It’s me!
I’m Ella Mae and currently studying BA Photography at Leeds Arts University, exploring my style, photographic genre and styling in my work. I’ve always been creative since I was small, painting and drawing has always been my hobby. Creating has always been my thing, being sat down with a pens and a pad, I’d lose hours!
I’ve studied Art subjects throughout my whole school life but only found my love for photography during my A Levels. I studied Fine Art, Dance, Photography and Creative writing ( ever so academic lol! ). Hard work but I loved it, every ounce of it. Soon as I started the course, got used the camera I never stopped snapping; in the beginning it was more just creating and getting used to taking photos until the end of Year 12 / beginning of Year 13 I was able to create my own projects.
BEAUTY IN FAULTS
This project was my first ever photographic series I created for my final exam book during Year 13. My concept behind this project was to celebrate imperfections because I wanted people to see the beauty in scars, and for them to find it in their own. It was a project that I wanted to do for a long while but needed some amazing muses to participate. I searched and got in contact with many different people, from different walks of life whose been through different challenging journeys, doing this pushed my professionalism and work ethic that would be tested in University. It was challenge but built my skills in organisation, networking but also creating professional looking images.
I wanted to document each person’s story using their story and my photography in not only prints but also push myself to make a magazine. I photographed, edited and curated the whole magazine, printed by myself. Being a one man team was stressful but the final outcome and exhibition at the end was all worth it, especially when I’ve built friendships and contacts with the lovely people I met.
SIAN’S STORY
Sian Lord in 2012 went to New York with her friend on a holiday, she was twenty-four at the time. When they arrived there was some issues with their room so they both walked around in the town for a bit. They went to times square to take photos, then ended up at Radio city music hall and had a drink. A cyclist and a taxi driver were having an argument in the road, still moving and the cyclist came onto the pavement and the taxi driver followed him hit the cyclist and then hit Sian. She flipped over the hood of the car and landed face down in a dirt pile full of trees and shrubbery. Sian blacked out for about two minutes and was in excruciating pain when she became conscious. She explained that she just thought she broken both her legs, but she could feel her left leg getting weaker as she was bleeding out.
There was a plumber called David Justino that was just on his lunch break who saved her life by using his belt as a tourniquet to stop her from bleeding. Sian’s leg was severed off at the scene, as her leg was trapped between the car and a misshapen rock.
She spent 6 weeks in hospital and had 4 surgeries, they didn’t know if she could wear a prosthetic because of how misshapen her amputation was. I asked her how did she accept change after such a traumatising incident. Sian explained that she was lucky to be alive and an amputation instead of losing her life, helped her have a positive outlook.
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