We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Leanne Trivett S.. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Leanne below.
Alright, Leanne thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
One of my most meaningful projects is Navigating in Traffic, a collection of black-and-white self-portraits that explore how I’ve navigated trauma, loss, and the process of survival. The series began unexpectedly in San Sebastián, Spain, in the spring of 2024. I spent my days there photographing intuitively, not knowing what I was chasing – just that something was stirring beneath the surface. When I returned home and began to live with the images, Navigating in Traffic slowly revealed itself. It felt less like I was creating the work and more like it was emerging from me – rising from the body, the soul, and the spaces in between.
Working in black and white allowed me to strip everything down to its emotional core. Without color, I could focus on form, gesture, and the quiet tension of what it means to endure. My relationship with loss is complex – it’s traumatic, universal, and deeply personal. Making this work became a kind of ritual of healing, an invitation to face what I usually keep buried and to let the images speak when words could not.
As a photography instructor, I ask my students to explore subjects that require vulnerability – emotion, memory, identity – because I believe that art only becomes powerful when we turn inward. With Navigating in Traffic, I challenged myself to do the same: to step fully into self-examination and allow the work to carry the weight of that honesty.
My background in performance has shaped the way I understand photography. On stage, I learned that persona isn’t a mask that conceals the self – it’s often the only way the self can speak. In performance, I inhabited heightened versions of myself, each one revealing truths I couldn’t otherwise access. That same dynamic plays out in my photographs. Behind the camera, I witness the delicate space between how I want to be seen and what slips through unintentionally. It’s a performance and a confession. The persona becomes a structure for vulnerability, and I’m always drawn to the moment that structure falters – when something raw, unguarded, and real breaks through.
Navigating in Traffic lives in that tension. The images feel different to me than my color work – they hold both discomfort and tenderness. They are quieter, but they linger. When I look at them, I feel a stillness I don’t often allow myself. They confront me, yet they also teach me something about honesty and beauty – the kind that exists even in what feels broken or unfinished.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’m a visual artist who uses photography as a language to explore identity, story, memory, and emotion. My work lives in that space where the personal and universal overlap – where images become mirrors for both the artist and the viewer.
My background is in theatre and music, and in 2021 I began to merge that sensibility with my photography. Bringing performance into my visual work opened a new way of seeing for me – it allowed narrative, gesture, and emotional truth to become central to my process. That was the moment I truly recognized who I was as an artist. I started creating deeply personal work, experimenting fearlessly, and following curiosity wherever it led.
I spent countless learning the craft – working with my camera, mastering light, experimenting with equipment and software – so that I could be intentional about every choice and use each tool in service of storytelling. vOver time, that dedication evolved into a body of work that’s been exhibited in solo and international shows, featured in festivals, and published in several magazines around the world.
Teaching has also become an essential part of my practice. I teach creative photography at Santa Fe Workshops, Maine Media, Pacific Northwest Art School, Chicago Botanic Garden, and with Camversation in the UK. Teaching allows me to witness the transformative power of art in others. I approach it with a spirit of gentle coaching – creating space for artists to uncover their own spark of creativity, to trust their intuition, and to find meaning in their work.
What sets my work apart, I think, is the intersection of performance and photography – the way I use imagery to explore the self as something fluid and ever-changing. I’m proud of the vulnerability in my work, and of my willingness to keep questioning what it means to be human, to feel, to remember.
Ultimately, I want people who encounter my images to feel something real – to pause, reflect, and maybe recognize a piece of themselves within the work. That connection, that shared emotional space, is what drives everything I create.
My Artist Statement also explains who I am as an artist.
Artist Statement
I am a visual artist and photographer who speaks through the lens – using photography as a vessel for self-inquiry, emotional resonance, and lyrical storytelling. My work moves between self-portraiture, experimental florals, abstraction and emotion – where identity is not fixed, but layered, abstracted, and continuously reimagined.
Inspired by my background in theatre and vocal performance, I carry a love for transformation. Each photograph is a moment from an unfolding, internal play – some staged, others stolen in their spontaneity. I am drawn to both the narrative and the pause, and the in-betweens that often say the most. At the heart of my work lies duality – photography as both mirror and threshold. Within this poetic tension, I explore the tender seams of psyche, ego, spirit, and soul, crafting visual subjects that feel both intimate and yet universal. With my camera as compass, I trace the intricate edges of my inner world seeking the moments where emotion spills into form.
My work comes from with my personal photographs, I use techniques such as ICM, blur, layering, and multiple exposures – both in and out of camera. These methods allow me to move beyond the literal and into a dreamlike terrain. Each frame is a gesture of curiosity, a fragment of a story unfolding in the space between self and viewer.
In every piece of my art, I hope to build a bridge – one that reaches from the depths of my inner world to the heart of the viewer, where vulnerability meets vision, and self recognition and humanity are reflected back.
CV and Bio available and on website www.LeanneTrivettSphotography.com
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
For me, one of the most rewarding parts of being an artist is standing beside my work and feeling it resonate with the right audience. There’s a moment of connection that happens – quiet but powerful – when someone truly gets it, when they see beyond the surface of the image and recognize something of themselves within it. That exchange, that shared understanding through art, reminds me why I create in the first place. It’s not just about being seen; it’s about creating a space where emotion, story, and humanity can meet.
The other deeply fulfilling part of my work is teaching. I love helping others see what’s possible when they trust their instincts and take creative risks. There’s magic in watching someone rediscover their own artistic voice – to see them dream bigger, lean into vulnerability, and follow their heart. I tell my students often: creativity asks for courage. It asks us to work hard, to stay open, and to keep showing up, even when the path feels uncertain.
Being an artist is equal parts risk and reward. But when the work connects – when it reaches someone or inspires another artist to leap – it feels like everything aligns. That’s the moment I know I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.
Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?
I think one thing that may be hard for some non-creatives to understand is that the artistic journey isn’t a straight path – it’s a cycle of uncertainty, discovery, and renewal. So much of creativity happens in the quiet, unseen spaces: the doubt before the breakthrough, the long stretches where nothing seems to work, the inner dialogue that never quite settles. From the outside, it might look effortless or inspired, but in truth, it’s a practice of faith. You keep showing up to the work, even when you’re not sure where it’s leading you.
There’s also a deep emotional cost and reward in creating. When I make art, I’m not just producing images – I’m excavating memory, emotion, identity. That process can be raw and uncomfortable. It requires honesty, and sometimes that honesty asks you to walk through shadow before you find the light. But that’s also where the beauty lives. The struggle isn’t separate from the art – it is the art. The moments of doubt and vulnerability are part of the same current that carries you toward something true.
If there’s one thing I wish people understood, it’s that being an artist isn’t about constant inspiration – it’s about commitment. It’s about trusting that even in stillness or struggle, something meaningful is forming beneath the surface. And if you stay with it long enough, it eventually rises – quietly, but with power.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.LeanneTrivettSphotography.com
- Instagram: @Leannerockstar
- Facebook: Leanne Trivett Stent
- Linkedin: Leanne Trivett S.
Image Credits
All images I have taken with my cameras.