Described by Lens Culture as a multifaceted artist, award winning British fine art photographer Kirsty Mitchell draws on her past careers in fashion design and costume making, to produce images of beguiling dream-like worlds all shot in the English landscape surrounding her home. Kirsty describes her approach as ‘Fantasy for Real’ spending months meticulously handcrafting her characters costumes and props to coincide with the bloom of wild flowers, and the seasonal extremes of her local environment. Some pieces have taken up to 5 months to create every element by hand, and over a year to plan. The photographs are entirely real, assembled like mini film sets, and shot first hand on location in all weathers. The series has been documented extensively, with behind the scenes photographs and films to demonstrate this.

After a decade of working as a fashion designer, in 2008 Kirsty returned to her early love of photography and began a new and deeply emotional connection with the medium during the treatment of her mother’s terminal cancer. Following her tragic loss, 9 months later Kirsty immersed herself into what became an unexpected and life changing series entitled ‘Wonderland’; intended as a book in her mother’s memory.