THE VISIONARIES

Seraphina Landgrebe

"Global Gypsy Imagemaker"

www.seraphina.com

Whoever accompanies, or is photographed by, Master Photographer Seraphina Landgrebe is in for an adventure and a new way of seeing themselves and the world!

This passionate photographer, who has studied with Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham and Brett Weston among others, is more than a technical master of film and digital photography. She is an artist. This award-winning photographer brings a painterly quality to her work, almost an Old World sense of mastery and use of light and she is particularly known for her romantic and archetypal images. Currently, she is branching into new visionary explorations, using the computer with Photoshop as her darkroom. Her exquisite landscapes are lightened and darkened with a masters eye. In her Floribunda series, she playfully manipulates her macro images of flowers to design collages, titillating our senses and imaginations with color and textures, gentle or explosive or symbolic. Her Sacred Geometry series finds and expands upon, sometimes abstracting, the mandala-like shapes found in natures patterns in flowers. Words cannot do justice to her images. Do treat yourself to myriad delights on her website, www.seraphina.com.

Through her remarkable eyes and the lenses of her cameras, which become literal extensions of her strong, agile body, she becomes one with her subjects, be they people or landscapes or still lifes or flowers.

I am so fortunate to have traveled and photographed with her! Whenever she and I go exploring together, it feels as if we are magical children, full of curiosity and wonder at the beauty that we see everywhere and creating some of our own wizardry with our cameras as we go. We become fearless, strong mountain climbers as we make our way over rocks and crevices, or soften into goddesses of forest and stream by the waterfalls. She brings out of hiding the wonderful daring kid in all of us who feels as if she can do anything and go anyplace in the whole world! She makes you feel beautiful, no matter what your age or size, because she sees your beauty inside and out. You trust her because you know she will transform you into a magnificent masterpiece. Or, she will exquisitely express the masterpiece that you are, is what she would tell you with her sincere and generous heart.

The gypsywoman does, in fact, have Russian and Spanish gypsy blood coursing through her veins and honors that ancestral call of the wild. When she and her handsome husband (of 40 years now), Gary Landgrebe--the quintessential hippies in the 60s-- took off to explore the world, they traveled from California to India. Her latest grand photo adventure was to the magical mysterious ancient kingdom of Bhutan in the Himalayas. Bhutan has been called the last Shangrila, the land of the Thunder Dragon. It is a small isolated Buddhist country bordered by Tibet and India that limits tourists and has maintained its century old culture and traditions.

With no end to her trailblazing curiosity, the adventurer travels the globe and takes the lucky ones with her, either literally guiding folks far afield on her photographic excursions. If we don't get to go in person, she guides us over the worlds panoramic landscapes through her own memorable photographs of Paris, Venice, Americas great national parks, and exotic destinations like Bhutan.

The spritely, yet solid as a rock woman is bigger than life. So, too, are her works of art, which are monumental in scope and beauty, which reflect her far-reaching vision. When you attend one of her photographic workshops, you learn amazing techniques of composition and technical expertise, but you also learn more: If you are open, you experience a new way of seeing the world, seeing your potential as a photographer, seeing your subjects in a new light, gazing into the macro and microcosms of life itself. Its as if she opens a light into your soul. You are in the presence of a humble Master, a goddess of fire and love, who is a light on the planet herself.