Crime scenes to fantasy

Children stories are filled with colours, dreams, adventure and mostly summed up as a fantasy. Tales that can only be born from a creative mind like that of a child, unburdened by the realities of everyday life. Harsh realities observed and documented at crime scenes are a far cry from dreams and fantasies born into a children’s book. To have the mental capacity to move from one to the other seems impossible, only the most creative amongst creatives would be capable. Elsa Pretorius transformed from photographing monstrosities to creating Fairy Tales through photography.

Growing up in a creative home, inspired by her father’s love for art and written prose and stories and her mother’s talents for fabric painting. Taking her first steps from her father’s easel and journeying onward through his love for photography, teaching his three daughters the importance of colour, composition, shading, and light. Shading and light could not be more appropriate for the choices and path she chose in life.

Shade:

Destined to enter a career in journalism or photography, Elsa decided to join the South African Police Service after school. Attending the Police College, she was inspired to join the Criminal Bureau previously called the Criminal Record centre. The focus was forensics and crime scene photography. Placed at the Fingerprint Office in East London she started her career developing 35mm and 120mm films, printing greyscale pictures and gaining valuable experience in photography basics.

After this she expanded her skill set by going to crime scenes and creating visual images of crime scenes to be used in court rooms as evidence. Surely a difficult task for a person that grew up in an abundance of creativity.

Elsa got married and had two beautiful boys, as any parent would she started taking endless reels of pictures of her young family, developing, and printing the photos herself. Boys will be boys and stop posing for photos, Elsa then turned her growing passion for photography to other families with children and weddings as a hobby.

Light:

Along came digital photography and technology allowed the editing of normal pictures into works of art. Playing around with Adobe Photoshop and a few online courses, Elsa further expanded her skills by creating beautiful art with her pictures. Feeling confident enough to share it with the world on the popular platform deviantart.com.

Elsa started taking pictures of her friends and family’s children and turning it into story books that placed children in the middle of their own magical fairy tale or heart racing adventure. A move to Hartbeespoort brought more changes as a year later she resigned from the police service (after 30 years of service) to pursue her own interests. Starting Dandelions and Dreams Photography must have felt like a dream come true for Elsa.

Children see the world differently to adults and taking pictures of them in their element is what Elsa loves most. They still see the magic in the world Elsa says. Children would tell her their favourite story and soon Elsa has got her own idea of what milieu the tale will have. The sky is the limit with Elsa’s stories, and she brings them to life for the child by starring them in the story. There is no formal photo session, children are captured in their natural play and older children can act out scenes for their story. She can capture the emotions and reactions for every part of the story and capture them on high resolution images to edit into books or blocked pictures for rooms and décor. The books make a great gift and keepsake for children to one day share with children of their own. Grandparents also enjoy seeing their grandchildren live out their fantasies on a page turner of their own.

Adults can invest in a book for themselves as was done by staff for a schools principle when he retired, Principle and Staff featured as various characters in the book and would surely find a place on a coffee table for many years to come.

Turning a love for photography from shaded darkness into brilliant vibrant light is certainly a talent worth celebrating.