A person's face can tell many little stories, but to capture that single moment where they reveal those stories is something else. It was this aspect that drew Paris Hawken to photography. Despite studying all types of photography at the Central Institute of Technology in Perth, and having recently completed her Advanced Diploma of Photography, it was that high school assessment that paved the way to her main passion in photography. “Studying photography has enabled me to try out all these areas in photography, but I have learnt over the last couple of years that my passion lies in portraiture,” Hawken says. She later went on to win the 2014 Western Australia AIPP Student Photographer of the Year Award and was a finalist in the 2013 ACMP Emerging Photographer of the Year in the Student category.
Having an interest in history, she draws much of her inspiration from the art forms and moods of certain eras such as 18th Century England and Greek mythology. “I’m very attracted to the moody themes, the mysterious plot lines and the dramatic locations, all of which are the perfect ingredients for a conceptual portrait in my mind. I like to lay the clues out in these images so that my viewers can draw their own conclusions and create their own stories, instead of being told exactly what they are looking at,” Hawken says. She is currently working on a series of conceptual portraits and still life images about women in Greek mythology.
www.parishawkenphotography.com.au
