[ PORTFOLIO ]
Michelle Marina Turolla
Michelle Marina Turolla colorized four tulips for "The Sweet Spot," above. "The blue shadow adds a touch of whimsy," she says.
Floral Canvas A career in fashion modeling has cultivated in Michelle Marina Turolla an eye for beauty and the desire to capture it through photography and painting.
Her works document such objects of beauty as children, flowers and clouds. In this collection, Turolla explores the aesthetics of flowers.
"Everything seems like a portrait to me," Turolla says. "After modeling for years, I've developed an eye for exactly what angle, exactly which way, something appears most flattering."
Turolla also uses her "eye" to govern the combining of photography with painting and digital enhancing, which lend her photographs a "unique look."
"It's natural to take a photograph one step further. Some pictures I use straight. With others, I enhance the color. Some photographs look like a painting, so I take a step to make them look like one," she says.
But Turolla's works are more than just pretty pictures -- they are a reflection of her appreciation for nature.
"When the beauty of nature speaks, I try to listen," she says. "I like to sit in the scenery for a while, to be a witness to it. ... I don't take the picture until it feels spiritual to me."
For "Stargazer," at left, Turolla hand painted the background to the Stargazer Lily.
Turolla's 4-year-old daughter holds up orchids in "A Gift for You."
"Interior World," provides a close-up of a tulip interior.
Photographers are invited to submit portfolios of their work. Send samples to Portfolio, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210, Honolulu, Hawaii 96813; or e-mail jpeg images to
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