Hedgerows and Meadows #1

Spent some time with my favourite art-buddy, the lovely Faye, yesterday. Yadda yadda yadda… seriously, I could have talked all day. We went out to a little farm & dairy shop that has a cute old-fashioned cafe on the side. Chequered curtains and vinyl table-cloths, with fake flower-pots on the tables. Slow but friendly service, and way too many tables crammed into a tiny amount of space, but it all seemed totally apt and appropriate.

I didn’t even flip and do my “don’t mess with me” attitude when the waitress asked us to move to a smaller table so that she could squeeze more people in (we had a cute little table by the window at first, and ended up squashed between two couples that both seemed to have fallen out with each other!).

Hedgerows and Meadows #2

And because we were out in one of my favourite parts of Dorset, I went off in search of some film-fodder after our lunch, and found this wonderful meadow of wild flowers.

Hedgerows and Meadows #3

Well, I discovered that English meadows look pretty good in black and white. I was surprised. I mean, the colour images are quite nice, but not as good as the mono ones.

Hedgerows and Meadows #4

And these are all taken with hipstamatic on my iphone again. I’m having lots of fun with this at the moment, and feeling less frustrated that I can’t get into the darkrooms or work on the alternative processes that I want to do.

Hedgerows and Meadows #5

The current phase of frustration seems to be finally coming round to the “clarity” end of the cycle, where I start to be able to put my finger on what the real problem has been. When I read this, on Ben Roberts’ blog, his advice really jumped out at me:

1. work out what it is you want to photograph.
2. photograph the hell out of it.
3. edit your work down to a solid portfolio that you feel represents what you are trying to achieve.
4. show it to people.

Although he was giving this advice to someone with a specific career focus in mind, I think it’s relevant to anyone who’s trying to find themselves or define themselves as an ‘artist’ (and for that, also read ‘photographer’).

Work out what it is you want to photograph.

This is the question banging around in my head lately. Last summer was all about exploring medium format film for the first time, playing with the holga, getting to understand Photoshop, and just having fun taking lots of pictures. I photographed anything and everything, and just got really stuck in at Flickr and with The August Break.

Now I realize that I need and want to push myself to be more focused, and to think about exactly what it is that I want to photograph. Be more selective, so that I can develop my skills and my style more deeply. Don’t go wide, go deep. That was the best advice to artists that I ever heard. Think it came from Chuck Close.

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The boy and the beach-huts

Yesterday, Rubin and I went for a long walk along the beach at Hengistbury Head. I’ve photo-blogged my Hipstamatic images from the walk at Flickr… come see.

 

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Rubes & Ben in paddling pool

I keep coming here to write, opening up a new post and then going away again. Everything has been going in other directions lately. But it feels like important shifts are occurring. Maybe it’s been necessary to hold the changes within – to nurture, not to rush them. Which makes it hard to talk about yourself in a space like this.

My cameras have been left sitting in the cupboard. I feel like I’m not ready to return to them yet. I’m just satisfying my photo-urges with a little bit of digital work. Mostly playing with the Hipstamatic App on my iPhone, which I’ve coveted for so long. But even getting bored of that.

Did you feel the energies of the recent string of eclipses and the planetary alignments that they brought with them? Lara Owen’s updates are really thorough and enlightening, with a huge bonus that they’re in GMT, so I don’t need to translate the days and times to fit. I should have noted that we are in a void of course moon phase today, before I started butting my head against all the things I wanted to get done, and winding up with this headache.

Sarah, Jo, Sam, George, Ben

In the middle of this strange space, we had my Sister’s wedding. This is me, holding my nephew, Ben, my Sister, Jo, and an old school chum, Sarah, with her bubba, George. Sarah really did have the best hat of the day.

Rubin made a great page-boy, and was completely absorbed in the spirit of the party.

Little Page-Boy

Strangely, though, I hardly took any photographs. I had planned to shoot some film for them – to counter the hired photographers inevitable use of digital images… but it didn’t happen. I was so wrapped up in everything, and so very involved in it all, that time seemed to fly by and leave me no time for playing with cameras. It was a very lovely day, but I feel a bit bereft as far as photographic matters go.

That would kind of sum me up at the moment. Toni tells me she calls times like this “the tide is out”. At least I’m not fighting it any more. And I feel that I might come back changed in some way, as well as revived and renewed. But I’d better not be placing expectations like that upon myself at this stage, in case I force it or break the thing before it’s ready.

Oh, I keep forgetting to do this bit…

I want to thank Suzi for all her help, and her beautiful calligraphy, which went into forming the Guestbook for Jo & Chris (and the Wedding Album – not quite completed yet). Here are a few photos that show how it turned out:

Guestbook 03

Guestbook 02

Guestbook 01

 

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Stretched too thin, dramatic greens and goodbye Facebook

June 20, 2011 Wholeness
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Solstice is almost upon us. Hard to believe the nights begin to draw in from later this week. I thought these photos would show you what the skies have been like lately around here. Dramatic. Still, my sweetie and I found we had a few hours spare by ourselves today to go into the Dorset [...]

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On art, and photos, and bookmaking, and exhibitions, and whether to sell my work.

June 16, 2011 Wholeness
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Every day it rains, and it does not feel like Summer here. On Monday, Lara explained what a big week it was going to be with our shifting planetary energies. But there was too much cloud yesterday to see the Full Moon, before or after her light became occluded by the eclipse. And I forgot [...]

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