Creative Advisor
Lesley Spiegel
Being creative has always been intrinsic to my essence. Guided by an intuitive sense of colour, composition, and light, I have explored many forms of artistic expression throughout my life. Photography became my foundation, not as an end in itself, but as the beginning of a creative journey. Influenced by years of study with Martin Osner, I discovered that an image could become far more than a record of what the camera sees. Whether through hand embroidery, fabric, intentional camera movement, or digital transformation, I use photography as a starting point for reinterpretation. Each piece evolves through an intuitive dialogue between the original image and the creative process, allowing memory, texture and emotion to reshape what was once simply observed. My work explores the space between reality and remembrance, where photographs become stories, thread becomes gesture, and familiar subjects are transformed into something quietly unexpected. As a Creative Advisor at the Art Photography Academy, I hope to encourage others to move beyond technique, trust their intuition, and discover the unique visual language that is already their own.
Showcase
Seven pieces, and what is behind them
Click on the artwork to see it larger, and read Lesley’s own description of each piece.
Work 01
Self Portrait
This work marks the beginning of my love affair with bordado. What began as a photographic self-portrait became an exploration of thread as a visual language. The wool is not an embellishment but an extension of the image, introducing texture, movement, and emotion while blurring the boundaries between photography and textile art.
Work 02
Seeing Beyond
This mixed-media photographic portrait is enhanced through hand embroidery and textile intervention, where wool and thread extend the visual narrative beyond the photographic surface. Combining contemporary portraiture with tactile fibre art, the work explores texture, identity, adornment, and the emotional resonance of hand-crafted mark-making. The photograph becomes a canvas for thread, a quiet collaboration between lens and hand, where texture, memory, and human presence are stitched into the image itself.
Work 03
Between Light and Water
A familiar landscape is transformed through digital interpretation into an exploration of light, reflection and negative space. Reduced to its essential forms, the felucca becomes a quite symbol of timeless passage across the Nile.
Work 04
Grace
A digitally transformed photograph transferred onto fabric becomes the foundation for delicate hand embroidery. The stitched flowering vine introduces growth and renewal, inviting a conversation between memory, photography and textile traditions.
Work 05
Love, Unscripted
A fleeting street scene becomes a quiet reflection on resilience and unconditional love. Against a weathered wall, marked with a painted heart, a mother carrying little more than her backpack and a begging bowl, pauses to comfort her child. Selective colour shifts the viewer's attention from circumstance to connection, reminding us that compassion and dignity endure where material possessions do not. By allowing the painted heart to remain while much of the scene recedes into muted tones, the work invites us to look beyond poverty and see the enduring bond between a mother and child.
Work 06
Between Revolutions
Built from multiple photographs using intentional camera movement and digital blending, this work explores how memory softens the edges of lived experience. The carousel becomes less a place than a metaphor for childhood memories, beautiful, cyclical and impossible to hold still. While the world dissolves into motion, the child remains quietly present, suspended between innocence and experience.
Work 07
Emergence
Beginning with a photographic image, layers of wax, paint and mixed media dissolve the boundaries between photograph and sculpture. Extending beyond the surface, the work celebrates transformation, allowing the figure to emerge through colour, texture and movement.
In her own words
How Lesley got here
Being creative has always been intrinsic to my essence. Guided by an intuitive sense of colour, composition, and light, I have explored many forms of artistic expression throughout my life. Photography became my foundation, not as an end in itself, but as the beginning of a creative journey.
Influenced by years of study with Martin Osner, I discovered that an image could become far more than a record of what the camera sees. Whether through hand embroidery, fabric, intentional camera movement, or digital transformation, I use photography as a starting point for reinterpretation. Each piece evolves through an intuitive dialogue between the original image and the creative process, allowing memory, texture and emotion to reshape what was once simply observed.
My work explores the space between reality and remembrance, where photographs become stories, thread becomes gesture, and familiar subjects are transformed into something quietly unexpected.
As a Creative Advisor at the Art Academy, I hope to encourage others to move beyond technique, trust their intuition, and discover the unique visual language that is already their own.
The path she took
She finished the Masterclass
Lesley completed every workshop in the programme. It begins with Getting Started in Art Photography, which is where all of this starts.
Look at Getting StartedThe others
Eighteen more artists
Every creative advisor came the same way, and each one has a page of their own with the work they make now.
See all the creative advisorsLesley’s creative journey began with just one course
Every artist on these pages started at the same place, unsure whether any of it would come to anything. Getting Started in Art Photography is where that begins.
Begin your journey in fine art photography