A World of Her Own Making

A great trip isn't just about the places you visit, it’s also about the feeling of stepping out into the unknown. Sometimes, you need to make the journey to come back to yourself.

When Michelle came to the studio, she wanted to remember the magic of her honeymoon road trip through New Zealand but rather than copying the landscapes as they were, she took a bold, imaginative leap: as a lifelong sci-fi fan, she envisioned her memories transformed into a breathtaking, uncharted otherworldly dimension.

Working directly from her personal photographs, we built this new landscape on top of New Zealand’s peaks. Think exaggerated horizons, impossible razor-sharp mountain peaks and suspended Pandora-inspired planets with dramatic cloudscapes. Tucked quietly in her inner bicep sits the actual RV that they’ve rented, parked at the edge of a lake, framing her and her husband as two explorers who have stumbled upon a new world.

As a playful nod to their real-world encounter, we immortalised the mischievous local Kea birds as towering monoliths carved directly into ancient mountain stone.

By blending her reality with her wildest imagination, she turned a memorable personal milestone into her own epic sci-fi universe — a permanent display of love, discovery, and new horizons.