Bonnie Britt - Return to Roots Project

I visited Puerto Rico for the first time about a year ago. I had been on a music festival cruise for a week and our ship stopped in Old San Juan for a day. A dear friend of mine is from PR and was living there at the time, so he took me out for the day. He introduced me to his friends, showed me the sights, local hangouts, and the vivid art scene. I was in love. The colors, the people, the language, the smells, and the sounds. Especially the song of the coqui frog at night. At the end of the day I got back on my cruise ship and set sail for home, knowing I would return.

Over the course of the next 11 months I underwent a huge transformation in my life. I quit smoking cigarettes, started spending more time with nature, eating healthy, exercising, meditating, shedding toxic relationships, listening to my intuition, creating, adventuring, and overall becoming my best self and loving it. My friend informed me that he and his new wife would be making a visit to Puerto Rico in November, so I booked my flight for a 5 day trip. As my plane was making the final descent into San Juan, my eyes welled up with tears of excitement. With no expectations, I had arrived!

The next five days were like a dream. I mean it when I say this. Actual dreams and visions I had experienced in the past 11 months were playing out in front of me, manifesting into reality. I have experienced psychic awareness before but never to this magnitude! I knew this meant I was on the right path. It's like the Universe nodding it's proverbial cosmic head at you. "Keep going!" I was creating beautiful photographs and films, feeling my vibrational energy at super high frequencies, and falling in love. Everything aligned. I flew back home to Nashville, Tennessee feeling very inspired and fully charged. 

The night I got back home I was meditating on the question: 

"What is my purpose? How can I use my talents to make a positive change in this world?"

 My creative channel was open and the idea for a new film project was planted.

Over the next two months I worked every day to save money for my return to Puerto Rico and nurtured this project into what it has become today: Return to Roots Project. This is a traveling web series I have created of short documentary films that are intended to inspire and educate the viewer on reconnecting to the Source (Earth & Divine) for needs in mind, body, and spirit. This project is my vehicle to making a change in the world, doing what I love by actively creating still and moving images, and fueling my love for travel. I am back in Puerto Rico now working on this project. 

As I write this I am in Luquillo, Puerto Rico working on an eco-educational organic farm in development as a part of the series. My time here in Puerto Rico will be spent traveling, filming, editing, learning, and growing. I am planning to run an Indiegogo fundraiser campaign for the project in March. See, the long term vision for the project is to keep it moving as a traveling web series. Upon my return to the U.S. the goal is to acquire a mobile shelter such as a trailer, RV, or conversion van and take this series on tour across the states! 

My time here in Puerto Rico is open-ended, as I bought a one way ticket. I will be here as long as I need to be. I will know when it is time to return. Learning to follow your intuition is a crazy and challenging thing. Sometimes you don't know where you will go next and it can induce fear. But it all boils down to trusting the energy flow of the Universe, Divine, God, Spirit, Shakti, whatever you want to call it. It will never wrong you. 

And when you follow the path, amazing and sometimes unbelievable experiences occur. You will create works you never thought you could handle, you will grow more into the person you wish to become, and you will go to the places you wish to go. We must all open our creative channels to receiving the work we are meant to do, and all together then we can change the world!

Bonnie Blue Britt

Links:

Return to Roots Project:

returntorootsproject.com

vimeo.com/returntorootsproject

facebook.com/returntorootsproject

Bonnie Britt:

bonniebritt.com

bonniebritt.tumblr.com

facebook.com/bonniebluebritt

Watch the Return to Roots Project Teaser Trailer.

Connie McDonald, New Zealand Photographer

Connie McDonald is a 19 year old photographer from New Zealand. She loves documentaries, interesting people and stickers. She is positive and has a real lust for the beauty that can be found every single day. 

When did you first start take up photography? 

My first photographic experience was being allowed a whole roll of 35mm film in my parents' SLR to document the growth and release of our tadpoles when I was in primary school. Although, I have been living through a lens since 2010.

Where in New Zealand do you most prefer to take photos? The cities, amongst nature or suburbia?

I spend a lot of my time in the small town of Wanaka in New Zealand during my university holidays. This place is the ultimate source of inspiration for me. I watch sunrises and sunsets, with all their colours swimming into each other; there are many walks one can do, there are also so many summer roses in our garden. Taking time to let the elements of the earth wash over you is a great way to refresh. Lake Wanaka is very cold, sometimes I go for a night swim, other times I like to go and sit out in the rain or let the wind play with my hair. Nature will help you if you let it. I find nature refreshing, but i love the energy of the city also. 

What and who are your favourite things to take photos of? 

I photograph what interests me. I photograph people, places and moments I love. I don't want to lie. I love the people I photograph. They are part of my life, I enjoy their existence, and I want to photograph that, I want to record my feelings. 

Your photography is such a mix of styles and themes does this reflect on you personally or the subject/place of your photos? 

I photograph what is around me. I find the idea of genre photography to be limiting. I like photographing landscapes around me, but I do not what to only be a 'landscape photographer'. I photograph me friends in silly outfits with trinkets from the $2 shop but I do not want to only a 'fashion photographer'. I want to photograph the cinematic moments of life that grab me, and beg for documentation. 

All of your photos are so unique in how they've been photographed. Do you use editing programs or certain cameras to get the effects that you achieve? 

I do not use photoshop much. All the dreamy-ness is done in-camera, not post production. I use a lot of film, both black and white and colour, and I enjoy the physical result of a negative, it's tangibility, it's object-ness. I celebrate film grain, light leaks and film edges. 

In each of your photos is there a certain look/emotion/feel that you're trying to capture? 

In every moment I like to respond to emotions I am feeling by translating them into photographs. The immersion in ones emotions brings interesting responses photographically.

What has been your best memory and moment in relation to your photography? 

I loved photographing the kids I babysit, Grace and Alice, as they practised ballet in their studio. Their comfort, confidence and innocence was so beautiful. I love those girls.

If you could give any advice to girls wanting to become photographers or have it as a hobby, what would it be? 

Life is a journey that you are able to document. I think that is the greatest gift of all. Celebrate your favourite places, people and moments through photographs.

The New Year is approaching, do you have any goals for the future? 

I want to go to new places, meet new people, be curious and happy.