Suspense
My colour - your colour blending unseen against solidity As pattern is introduced My being warps it Becomes visible Clearly refracting seen only as a distortion of your regularity bending the very rays and become visible against them perfect imperfection reveals a passing lens I remember falling past you on my way to a fluidic oblivion caught the relic of a splash I made when I was someone else
Water and the refraction of light are common themes in my work. I remember being in primary school and realising that things were visible only if they shone with their own light or reflected light into my eyes. I had this little mirror I used to take to school and I would play games with it like positioning it in the grass on the oval at just the right angle so that it effectively disappeared. I would then spin around or close my eyes for a time, and proceed to look for it ... could I pick out the tiny replication that signalled where the reflection was? That moment of suspense when I thought that perhaps, this time I had actually lost the mirror... upon reflection (no pun intended) I was maybe a little odd as a child. Not that much has changed, I was in love with light even then.
When did you realise you were in love with light? Was there a moment when you really noticed it ... noticed it or simply became aware of it? Do tell :-)
Something in the wine
Three and a half seconds of dragged shuttery, fire-twirly goodness for your viewing pleasure. Have a good weekend ... what are you up to?
Gunung Batur
Oculus time again. This is a picture of Gunung Batur (Mount Batur) on the island of Bali. It is an active volcano and this picture was was taken from the rim of the caldera which was formed around 25,00 years ago. The present cone rises some 700m above Lake Batur which has formed on the caldera floor. The last major lava flows were in 1968 and can be seen clearly as dark basaltic out purings out from the main cone but the volcano urmbles and emits steam regularly. It looks and sounds remote but there are literally hundereds of restaurants and tea houses stretched along this, the southwest part of the rim forming part of the town of Kintamani.
Nearby is a Volcano Museum which wasn't there last time we visited and contains some great models and geological samples. My eldest (7), who's totally into seismographs at the moment (even more so after watching 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth' twice on the plane on the way over...) thought it fantastic. We found a little staircase in one corner of the museum labelled 'Observation Room'. We ascended the stairs to find a little bright room with several tripods with high powered binoculars pointing vaguely at the volcano. The tripod mounts are very wobbly and the scopes could not be focussed ... oh well. On the way back down we stopped at a little glass door where we found the resident seismologist who seemed completely chuffed to have some interested visitors. He welcomed us in and showed us the seismograph which had a trace on its drum from a tremor that morning. Mr 7 was in heaven!
Of course my oculus came to Bali with me and although it stayed in my camera bag most of the time ... it came out whenever I remembered it was there ... like this occasion. Shot using my favourite lens my Nikkor 50mm f/1.4.
Walking A Different Path
Walking a different path. Travel ... one of the best things we can do for both ourselves and our children. As a family we travelled ... a lot. I changed schools every two or three years and after a while you make friends like a traveller makes friends ... knowing that it's a temporary thing ... one or other of you will be gone soon. You don't put down roots, they'll only be torn up in a couple of years. You learn to be compact and self-reliant. On the other hand you get to see things other people do not. Countries that no longer exist. Ways of life that have disappeared forever. I remember seeing Chinese junks in Penang and Singapore harbours. Orchard Road with wooden shops before it became high-rise. Islands before they became the footprint for mega-resorts. It wasn't that long ago either.
I remember returning to Australia, to a new school again after one of these trips and finding people simply didn't believe that I'd been overseas ... that I was making it all up ... that everywhere was simply the same as it was here. How I longed to be able to teleport them to walk along one of those streets, or to the center of an asian market where you chose the chicken you wanted for dinner, went away and returned to find it newly converted into fresh-plucked chicken ... still vitally warm ... or you could stay and watch. That would learn them ... maybe.
I believe it's vitally important to walk down another street. A place you've never been ... surrounded by people living a life completely different to yours (albeit superficially ... I mean we're all essentially looking for love and warmth and food) to see how people live. It changes the way you view the world and your place within it ... at times if only to realise just how lucky you are to have the things you have and often take for granted.
I took the picture above on a recent family trip to Ubud in Bali. I liked that it showed that essential nature of travel ... walking a different path.
Do you travel? Have you walked another path?
Changing Light
Have you ever travelled somewhere you've been before but a long time ago? Somewhere perhaps where things are different to the life you left to go there? Although I'm an Australian and have spent most of my life here, I was born in Georgetown, Penang and have spent significant periods of my life growing up in Asia. I feel an affinity - there's a large part of me in Southeast Asia. I recently returned to the mountains of the Indonesian island of Bali after an absence of 10 years. Bali's a beautiful (& warm) place with rich a Hindu culture and warm, friendly people ... did I mention warm? The morning we left Canberra it was -6C! When we landed it felt the same ... it smelled the same. We couldn't find the driver our hotel sent so we jumped in a cab for what's normally a 40 minute ride. The trip took 2 and a bit hours in at times quite ridiculous traffic ... perhaps traffic is a bit generous - traffic implies movement of some kind. There was plenty of time to look out the window. As the sun set I noticed something had changed. At first I couldn't put a finger on it yet it altered my whole perception. By the road, shops and houses, scooter repair, makan (food) carts, temples and shrines - switched on their lights pools in the increasing darkness.
The shops felt colder, less inviting ... why was that? Of course! The light! The light was now blue! I remembered it as orange ... incandescent ... warm. The incandescent globes had all been replaced by compact flourescents (CF) with their cold bluey glow. Here in Australia, we've been changing the globes over for years and I remember noticing that houses looked less inviting and colder then. It was one of those 'Derr!' moments when I realise the obvious ... of course everyone everywhere is changing to the new bulbs ... of course it will look different. Then why did I have such a reaction to this?
I'll declare I dislike CF lighting ... it feels stark and cold to me ... somehow less intimate. Halogens still retain their warmth (literally most times!) ... I guess people who've grown up with nothing else do not yearn as I do for those warm oranges and yellows. I sincerely hope that lighting engineers are working on warmer, energy-efficient solutions - I'm sure they are!
How about you, do you miss the incandescents? Have you always known CF lighting? Does it feel cold to you? Less intimate?
Do let me know :-)
Sum of the Parts
Sum of the Parts
Ocean swells and falls as a twilight breeze ruffles my hair
salty fresh with spray
waves thumping deeply through bedrock
Watching the moon rise
and waiting
Alone now
Then it happens ... the scene blurs and folds
into two ... then three
Ocean Sky Moon
as balanced as they are suspended
Individually separate
As the sum of the parts
they are the world
(Inspired by Ness 2012)
I have been working on a series lately called 'Sum of the Parts' in which I deliberately blur my photograph in an attempt to break it into it's component parts. The pieces invite the viewer to to meditate on a scene without visual distraction of detail in a realm without time. That's the theory anyways! The first image in this series was blogged here as Sunset Wave and is shown below.
Tell me, do you work in or on a series? By that I mean do you think "today I'm going to take a picture for my *insert classy description here* series"? Or do you look back on your portfolio and think "Hey I've got a lot pictures of flowers/car number plates/left shoes ... I should put them together in a series"?
Do tell! :-)
Perfume
Finding the Spot
A couple of weeks ago I attended an artists retreat down on the far south coast of New South Wales. I had my oculus, my glass sphere with me and I was down at the beach before dawn each morning looking for that time when light and landscape come together to create something breathtaking.
Sometimes a picture seems to assemble itself before my eyes. I get this feeling as a scene unfolds, like a premonition, that right this moment or very soon after something beautiful is happening in front of me or 'just over there'. Perhaps it is simply my mind opening itself to the possibility of beauty ... that I am allowing myself to be open to what is unfolding in front of me. Other times I can be surrounded by a terrific scene and light but I'm oblivious to it as I search for something within it ... something beyond it. Those times I'm looking to scratch an itch I can't reach ... I know there's something there but I can't see it ... yet! This picture is a rare one of me doing just that.
This is a picture of me taken by my friend Helga as I walked across the wave platform in the light just after dawn holding my oculus out in front of looking for the spot ... in my left hand I'm cradling my camera and my back pocket holds my cable release and intervalometer. I have an obsessive gleam in my eye that speaks of concentration and an early start. I am surrounded by superb golden dawnlight that the ocean spray is carrying in foggy curtains around me ... beautiful!
About five minutes after this picture was taken I was taking the photograph below (which blogged about here) ... I had found the spot ... I had seen beyond and now I'm sharing it with you.
How about you? Do you search, often surrounded by beauty but oblivious to it? Maybe you find yourself standing inside a tree heavy with spring blossom and buzzing loudly with bees looking for that bloom that speaks for the tree ... that speaks for all of spring? The leaf that speaks for Autumn... do you find yourself finding the spot?
I'd like to know :-)