ever so grateful for the women who have trusted me with the tender work of capturing their beautiful bellies.
Let me help capture this precious time with you. Feel free to message me at http://www.facebook.com/applestarphoto for more information, or check out my Facebook an Instagram pages for updates, mini sessions and more.
kindly,
Belinda White, Apple Star Photo
. . . #maternityphotography #beautifulbellies #abeautifulbelly #babybump #maternityphotosessions #pregnancy #expectingmotherportraits #vancouverphotographer #maternityphotographer #vancouvermatenityphotographer
Posted on March 8, 2019
Winter Mini Photo Play Sessions!
Play sessions are a fun no pressure way to get the whole family on board for lovely candid portraits. It’s not always easy whether with toddlers or teens!
Thanks to Lorenita Jacome for trusting me with your family for a sweet session at Trout Lake!
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#winterminis #winterminiphotoplaysessions #applestarphoto #candidfamilyportraits #familyportraits #playsessions #applestarphoto #vancovuerportraitphotographers #vancouverfamilyphotographer
Posted on March 1, 2019
wild play
This March Celebrate Wild Play!
Wild Play! My favourite passion both as a photographer and mama, nanny, and outdoor educator. It’s wonderful out there these days during this magical overlap between Winter and Spring, West Coast Style, and I’ve been feeling really grateful for the wonderful green spaces in Vancouver and my Embodied~Play friends.
I shared an important blog post from 1000 Hours Outside on my page Apple Star Learning recently that is really popular among my outdoor educator community, but that I am yearning to share it more widely. It recommends children be outside 4-6 hours daily! Wow, that’s a lot, isn’t it? It goes on to state, “the current statistics say that the average child only gets 4-7 minutes of outdoor free play every day”!
Why is unstructured or free outdoor play so important? The author of the above mentioned post, Ginny, writes, “Children who are allowed this freedom of time outside get lost in nature. They get lost in their imaginations and they get lost in wonder. And then they rapidly develop. There are many factors why but one reason is due to the rich sensory environment that nature always provides.” And, I couldn’t agree more.
With the children I work with as a mother, nanny, Art~Play mentor and Embodied~Play host, I have observed again and again the incredible benefits of extended, repeated free play outdoors, in playgrounds, back yards, but better in less confining and structured environments, where the mind, heart and body can wander off into imagination, solitude, listening, risk-taking, and tinkering among other activities. I love, of course to document my observations and share the story of wild play through photography!
What are the benefits of unstructured wild time in nature?
Spending time in Nature makes you happier, calmer, kinder, more creative.
The development of Executive Function in children, skills such as resilience, delayed gratification, self-moderation, cooperation, problem-solving, focus and creativity among others, are much more present in children and youth who get a lot of free outdoor time.
Furthermore, time in nature helps parents and children bond and build healthy long-term relationships that last into the teen years. There are incredible resources available to help parents and teachers alike such as this one at the Children and Nature Network.
Above all wild play for both children and adults nurtures our deep nature connection. Core routines, like practicing a sit spot or listening to birds awaken our senses and enliven our relationship to place. “People can relate to bird language in a deeply human and truly ancient way”, Jon Young, founder of the 8 Shields, describes in this article How Bird language Helps Us Connect .
This is all very well, though, but how on Earth are we supposed to carve out this time, and what are we supposed to do outdoors?
Here are some suggestions from my post on my page .

Plastic Portrait
Posted on January 24, 2019

What makes a good portrait?
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I really love this one, part of a series of self portraits I took when I was beginning a Self-as-canvas project, adding variously coloured streaks to my hair to represent the ages of womanhood. It’s a pretty genuine, honest, authentic capture of me, I feel. I have a strong gaze and comfortable pose. The side lighting adds colour, drama, sculpting – it makes me look thinner than I am. It is edited, selected from others that were less flattering, I increased the contrast and saturation very slightly to emphasize the sculpting. I believe I smoothed my skin ever-so-slightly. Still, you can see the fat in my arms, the slightly dimpled uneven skin, some wrinkles on my chest and neck, my dark under eyes…
I could go on….why am I bothering to tell you all this? Well, because this is what we all do, we scrutinize our images, looking for faults, never good enough. And now, as never before, we can ‘improve’ them, smooth away our flaws. Messenger does it for us. Apps abound to edit away all that is unwanted. And, where my friends does that leave us?
If we struggle so much now with self acceptance, body love, aging, how will our children manage in the age of the Plastic Portrait?
As a photographer, I work with many women, and I have yet to meet one who dosn’t struggle with how she looks. I see the same with men, but the rhetoric is different. I am focusing here on my own experiences, and images captured as an extended self portrait process to explore this and hopefully reveal something both about myself, but also about all women, and even society and what the culture of the plastic portrait is ushering in. My greatest desire, though, of course is to inspire change, to embolden women to take back their art, radicalize the selfie, create portrayals of beauty that go far beyond the merely slim, fit, youthful, firm, happy. Now that each of us has the tools in our hands, will we wield them? How will we choose to use our smart phones and cameras and editing apps and software? What imagery will we broadcast to the world about women, beauty, youth, aging, diversity, inclusion, consumerism?
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Compare the following three images! They are all me, one taken by a loving partner with a pro Nikon, the other two selfies taken with an ipad. My expressions in each are loving, sweet, feminine, even sexy. I know that I am adored, that I am attractive, either by another, or by myself. The first two are a couple of years earlier, and perhaps I look younger.
For all of you that are really loving the first of the three! Really? Shame on you!
It’s been edited out of reality. Every blemish, mole, wrinkle, imperfection on my face has been removed, smoothed out. My skin has never looked like this, not even when I was 5! I don’t pluck my eyebrows and there are errant hairs there, as well as on my chin. ;) The colour and brightness of my eyes has been enhanced a lot, as well as my lip colour. I don’t know how to alter the shape of my jaw, otherwise I would have made it less rounded and ‘chubby’! Oh, did I mention I added the auburn streaks into my hair in post?
The second two images were both taken on ferry trips back home after glorious Summer adventures. I am happy, sun baked. In the first, I was clearly feeling sexy and wanting to share that, longing to reconnect with my lover at home, no doubt! The setting sun fills in all my wrinkles, and gives me a glorious glow, accentuating my cleavage with my honey drop pendant! I am sure I pumped the saturation a little and warmed up the image to bring out that gold and auburn.
The last image is by far my favourite. It’s me, it’s really me. I mean the other two are as well. But this one is just me looking at me without much attempt to add or take away. I remember exactly how I felt and what I wanted to capture of that moment and myself in it – I felt loving towards myself, grateful for my life, deeply proud and honoring of that stage of my journey. I think it shows. I think the image is faded slightly, and there is a vignette on it. But it shows my skin, my eyes as they are.
I am a 48-50 year-old woman! Am I attractive? Are you attracted to me? Are you curious abut my story? My motivations? My gifts?
Which image is more alluring to you?
And then there’s happiness!
We can’t possibly show the world we are sad, lost, unfulfilled, angry, broken.
I love these two! One shows me blurred, arguing, which frankly is the way a lot of people see me. The other is a selfie on a bad day, I’m frowning. I shared this one on social media, and got critiques from my friends – who wants to see this, this is not who you are, how you usually are Belinda! We only want yoru cheerful, dynamic, or sexy side. Both images are edited for different effects, one black and white to emphasize the blur, the other made more green to bring out the gloom.
So, really what does all this say? I’m not sure. I haven’t included an image yet that I simply don’t like of myself, where I look kind of fat, or super asymmetrical, or cross-eyed like most of the images from my childhood.
Here’s one that is me happy, natural, laughing – but, I don’t like it! Why? I look too old, too fat….I smoothed out the wrinkles just a tad here, can you tell?
Join me in creating, capturing and spreading a more diverse imagery of beauty, or women, and of men. Join me using the tools of technology, or iPhones, apps and editing to create a radical art of beauty, not just a false art of erasure, of plastic portraits.
How can we show age, show process, show ourselves as works of art that aren’t only a harking back to a bye-gone barbie wanna be?
These three reflecting on grey! The first is a self-portrait session from the second phase of my self-as-canvas project, I added the grey streaks to the blond streaks, the crone to the innocent. I donned some ceremonial dress! The second image is perhaps the most intense edit I have ever done on a portrait, emphasizing the markings of my skin as much as possible, like an etching, and ode to experience, my gaze intense, my mouth dead serious! The last, again, an iPad selfie on a day when I just needed to love myself, my greys, my wrinkles, my rough skin, the light in my eyes, and just really really soften into myself, my journey and my self love!
So, there it is, a little more about me, what drives me, what inspires me!
Come join me on Facebook at Apple Star Photo, check out my About Me page. Contact me to tell me what you think, or to do a portrait session together, or to talk about beauty and aging in the era of the Plastic Portrait!
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Gratitude to the many who inspired me,
~ my mother for always being radically bold and beautiful!
~Jade Baell, photographer and activist who pioneered The Beautiful Body Project https://www.jadebeall.com/about/index https://www.abeautifulbodyproject.com/
~Bonnie for her ground breaking site taht I saw first as a new mother before I had even heard of body positivity at http://theshapeofamother.com/who-i-am/
~Jess Baker, renowned writer, blogger and tireless advocate for body positivity at http://www.themilitantbaker.com/
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#plasticportraits #applestarphoto #selfie #authenticportrait #honestportrait #selfportrait #thebeautifulbodyproject #abeautifulmamaproject #theshapeofamother #everybodyisbeautiful #radicalbeauty #bodypositivity #unfilterd #filters #plasticbeauty #selfascanvas #growingold #women #imagesofwomen
Posted on October 17, 2018
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