We’ve stumbled across something truly amazing. Meet Oliver Hellowell, he’s just your typical nature loving 18 year old who loves to go exploring for new places to photograph, and fishing, you can’t forget the fishing!
Under the watchful guidance from his Step Father, Mike, He’s getting a great start in the life and world of photography, I wouldn’t say the fact that he has down syndrome is what makes him special, but his different and positive look on life is what has drawn me to this fun loving teenager, like a moth to the light, I immediately wanted to know more about him.
Usually we say as an artist it is a prerequisite to be able to see the world differently, to be able to show mundane things in a new light, which isn’t always easy, but Oliver is a truly inspiring person based off of the fact that he can take a beautiful photo of some tree I’ve seen a million times and add a peaceful twist to it that pulls something inside of me.
His mom, Wendy, is there by his side guiding him through it all, she helped set him up a Facebook page where he can display all his work. They track their fans from all over the world together and love to hear the lovely comments that people share about how inspired they are. One commenter, who is also an avid fisherman, stated “I sit now, and I think when I go fishing ‘what would Oliver take a picture of now?” They are surprised not only with the number of people who have followed him, but the range of people. They have fans from Alaska to Brazil and even Africa! (The picture shown below of the map was when Oliver only had 7,000 fans, now he’s up to 40,000!) That must be exciting.
The dedication he’s put into the craft at such a young age makes me feel like I can take a sigh of relief knowing that the next generation of artists is falling into the right hands. His photos taken with such purpose and with a new angle on life, a happy angle, and isn’t that something we can all use more of in our lives? The love in this family is what makes things like this possible, I see he’s getting great support and it makes me happy to see such a talent is being nurtured to it’s fullest! Keep doing what you’re doing, Oliver! I’m excited to see where this will take you.
His website:
http://oliverhellowell.com/portfolio.html
His Facebook:
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