Michelle Obre of Williams Lake began taking photographs of the beauty around her at the suggestion of a surgeon.
Obre lives with chronic pain due to a serious head-on car crash in 2005 and has fibromyalgia.
It was after her second neck surgery in 2014, the surgeon told her sometimes there aren’t any answers.
“He asked what I like to do for fun?” she recalled. “I thought it was a really weird question but I answered and said that I loved to take photos and that people called my camera my third hand.”
Because he encouraged her to pursue that passion, she started going hard to see as much as she could, just in case she gets to a point where she can no longer take photos.
“I love nature and always have. I had an aunt tell me I could talk to a tree and it would listen.”
Obre’s photographs are featured on different Facebook pages, including her own.
She began sharing photographs because she was thinking of others that might not be able to get out and enjoy seeing nature.
“My absolute favourite photos to take are the sunsets of the Cariboo area.”
Obre is also passionate about animal rescue and photographing rescue efforts.
Her photograph of a badger was runner-up for the BCSPCA Wildlife-in-Focus contest and the following year her photo of a lynx was the winner of the people’s choice award.
Recently she has started making art cards and magnets with some of her photographs which are for sale at Kit and Kaboodle in Williams Lake.
Obre grew up in Houston, B.C., where her mom, Sharon Obre, worked at Equity Silver Mine.
Sharon and her friend, Theresa Oliver, were the first female haul truck drivers in B.C., if not Canada, Obre said, noting Sharon and Theresa were featured on the cover of a mining magazine in the 1980s.
“Mom also did training and became a medic through the mine.”
“I never knew my father,” she said.
In the summers, she and her cousins would travel on the train to spend time with their grandparents in Lillooet. Her grandfather, Cecil Obre, had been a gold-miner in Bralorne, 126 kilometres away.
When the Equity Mine shut down, Obre had just graduated from high school in Houston.
She and her mom moved to Tumbler Ridge and stayed there for 10 years.
While in Tumbler Ridge, Obre worked as a waitress, security guard, janitor - cleaning homes and the recreation centre, a traffic flagger and at Joey’s Place Restaurant.
“I also grew up with lots of Newfoundlanders and always enjoyed babysitting for them.”
When the mine in Tumbler Ridge shut down they moved to Williams Lake where she and Sharon worked at Gibraltar Mine until it closed and then Sharon went to Mount Polley.
“My first daughter Sara was born here,” Obre said. “Sara is 26 and has a son Zane who is seven. I also have a daughter Alexa who is 16.”
For three years she returned to Lillooet to care for her grandmother, Mildred Obre, who had begun declining due to Alzheimer’s.
Staying there for three years, she worked at the G&H a grocery store, known now as the Buy-Low Foods.
Moving a few times more she was living in Chilliwack when she became a single mother.
In Chilliwack, she was encouraged to take a professional management program which was one of the best things she ever did in her life, she recalled.
“I learned all about Microsoft office and computer programs and got really good at making resumes.”
In 2009, she returned to Williams Lake where she could afford to buy a family home because the market was reasonable, she said.
She worked at Horton Ventures as an employment counsellor until 2012 when her neck really began bothering her, making it difficult to work full-time.
The family settled in at 140 Mile and stayed there until just recently when she sold the house and moved into Williams Lake.
“I love the closeness and small town feel of Williams Lake,” she said.
Posting photographs on social media gives her lots of connections as well.
On Monday evening, May 27, she posted photographs of an old homestead at Springfield, just north of Williams Lake.
“I grew up here. All of my best horses are buried on this hill. So many memories. Thanks for the pictures,” one person commented on the post.
Self-taught, Obre recently mentored a student in photography for a high school Capstone project and really enjoyed the experience.
“That was a big thing for me,” she said.
READ MORE: Cariboo lynx photo captures BC SPCA Peoples Choice Award
READ MORE: Eagle rescued in the Cariboo near railway track sent for rehabilitation
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