Sharon Forbes is a photographer whose hand-tinted imaginative photographs mirror many of the wistful images of her own childhood, a time when she played dress-up in exotic dance costumes belonging to her aunt, and attended a small country school. She liked art from a tender age and kept her creative drive alive while working in real estate and as a hair stylist. In an effort to find work that would allow her more time with her family, she decided to explored photography. Sharon has developed a style of hand-tinted black-and-white photographs that magnificently expresses the spontaneity and joy of animals and children. The artist carefully creates each setting; most of the times she uses costumes or takes interior furnishings out to casual outdoor settings. With a lot of patience, she photographs the subject and then tints each portrait by hand.
The result is a combination of romanticism and realism that enthralls parents and brings a smile to all who see it. When Sharon was a little girl, her parents would pack her 3sisters and herself into the car and head to a nearby canyon with a stream. That was the "pollywog place" and it was their favorite place on the planet. After being given old soup cans, nets and jars, their parents would let them play for hours catching lizards, frogs, pollywogs, and anything else that could get onto their path. On rare occasions they would spot and catch a dragonfly. Now she enjoys the damsel flies, dragonflies, birds, frogs, fish and bees even more than she did as a child.
