100 Mile House area resident Teresa Donck left home recently to broaden her photography boundaries and experiences, and within a few months, she had her first show of her work in Vancouver.
Donck’s work was featured on April 12 during the Spring Series at Slickity Jim’s Chat ‘n’ Chew, which saw photographers paired with local DJs in a style called Synesthesia, which means a person will hear something that can cause someone to see a colour, etc.
The Peter Skene Ogden Secondary School graduate has been involved in photography since she was seven years old and “helped” her renowned landscape photographer and step-father Chris Harris edit slides on his light table.
She started photographing when she was 15 and Harris gave her a hand-me-down camera and started taking her on photo excursions.
However, artistic creativity came at early age for Donck, starting with arts and craft, using basic supplies and imagination for inspiration.
“I've also done several types of dance and music, such as tap and flamenco, clarinet, vocal, and guitar. Photography is just the latest.”
The 19-year-old says she has been lucky to begin photographing the “endless diversity and beauty in the natural world” and to get a job at a Sear’s portrait studio. She adds this background gave her the tools to go out on her own to take experimental photos and portrait commissions from her friends and family.
“At the moment my style tends to go with the flow, improvise with what's around me whether it is limiting or not, and is focused on really seeing.”
She adds her first show fit where she is right now because it’s small, collaborative and it came about through her everyday contacts.
“It represents my adventure being out on my own in the city, which has always been a major dream of mine even though it may seem mundane and simple to others.”
Donck notes the pieces she chose to display, which were a series of abstracts of flower and plant themes, show her roots in Central British Columbia, including some that her urban audience would probably not have seen before.
“Living in the landscape of the city influences my photography because the landscape is such that now when I take a photo of something occurring in nature, there is often infrastructure to incorporate as well. I try to see everything as one, see everything as just shapes, colours, contrast, of a composition. Urban or not, it's all just beautiful subject matter.”
Meanwhile, this confident young woman is doing a bit of freelance photography, has a day job while she stretches her creativity and dreams of a career as a photographer.
