Photographer Helynn Ospina plays with the notion of formal strategy and visual design inspired by an exercise from The Photographer’s Handbook.
A lifelong search for meaning, beauty and identity has taken Helynn Ospina down an unconventional path to photography. As a first-generation immigrant she has always felt like an outsider, both in her American life and her Colombian heritage. Even as a child in her own household, where the focus was confined by necessity to survival and stability, Helynn always yearned to experience life in a more profound way. It was this spirit that emboldened Helynn to join the Marine Corps and propelled her to earn her undergraduate degree in biology and established a successful career in biotech. Her quest to live an impassioned life led her to earn her MFA and pursue a photography career.
Today, Helynn practices her fine art photography while working with commercial and editorial clients throughout the West Coast, Florida and Colombia. An intuitive storyteller with a cinematic eye, she has photographed actors, activists, artists, business leaders, and profile subjects for leading newspapers and magazines. She has also created campaigns for well-known brands such as AirBnb.
During her free time you can find her roaming the nearby redwood forests, avoiding fire ants! She enjoys surfing small waves and training her two cattle dogs, Koa and Hilo, in agility.
“I feel most at peace finding stories in the mysterious tall shadows of dusk and the domestic glow of twilight, when the world is saturated in rich tones and awash in technicolour beams of light.”