‘No animals were harmed in the making of these pictures,’ says Rosie Hardy, laughing, just in case any viewers are under the illusion that the scenes in her photographs are real, such as her riding a grizzly bear through a forest or cosying up to a polar bear. For the record, she also didn’t stand in front of exploding lava at the Gates of Hell or jump through a solid brick wall.
Rosie’s creative self-portraits have gained her over 170,000 followers on Instagram. Although there’s plenty within the frames that isn’t real, her pictures strike a chord with her audience because they draw on thoughts and emotions from real life. ‘When I was younger, I didn’t want to be in front of the camera,’ she reveals. ‘I had bad skin and alopecia. When my brother installed GIMP software on my computer and showed me how I could take out spots and patch up the bald spots in my hair, it showed me there was more that I could
