Allie Crewe

Coming Down To Earth

Yesterday I went to my favourite yoga class with Amanda Riley. She began by stating that the focus was “grounding” and we began with the feet. To be grounded is to feel solid, strong, and well-balanced, in body and in mind. Yoga  offers an opportunity to root down, creating a firm foundation from which to grow to be free and joyful. This is a great aim. To stop living in one’s head and to connect to the core self and achieve balance. It normally ends in tears for me.  I adore my root chakra, but after 45 minutes of grounding I got upset. When we have a history of PTSD yoga can activate a trauma response, we are pushed out of our safety zones.  The key is to push this gradually. In class wanted to disconnect for sure, but I stayed on the mat until the tears came. The mat can be a good place to feel a trigger and to try to break an old fight or flight pattern by returning to the breath. 


Can grounding grind us down? Well I do struggle with balance and we should root before rising but I struggle when I get trapped anywhere. Try sticking me in an MRI scanner or doctor’s waiting room and the urge to bolt is strong. If I stay I will begin to shake. This is PTSD. Yet place me in an operating theatre with a camera and I’m chilled, lucky as I’m working for the NHS at the moment! The issue is not the room, but the feelings of being powerless and trapped and knowing something will hurt. Many of you will know this feeling too. Childhood trauma is something we carry. I cannot escape it and yet the irony is that my body screams “run” when I need to remain. It can precipitate a flight or a fight or a freeze or flashback. Thank goodness this is a rare occurrence for me now. Yoga and therapy help.


 Sometimes my fight with grounding is that I prefer to fly. As a child I had my, “head in the clouds” to escape, now I’m much more likely to use my superpower as a creative technique rather than as a refuge. Trauma can facilitate super powers if we find a way to begin healing. I do like the floating off, it is my pleasurable and creative space. I see images and this is where I see new work in photography for me too. The dreamlike state before fully waking or when meditating is bliss and when my imagination is untethered it sees new ways to make photography projects or just a glimpse of an idea to explore. 


When I’m shooting I am barefoot, if you have sat for me you will know I don’t do shoes. I love to spread my toes and feel the earth, or floor. When I hold a camera the shoe confines me, you may notice that I focus on my breathing and find somewhere still inside of myself so that I can fully be present for you. Magnum Photo said my work has, “A lot of  heart and empathy” and my mentor Aj always insists we must shoot from the heart. This is my process and the yoga and portraits are one and the same to me. 


I’m making new work on how we heal from trauma, whether it is physical, or mental pain - the body keeps the score. Get in touch if you want to. 



If you want to know more, click the link to the article below by Susi Wrenshaw from Glamour Magazine. 

https://www.traumatherapymanchester.com/trauma-informed-yoga-article


Do You Experience Moments of Joy?

Do you have moments of joy, peace, and contentment? Do you know someone who is comfortable in their skin?  If you are a seeker of a life well lived, with ease and meaning, would you chat to me, or send this to a friend? After two years of photographing trauma, I  needed to hide away for awhile and immerse myself in my Master of Fine Art which is all about healing. All humans may experience darker days, grief or pain, it can transform us. I’m trying to find those who know how to find happiness. Let’s start with the moments of joy we find in an activity, love, work, or nature. I am drawn to these people, the alchemists who speak of a journey but see no end just a work in progress. We chose different destinations. When a person knows suffering they have an opportunity to learn compassion.  Through compassion for ourselves and others, we may find peace. 


My images are a showcase of moments, life and emotion distilled into one frame.  To depict a person’s breakages and make something wonderful from fracture, honour transformations and allow change and growth to exist in the frame, breakage and repair are part of the history of a person, rather than something to disguise. The repair is literally illuminated.  A visual record of mends and seams, a photograph celebrating repair or rebirth. 

If you click on my “About” page you can see my artist bio and a short film about my work. 

Get in touch with your thoughts.

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Awards

  • British Journal of Photography 365 Winner 2021
  • Julia Margaret Cameron 2021  runner up
  • Royal Photographic Society International Award shortlist 2021
  • BarTur Awards shortlist 2021
  • AOP Emerging Talent Finalist 2020
  • Photo London 2020
  • BJP Portrait of Britain Winner 2019
  • BJP Portrait of Britain finalist 2017



The Healer

I was sent to photograph *** by a domestic violence charity in Bolton. She had survived a murder attempt by her ex partner and had a very wise soul. At the end of our shoot she had a message for me, about healing. It was uncanny as I had uttered her words 24 hours before admitting that I needed help to heal, to photograph healing and transformations. I knew the darkness but sought the light. In her job as a healer she knew how to open a door for me. I love to research and had ploughed through psychiatry books and lectures on trauma but I love experiential learning. If I could feel healing, would I be able to see it in others when holding my camera? I lept on her table. We cannot do it all alone and she was offering to teach me. I think she is wonderful and gifted!


In my portrait series on domestic abuse I seek the transformation -  the people who risk all to begin again. They may lose a home, family, a social standing, a job. They walk out on their beliefs and values. There is often a breakdown. They rise. The unlucky fall back into old patterns and the comfort of old habits. Some though attain a growth after trauma. Many speak of the work they put into transition, I am drawn to these people, the alchemists who speak of a journey but see no ending just a work in progress. A few feel trapped and unable to move on though they long to. We chose different destinations. When a person knows desolation and suffering they have an opportunity to learn compassion. 

My images are a showcase of moments, life and emotion distilled into one frame. Each image expresses many things, each has a surface story yet is also open and ambiguous, to be read differently by each viewer. To depict a person’s breakages and make something wonderful from fracture. Honouring transitions and allowing change and growth to exist in the frame. Breakage and repair as part of the history of a person, rather than something to disguise. The repair is literally illuminated.  A visual record of mends and seams, a photograph celebrating repair or rebirth.

Photo of my friend Isabel as the series is hidden until it exhibits in spring 2022 with SICK! Festival and SafeLives.


How To Photograph Places That Do Not Exist

A Sense of Place. A walk I did 40 years ago. When I walk I cannot work out how one place links to the next. In my head I have photos of each place, my friend Louisa listens to my descriptions and works out each image, then links it to where we need to walk to. But, how easy is that when the photos are 40 years old and the landscape has changed? As a child I roamed the woods near home freely and navigated the lakes and could follow the paths to the stables. Until recently I could not go back, for my childhood was abusive and traumatic and returning to this landscape was too painful. I went back 2 years ago to photograph my childhood homes, the park, the woods, the school. It was very difficult but something shifted. That is all it takes to open a new doorway. Today Louisa, my oldest friend whom I adore, walked through the woods with me. I wanted to re-trace old paths and find the stables that no longer exist. I felt as if my memory was an eight year olds as I described each bit of finding the stables, the path, the house hidden in the woods, the stream to cross, the track up the hill. It was a fun adventure. It all looks different now but as I described each picture in my head she worked out my route. She said we were the Famous Five (only two women in their 50s), it was an adventure. I’m fascinated by my postcards - this is the feeling of my memories - postcards to myself. When I go in Louisa’s house I pester to look through her photo albums and want to hear the stories. After my childhood of terror I met Louisa and she had this big Manchester Italian family and I had never witnessed familial love before like this. It went on to shape my life, her dad told me to learn Italian; I did. I wanted to belong somewhere. Something happened to one of her sisters that I have always carried. It shapes my work and under pins my new project deeply. When covid permits I want to travel through Louisa’s Italy with her and record it, capture her family story of immigration, find some joy and explore visual memory. To photograph things from the past that no longer exist, to show that immigration always impacts a sense of place and self. 


My Steeplechase Approach to Work and The Lockdown

This photo is my story, how I approach life and work with energy and positive power! Gallop is my preferred pace. When I had my horse it was me, not her, who quivered with excitement as the fast track appeared and I would be consumed with the urge to fly. Addicted to letting go and trusting my Arab mare. I had to stop riding after she died because I could ride - but not fall off. Many suggested I borrow their horses and plod. I knew that the slow life was not possible. After my shoulder operation I was told to ride after 12 weeks. 11 weeks and 5 days later I hopped on for a walk. Bill Hamilton found me cantering over a field. In the weeks that followed a couple of physios on the yard had to bollock me. Thus, practising self acceptance (this is in my nature) I have not ridden since last summer when someone lent me a polo pony and a huge field to play on! 

Slowing down during the lockdown has been rather good so far. My father-in-law had such a public coronavirus death and the media were all over my house and phone for a few days. They were very polite, so I’m not going to complain. Darrell was the second death from the virus and now people are sadly merely a number each day. After losing my dad at Christmas I let Olivia Fisher read my cards and she warned me of burn out. It took a national crisis to make me get up late in the mornings. My day begins with cappuccino and then yoga. Some days I can even sit to meditate. Going on a walk in the sun has become the highlight of my day, or a bike ride alone.

Like all of the creatives I know I have no work and no income now. Usually that would be alarming for a freelancer. There is so little I can do about it so letting go is now easier for me. I’m still on schedule for the book on transgender portraits and I think my team can cope with distance working. The publisher and designer are brilliant, why not trust a gifted man?

I’m not due to start shooting the domestic violence work until the summer. So  many women will be harmed in this lockdown. This issue will gain momentum and I feel that my research in domestic abuse is vital. I cannot photograph the women, I have more time to build a reflective practice. 

I’m working remotely with a human rights charity RAPAR. Asylum seekers and the homeless have no security or resources in a lockdown. I have an archive of powerful images to help them promote their work. Rhetta the CEO is a neighbour who I met on my neighbourhood social group. Here is a link to their work in The Guardian from Monday.

 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/23/million-undocumented-migrants-could-go-hungry-say-charities?CMP=share_btn_link

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