It’s week 4 of Fujifilm’s Fujikina NYC 2022 takeover of our Photo of the Day and Week series, where the spotlight gets placed on five featured creators speaking at Fujikina NYC 2022 on September 10. Each photographer has been making images with Fujifilm’s latest X Series cameras. This week’s featured photographer: Micheli Oliver.

Micheli was born and raised in rural Colorado (Ute, Cheynne and Arapaho traditional territories), and later attended the University of Colorado for Geography. After graduating, she decided to pursue her lifelong goals of storytelling because of one high school film photography class she stumbled upon on editorial photography.

“The first time I picked up a digital camera was in July of 2019 and I haven’t looked back since,” she says. “I was raised by the living world, by bumblebees, flowers, mountains and rivers. Human connection to nature and helping to see ourselves in nature is my life’s passion. I look toward the misfit kids and the curious peoples as my kin and hope my work brings us a bit more together in a world tearing us apart from each other and nature herself.”

The visual storyteller says that in one way or another her photography work, her love for the world, and her relationship with nature have been shaped by the wonder she holds for the land. “Seeing the magic in the landscape is a right of passage in my family, passed onto me by her mother and father, uncles and aunts,” she explains.

Micheli’s Fujikina project—”We Are Woven”—explores the childlike joy and wonder that all ages can experience when, “we all slow down to look closely and notice the living world into which we are all so intricately woven,” the photographer explains.

Marc Oliver, Micheli’s uncle (above) is a lifelong wonderer and his art, she says, represents that. Micheli tells his story through the imagery of his custom saddle work and horseback riding. She juxtaposes his story with that of Mila Ortiz’s, a relative as well who, at age 7 is, “the embodiment of childlike wonder and sees the magic of fairies in a simple hike through the forest.”

“With these two stories [above], I hope to show that there is a way to see oneself in nature no matter your age or where you live,” Micheli says. “Wonder for the living world comes in all shapes and sizes and can be created in every single area of your world. The forest where she and Mila hiked was right outside of an urban space, she says, “an urban wilderness of sorts, and with my Uncle Marc, his lifelong pursuit of joy in the living world shows that age is not a factor in childlike wonder—we can all cultivate it.”

Even if your form of natural connection is the flowers growing in your home, says Micheli, she hopes to show that we are a part of this world; “humans are not somehow separated by indoors vs. outdoors, wild vs. human,” she sums up. “We are all a part of nature.”

We Are Woven Project
Photographer Micheli Oliver
Instagram: @micheliphoto
Website: loudmouthvisuals.com

Fujikina NYC 2022 is free and open to the public. Guests are required to register and book a time slot to attend the event, as well as reserve space in a photo walk. To learn more, visit the event site here.

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