INVISIBLE WOMEN

Photography/ArtDirection/Styling: Mikaela Lyrea
Makeup and Hair: Seana Breh Gorlick
Model: Hannah Doerksen

All Rights Reserved Mikaela Lyrea Photography
©MikaelaLyrea

The invisible woman. I have a friend who is well known for her story, and well compensated when she tells it. Her story is long and gruesome, but it is fundamental to the reasons why she developed a program to help working women leave prostitution. It is an 18 month long process. At the court's discretion in lieu of jail time 'johns' are sent to my friend for a day of unlearning. The first time I heard my friend speak about her life as a prostitute, and drug addict I had to discover why the men caught cruising for prostitutes were only given a day in her program.

She said that was as long as the men could endure. "Why?" Because she made them look into the faces and the eyes of the women. It devastated them. These men were incapable of seeing these women, and the peep into a whore's eyes shattered them! She said very very few were ever arrested again. - Gregory E. Woods 8.22.12

model Hannah Doeksen. makeup Seana Breh Glorick. photography by Mikaela Lyrea.
 All Rights Reserved Mikaela Lyrea Photography ©MikaelaLyrea

... you put me deep in her introspection. With all I know, and think I know I know not her thoughts or what it feels like to be a woman in this world. - Gregory 

TALES OF MASKS

model Zoe Garcia
All Rights Reserved Mikaela Lyrea Photography
©MikaelaLyrea

Photography and Styling: Mikaela Martinez 
Makeup and Hair: Lauren Hendrix 
Model: Morgan Michaels

https://www.facebook.com/MikaelaPhotography 

You tell mystery tales about masks; false faces with honesty and clarity. That is an interesting knack you have, Mikaela. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

Photography/ArtDirection/Styling: Mikaela Lyrea
Makeup and Hair: Seana Breh Gorlick
Model: Hannah Doerksen

All Rights Reserved Mikaela Lyrea Photography
©MikaelaLyrea

SANCTITY OF SPACE

Photography/Styling: Mikaela Lyrea
Makeup and Hair: Devin Joplin
Model: Zoe Garcia

All Rights Reserved Mikaela Lyrea Photography
©MikaelaLyrea

Places to release and say, "Awww..." in cities are a far cry from the sanctity of the wild places in the forests, the grasslands, and the mountains. It is strange to people new to cities bustling and violent. The parks are regulated by criminals, and dog poop, and regulations. Streets shimmer with movement and distractions, and the silence is eerie in such busy places as thousands of people walk listening to phone conversations, and Ipods with blank self-absorbed stares that don't see each other. It is a breeding ground for loose canons to develop into problems. Insanity can grow undetected, and foul evil plots can be inspired and planned on long walks because invisibility is affordable in a culture that gives it away freely just to be left alone.
In any city where a 'spot' can be found in a sunny place during a lull in vehicular and pedestrian traffic it is the same kind of release in the free places in the mountains, and the woods, or on the shore line of an ocean, a lake, a river, or the privacy of your backyard. A moment is a moment we create, or is created for  us. ©Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 8.22.12

model Zoe Garcia by Mikaela Lyrea Photography. Hair & makeup by Devin Joplin.

Artistry of Mikaela Martinez

Photography and Styling: Mikaela Martinez
Makeup and Hair: Lauren Hendrix
Model: Morgan Michaels

 
Mikaela Lyrea Photography
https://www.facebook.com/MikaelaPhotography 

Photography/Styling: Mikaela Lyrea
Makeup and Hair: Devin Joplin
Model: Zoe Garcia

All Rights Reserved Mikaela Lyrea Photography
©MikaelaLyrea

Mikaela, it does take a certain amount of tenacity to be a woman of integrity, and maintain elegance in cities. How it is done and how it is captured is centered upon creativity. I see this in this moment you've captured for our contemplation! - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

FALSE FACE

model Morgan M. Michaels taken by Mikaela Martinez . Makeup & hair  done by stylist Lauren Hendrix.
https://www.facebook.com/MikaelaPhotography 

DEEP THE DREAM: reconciliation

Photography and Styling: Mikaela Martinez
Makeup and Hair: Lauren Hendrix
Model: Morgan Michaels

... despite the mystique, and perceptions people of color hold of white women, and their privileges real or imagined their souls and lives under severe scrutiny isolate them socially here and abroad in ways the average American does not seem to fathom, or perhaps doesn't care to think that deeply about. Is it cruel a prism to gauge a person the way we judge and compare ourselves to white women? Is it cruel an assignment to undertake as a facilitator in their healing work to restore balance and harmony? Is it a fair assessment to make in times of plenty for the average American today? Is it important to study the affect and power of white American women, and their impact upon lives the world over? More personal a concern centers on the well being of the subject of so much discussion: the women themselves. How do they fare in their own introspection, and in their isolation expressed in so many ways in public? Who isn't paying attention and trying to listen to their heart songs?

Should we care? Yes, we should care. Our lives, and histories are interwoven with precision, and each movement touches another's hand or heart. One sister is brother to another, and so on, and so on we go dancing with each other believing the songs of isolation but living together. We need each other to wake up from the dreams we dream of living, and live the dream we came to create from as Creators and Creatresses. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 8.22.12 

SURVIVAL OF THE THINKING

Model Hannah Doerksen embodies a concept of aloofness & the mysterious aspect of elegant womanhood captured by photographer Mikaela Lyrea stimulates thoughtful musings, and much later conversations. At first glance I am immediately placed in the historical context of a type of mystique Audrey Hepburn was known for sustaining in the eyes of her public. Those times birthed the necessity of  a mystique to survive as a woman, and to thwart the advances of the thousands of crude men in the shadows. What skills have been added to the survival mechanisms women must employ to walk and work in cities across the United States, and the Western world is dependent upon the level of crudeness of the men who walk and work in the cities.  - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 8.22.12 

Photography/ArtDirection/

Styling: Mikaela Lyrea
Makeup and Hair: Seana Breh Gorlick
Model: Hannah Doerksen

All Rights Reserved Mikaela Lyrea Photography
©MikaelaLyrea