weaving words into light

I've been collaborating with Brisbane writer, Simon Groth, on i see a pattern forming since May 2011. Though our posts have been minimal lately, this is still a work in progress, and the concentration of late has been more about how to make this collaboration come to life in a place other than the internet.

A recent collaboration with McKenzie Johnson, an American photographer currently based in China, is much less formal, and taking place as a sort of dialogue, loosely titled 'Alone Together'. We are currently posting the first tentative responses to each other via Flickr, but may take the conversation to a place more consolidated in the future. I will keep you updated on that.

Slightly more recently, myself and Canadian photographer, Sarah Mercer, have taken to collaborating one on one after being involved in the Divine Diptych Project. We both enjoyed that experience, which often took a second place to life for many members of the Divine Sisterhood, so we thought we'd branch out on our own.

The work we are producing for this project is based on themes coming from song or movie titles and quotes, weaving words into light. Some images, like the first, will be diptychs, but that is not a requirement of the project. We're both excited about where this might lead.

^{now playing: pj harvey - you come through}

i see a darkness

Well, you're my friend and can you see, 
Many times we've been out drinkin', 
Many times we've shared our thoughts, 
But did you ever, ever notice, the kind of thoughts I got? 

Well, you know I have a love, a love for everyone I know. 
And you know I have a drive to live, I won't let go. 
But can you see this opposition comes rising up sometimes? 
That its dreadful imposition, comes blacking in my mind. 

And that I see a darkness. 
And that I see a darkness. 
And that I see a darkness. 
Did you know how much I love you? 
Is a hope that somehow you, 
Can save me from this darkness. 

- Bonnie 'Prince' Billy

^{now playing: bonnie 'prince' billy - i see a darkness}

bodysnatchers

^{now playing: radiohead - bishop's robes}

wishin' and hopin'

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...and hopin'

^{now playing: radiohead - supercollider}

in pursuit of perpetual motion

From Wikipedia: Perpetual motion describes hypothetical machines that operate or produce useful work indefinitely and, more generally, hypothetical machines that produce more work or energy than they consume, whether they might operate indefinitely or not. 

[Sister image to like spinning plates]

^{now playing: radiohead - little by little}

looking backward, moving forward

This past Tuesday I sneakily turned 35.

Well, really, it wasn't very sneaky. Celebrations leading up to the day were actually quite messy. But the day itself was quite low-key: leave from work for the day; relaxing and chatting on Skype with Kyle in the morning. The afternoon spent with Jane wandering from Victoria Station via Belgravia to South Kensington only to find the Saatchi Gallery was closed to the public for a private function; then wandering a little further to peruse the photography and Asian sections of the permanent collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum; followed by a pub dinner in Earl's Court before Jane headed to her evening's entertainment and I headed home to a long and enjoyable chat on Skype with my mum.

The original plan had been to spend the day with Jane wandering through Brompton Cemetery with our cameras, but the inclement and unpredictable weather [literally] put a dampener on that, and both of us chose to leave our cameras at home.

We did end up wandering through a graveyard at one point though, stumbling across the Royal Hospital Chelsea burial ground during our travels.

Tuesday also marked one year from the day I arrived at Hospitalfield for my one-month residency, during which the above image was taken.

^{now playing: david bowie - looking for water}

green / red

Left: me
Right: the melody censor

For the latest round of Divine Diptychs, I set the theme of complimentary colours, with myself and Susan selecting green and red.

Though I did trawl my archives looking for something, due to feeling a little uninspired in terms of shooting something new, I decided that I didn't want to submit an image that was the easy 'go-to' of plants, and the most 'diverse' predominantly green image I had was of a cactus. 

With the green dress seen above in mind, I originally thought about shooting self-portraits in it with my matching green tights, but then had the idea of a bouquet of green 'flower alternatives', which ended up being some tender stem broccoli and asparagus.

As I've recently found some nail polish that dries in 40 seconds, so have actually started wearing nail polish again regularly and buying colours that match to my outfits (purple being my favourite so far), I figured I'd track down some green nail polish to complete the image in my head. The nearest I found was aquamarine, so I tweaked the overall image a little to get a more pure green colour (I also gave myself a Photoshop manicure, reapplying the nail polish to my chipped fingernails, as I polished my nails last Sunday night).

I love that Susan expanded upon her original idea by including a 'pepper purse' in her image after seeing my image! I love her vibrant colours, and that we both look like we're getting ready for a prom or something, and those shoes!

^{now playing: the hazelman brothers - green dots, red dots}

animals & self-images & other things

I'm just catching up on a few publications I think I've been a bit lax in telling folk about, though two are very recent:

One of my images was included in the very first issue of 5x5 Magazine, with the theme of 'Self-images'. I highly recommend picking up a copy of the magazine in print, as the quality is beautiful. It took a bit longer to get into my sweaty palms than expected, but was well worth the wait! Not to mention that the cover story is about the stunning work of Sarah R. Bloom, and Susan J. Knight's work features in a piece entitled 'Inspired by Art', along with her interview about The Hive Hub & Arts Incubation Site in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada.

In addition to those two lovely artists, the magazine includes work by Elle Moss, Brooke Shaden, Marico Fayre, Megan Horsburgh, Michelle McRae, Sarah Ann Wright, Sarah Mercer, Emma Newson, Jennifer Leigh Evans, Jill Evans, Libby Livermore, Elle Hanley, (and that's just the artists I was previously acquainted with the work of!)

The ladies behind the magazine, Nicole Harlow and Jet Clark, are also awesome! 

I also have one image in issue #52 of F-Stop Magazine. As usual there is such a feast for the eyes in the latest issue, and I still need to peruse the collection properly, but work from Julie Kozerski's series 'Half' immediately drew me in.

And I have an image in the latest Lenscratch online exhibition, Animals. Sort of relieved I wasn't the only one who submitted an image of an ex-animal...

^{now playing: cocorosie - animals}

carpet crawler

^{now playing: genesis - the carpet crawlers}

when the paint grows darker still

^{now playing: frank black - when the paint grows darker still}

i can't stand up for falling down

Last year was not my best year for a number of reasons. Though there were highlights like moving to London, and undertaking a one month residency at Hospitalfield, overall last year I was not at my emotional, mental or artistic best.

Maybe it's because I've been voluntarily unemployed since January 1 [though technically I'm self-employed; and even without that, when opting to temp, when not actually on an assignment you're not technically 'unemployed', you're 'between jobs'], and Kyle's recent visit has definitely played a part, but I'm currently feeling pretty optimistic about the year ahead. 

Aside from my annual new year mantra which I took up a number of years ago now to 'make this one count', I've also resolved to shut out the 'noise' this year, and just get on with it.

By this I mean, think, care and worry less about what others are doing and saying (within both my personal and professional lives), and also know when to shut out my own internal 'noise'.

I let too much peripheral 'stuff' get to me and distract me from the important things last year, and I wasted a lot of time and energy being caught up with all of that. I don't want to waste any more energy on those negative elements this year.

The most important thing to me is to do what I want to do with my photography; do what I enjoy and makes me happy. Focus on what I want, and what I want to do, and block out all the rest.

^{now playing: curtis mayfield - future shock}

sun salutation

I'm currently wading through myriad shots from my residency at Hospitalfield in Arbroath, Scotland, in April / May 2011, to finalise the selection of images for my self-published photo book, interior / exterior.

I want to include some unseen images in the final book, so though I've been working through a lot of images, I've not been posting many; but I thought I'd post these three outtakes, especially as the lighting and post-processing are quite different to the final image from this part of my shoot that day.

I haven't decided on the definite final from this shoot, but I have it down to about 2 - 3, so far.

This was shortly after another shoot in an overgrown section of the yard, on the other side of the studio (the stone building to the left of this image), when I managed to step repeatedly into a cluster of stinging nettles. The after-effects of that were not my favourite experience of being at Hospitalfield!

That light creating the lens flare was lovely (and it's totally in-camera). It was probably about 15 degrees at most that day. Weirdly, I spent a lot of my time in the middle of early spring there, the weather not getting above 17 degrees, wearing little more than a sundress and my slip-on One Stars.

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untitled #21

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nosey parker

^{now playing: wham! - ray of sunshine}

hearts and flowers

And here we are. The end of 2011.

It's been a mixture of awesome and awful, so I'm channeling the awesome for 2012 in the hopes that I might discourage the awful.

This year saw me move continents; undertake a fantastic residency at Hospitalfield; participate in some inspirational workshops with Miss Aniela and Lou O'Bedlam, meet some fantastic photographers and non-photographers; and do a bit of traveling within and without the UK to catch up with friends.

There have been some massively overwhelming lows emotionally, but we'll gloss over those and pretend they didn't happen, right?

I have January and most of February 'off' from administration day jobs, so I'm planning on filling that time with trying to get somewhat up to date with editing the overwhelming number of photos I've taken in the last year and beyond.

I'm also hoping to collaborate with some other photographers and artists I admire, both within that time span and within 2012 in general; and hoping that in 2012 I can exhibit both within group and solo exhibitions here in London.

I am looking forward to meeting my parents in Budapest for a few days in May; potentially traveling to Manchester at some point to meet up with photography and authorly folk; and hopefully some day or overnight trips to catch up with friends I made when I lived here last.

In short, I'm feeling pretty inspired and positive about 2012 and what it may hold, and hope that you are too.

Should you feel the urge, please feel free to contact me about commissions, prints, image usage or whatever you think I might be able to do for you, that might be able to keep me from returning to full time admin work; but no matter what happens, I'm feeling very hopeful for the new year.

And one massive shout-out to my beautiful partner, Kyle, who despite being literally on the other side of the planet, manages to keep me sane (or something resembling sane). I'm overwhelmed at the thought of him being in London with me in February!

^{now playing: lamb - hearts and flowers}

golden afternoon

twohundredby200 have just released their second issue of the re-launched twohundredby200 magazine.

I'm featured in the magazine, along with Brian Copeland from Graphic Clinic, and Nightmare Mikey.

Go check it out!

^{now playing: amy winehouse - you're wondering now}

selkie

Left: Merle Pace
Right: me

From Merle's Flickr post:

Selkies are Seal Faeries from Irish and Scottish Myth. In the sea, they are seals who swim with their seal sisters, but they also come on land on nights of full moons and transform into women and dance with their seal sisters. This is when men can steal their seal skins to marry them, as they are known to be the best of and most loyal wives, and they go on to have children and a family on land. But, the Selkie woman is always longing for something. If they discover their seal skins, they have the terrible choice of staying with their human families on land, or returning to the sea with the constant call of their seal sisters, which is so much stronger than their mortal family.

I love this story and concept so much, but was really struggling to put together something I felt captured the idea in the vivid way I would have liked.

My full time day job and other distractions have been a real inspiration-killer for me lately, though I'm working on fixing that [which is also the reason I'm posting this so late...]

My image is a montage of a swirling, animal skin-type cloak I borrowed from a friend for a shoot as part of my 365 days series, and a self-portrait from about 2009. I wanted to capture the sense of the sealskin mingled with water. Merle flipped my image to face right-to-left and adjusted the colour a little in this version to make it work more harmoniously with her wonderful, dreamy image.

She also put together two other pairings which I think are also both beautiful, which you can see below.

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selkie ii

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selkie iii

^{now playing: pulp - being followed home}

centrefold

^{now playing: madonna - music inferno}

getting to grips

^{now playing: tom waits - ruby's arms}

how to be invisible

^{now playing: will oldham - drinking woman}

strange bedfellows

^{now playing: nine inch nails - head like a hole}

memory

There is nothing new except what has been forgotten. - Marie Antoinette

Over: Bee Brady
Under: me

Bee Brady and I were paired for the first time in this round of The Divine Diptych Project, and Marico Fayre distributed some lovely and inspiring quotes for us to work with in creating our images.

Attributed to Marie Antoinette, the phrase kept circling through my mind as I was shooting a series of self-portraits in the bathroom at my friends' apartment in Edinburgh last month.

The memory aspect hinted at by the quote played a part in my thoughts, but for me it also spoke of the repeating cycles that we go through in life. The way that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Or that perhaps the more you think things have changed, that you have changed, that often you find yourself back in the same place, a place you have tried to avoid and steer clear of for so long, but before you realise it you are falling back into.

Though both of our images are somewhat overwhelming in terms of detail and objects in the images, I feel it suits the theme, as memory is like that: overwhelming, cluttered, complicated and messy. Every time you recall a specific moment or place you remember more or different aspects, and there is often too much to take in to really remember everything as clearly as you'd like to think you do.

I enjoy the various references to memory and nostalgia in Bee's image: the mirrors, the camera, the clock, the candelabra, the vintage items. The sense of reflection and angles, and being submerged in the moment.

^{now playing: simple minds - don't you (forget about me)}