Biography
Rachel Amato is a fine art nature photographer currently living in Southern California.
She has always experienced a deep spiritual connection with nature, particularly with the ocean and the moon and with starlight and flowers, a fact that she attributes to being a very mystical and intuitive Pisces.
Rachel loves to visit the beaches near her home, especially at sunrise, when the water and sand are bathed in rosy pink light, or at blue hour, when everything is soft and dusky.
She feels deeply the magic of the earth and knows its powers to enchant. This is the most important thing to her, to be in communion with the energy of nature.
You can follow Rachel on Instagram @starsinpisces.
Artists Statement
I take a lot of pictures of the beach and the ocean because it’s when I’m near the water that I experience a natural state of energetic openness that feels amazing.
When I’m with the ocean is when I feel the most alive, the most aligned with my true self.
I might be at the beach looking for special stones and shells, with my hands buried deeply in wet, rocky sand.
I might be in the water up to my knees, dancing with the waves, singing and playing.
Or I might be in the water with my camera, watching the ripples as they move swiftly past, reflecting glittering light, trying to catch them in a photo.
These are the times that I feel most alive, most naturally open. Like I am resisting nothing, fighting against nothing. And so the love in me just flows freely, radiating out into the universe.
I take photos because in the process of careful watching, that exists a communion between myself and the energy of the water and the energy moving through the water.
I call this energy Shakti, the Goddess, the primordial energy of the universe that set everything in motion and continues to animate all of life.
The part of me that I experience as the deepest is the part that has always stood in wonder watching this movement of energy on the earth.
Whether this is watching a wave unfolding into foam on the beach or watching an evening sky transform as the stars become visible or watching a flower bend and sway in the breeze.
These experiences are totally entrancing because they are demonstrations of the Goddess immanent in the material world.
When I stop to witness these things happen, I am blown open to the wonder of Life.
I feel how I am also a flower being lived by Shakti, how I am a wave and a star, taking form in this body, at this moment in Her dance.
My images are simply meant to witness this, as an act of devotion. To point and say - there She is!
With love from my heart to yours,
Rachel