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 

PRIVILEGE: a story past

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

Mikaela Martinez, your vision takes me back to the cultural construct of the 1950's and deep into the following decade when white American women enjoyed a contradiction of privilege. On one hand they were at the height of social respectability. Black Americans were terrified and envious of her. Black women copied her, and despised the  inner workings of the relationship between them that developed among wealthier white women who could and did hire Black women to care for their children. White women lived in a dichotomy that could, and did end the lives of Colored men, and Black women developed ways of raising their sons meant to center and steer their sons from the hanging tree.

On the other hand sitting aloof on a pedestal of their men's design white women could not express themselves as they do today. Their money was their husband's. They could not, like every other woman, get credit, and they did not own their bodies, or use their voices publicly to the extend they can today. White women, in those days, pranced when they were on city streets. They seemed to balance contradictions fearfully, or with disdain in their eyes reserved for the 'unwashed' seemed to enjoy their status, as white women, based upon a system of apartheid tenuously held together by fears and dread. It was a strange way to hold a beauty standard copied by women throughout the Western world, and to the extent it could in other countries struggling for survival or independence from Western influence, and dominance. - Gregory E. Woods

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

[To the model Morgan Michaels] "Your presence in Mikaela's portfolio is impressive. Being the focus of the lens created a stir of recollections for me about events in the US before you were born, and the interplay between then and now...


You exuded a maturity and have a command of self that is appealing to the eye. It draws the viewer back to the photo to earnestly discover who  you are, and the photographer, Mikaela Martinez, developed a concept centered around you that was compelling and demanding in an easy sort of way. Anyway, I suspect you will live deeply asking the right questions every step of your life. I enjoy the journey of the short portfolio." - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 8.22.12