Flash new life for old butcher shop - Farm Weekly

A MOST unassuming shop in Wagin has become the hub of one of the most creative talents around.

Its front windows are heavily curtained, the doors are often closed and its interior still has the reminders that it was once one of the town's two butcher shops, but it answers as a studio for Lime Lake Photography.

The shop closed about 20 years ago and sat empty, then for a few years it served as a workshop for an electrical tools repairer.

When local lady Mel English took her whipper snipper to be fixed she was entranced with the light inside and decided she wanted the space as her studio.

Most people would never have noticed the natural bright but soft illumination, however as a keen photographer, she had an obsession with light.

Today a sign Lime Lake Photography, in subtle gold lettering, proclaims the business and confounds the locals who wonder why the doors are so often closed.

For anyone who does step inside, it is a veritable wonderland of vintage décor, costumes and props that reveal, to some extent, the personality behind the business.

Ms English is a mum to three sons and wife of sheep and grain farmer Chris English and is living a life that is a far-cry from the one she envisaged as a young student.

Back then she never believed she had a creative bone in her body and she was destined to become a high-end business women.

It's not hard to see that Ms English has strayed off course but that sharp enquiring mind still serves her well and magnetically she has gathered a group of artistic friends who are an inspiration.

The internet is connecting country towns to the rest of the world and the likes of Ms English and world champion lash artist Koshie Taipari are Wagin's visible proof of that.

Mel English's creativity traverses more than beautiful photography she styled the peacock headdress for her model.

What she has learned photographically has come from on-line courses and her own experience.

"If there is something I need to know I go online and research everything I can find, maybe for a few weeks, until I learn everything I can," Ms English said.

She always loved photography, even the disappointing point-and-click snaps that recorded a gap year in Germany before the moment she grabbed a friend's digital SLR camera and pointed at the lawn and clicked.

The result wasn't anything amazing but the clarity, definition and vibrance of the grass blades had this budding photographer hooked.

Ms English's talent was immediately noticed by friends and family who had her capturing babies and children and, despite the great photos they could take on their own phones, they kept asking.

Lime Lake Photography is about beautiful portraits with clients choosing a photographic session outdoors on location, in her studio or a mixture of both.

As much as Ms English admires landscape photographs, she considers herself not good at them.

"The best landscapes usually are at dawn and I am not an early bird - I do what I love," she said.

Instead the fine art portraits that is her realm, cram her mind with so many creative images that she has to get a few out to stay sane.

Ms English said she couldn't paint or draw, but she could still recreate those exact images in her mind with photography.

One special person in her progress was Susie Wiese, whose skill as a facilitator, drove her forward by setting up a joint exhibition with local artist Anita Longmuir in 2014.

It was so well received and, combined with the steep learning curve, launched Ms English into exploring her passion even further.

In 2016 she joined another local artist Megan Henry in an exhibition titled 'Can You See My Mind' that explored and captured in art and photographic form the anonymous responses from an online survey.

"Until that point I was not confident but now I can take a portrait and be completely happy with it," Ms English said.

She also has plans for yet another joint exhibition later this year in Wagin.

The studio is a retreat where she works best surrounded by collected items and furnishings that have been gathered over many years.

The house on the farm was brimming with photographic trappings - she has just started printing some of her own colour photos and wants to learn black and white film development after someone gave her a box of old equipment - when the old shop was vacated she knew it was perfect.

The studio was officially opened in December after being transformed via a labour of paint and love into a workspace that is furnished with odd old things she has collected to create a mood that is eclectic, stylish and inspiring.

Often it is a place where Ms English and other creative and talented Wagin people gather to share ideas, plans, problems and talk about their work.

"I never thought I would be sitting in here talking about coloured smoke bombs, paper costumes and fabric armour," she said.

But those long discussions and the resulting photograph was acknowledged when Ms Taipari was crowned the Lash Inc Lash Artist of 2019.

The result of their creativeness is featured on the latest cover of the Canada USA edition of Lash Inc Magazine.

It was a global online competition with the theme of Four Seasons that required a complete costume to be styled to complement eye lashes of which each hair was individually cut and sculpted.

The finished result was photographed by Ms English who also has gone to some extraordinary lengths to create her favourite style, a creative portrait that tells a story.

The hanging rails in the old cool room where once meat carcases hung, is crammed with curious vintage costumes and outfits that have been collected and been given over the years, of which any one outfit alone, can inspire another image to capture.

The vintage aspect can take the subject from burlesque to Victorian, reflective, vivacious or something else regardless whether they are old, young, man, woman or child.

It all depends on the image circulating in Ms English's mind and the exact pose she wants her subject to strike.

The result is a hand-crafted keepsake or just an un-themed photograph, beautifully captured in just the right setting.

Ms English also loves the idea of old black and white photography, saying it is like going back to vinyl records and that suited her because she doesn't believe she is a tech-savvy person but that is debatable.

She works with a Nikon D810 camera mainly using her favourite 24-70-millimetre, 2.8 aperture lens, photographing in RAW format.

Ms English can spend hours on the computer editing for the perfection that is the nature of fine art portraiture.

Her connection with the wider world through Facebook and Instagram has attracted clients who are happy to travel from Perth to pose, whether in this rare and unusual studio or outside with Wagin's beautiful country side or salt lakes as background, simply because there is nothing around quite like Lime Lake Photography.

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Flash new life for old butcher shop - Farm Weekly
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