Shannon Guest

From my earliest memories there was always a sense of knowing that there were unseen forces at work all around me. My earliest recollection of this was in my childhood home in northern Kentucky. I could feel the presence of a ghost there, which was very frightening to me. I couldn’t see the ghost, but I knew it was there because I could feel it. It was my intuition at work, but to me it just seemed as if I was a little crazy, since nobody else in my family seemed to notice.

After graduating from University of Cincinnati in 1989 with a degree in Fashion Design I moved to New York, where I began searching in earnest for the higher aspects of life, searching for answers to all of my questions. It was there that I clearly, with my physical eyes, saw fairies one evening, and it changed my world. In fact, what it did was give credence to all of those untouchable feelings that I’ve had my whole life, a sense I had that something was there, but having no physical proof of it. It’s like feeling the wind – you can feel it so it must be there, but since you can’t see it, is it really there? We place so much emphasis on seeing as confirmation - seeing is believing, out of sight, out of mind.

At 47 years of age, it has taken almost my whole life to accept my intuition and to be OK with showing that side of myself to others. We tend to hide the parts of ourselves that we believe others will put down.

My passion for photography has also been lifelong. One thing that has always frustrated me is the difficulty of capturing the beauty of nature. I can see it with my eyes, but most of the time the true majesty of it doesn’t translate into the photograph.

Over the years I have seen sporadically cliff “faces” and faces in trees, but last year this vision opened up to me in a much bigger way and now I see these elemental forms everywhere I go. It is truly fun for me to see them and capture them digitally to share. My wish is that the photographs will spark excitement in others to see beyond the surface, which then opens up greater observation skills in nature. When we can see beyond the surface, and not just see nature as a sort of backdrop, it gives a feeling of a deeper connection with the Earth.

My home is now in Cincinnati, Ohio, where I live with my two children, two dogs and two cats.

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