Golden photography

Sometimes you just snap what you can, following your photography path and documenting each step. On other days you fall into a flow, visualising the image before you even see it, lost in a reverie and yet connected to every fibre of the present. 

You anticipate certain factors that add up to the right conditions. Still air, soft light, fields of golden daisies, drifts of wildflowers. The sun is going down casting long golden beams across the landscape. Even the birds are singing in harmony with a thousand dancing crickets.

One hour, on one evening as the sun slowly deflates into the sea. 

They call it the golden hour and it's one not to miss. Those last rays of the sun, how the light is low across the land casting longer shadows and warming the sky to an intensity. A lesson learned that is never now forgotten.

Architecture, build it and they'll come

In another dream life I live in the big smoke. Which city? Well any of them to be honest, but at the moment it's London. I wander around from theatre to cafe and from river to park, I write, I snap, I breathe.

In any city it takes time to adjust to the proximity of so many people, the hurrying, the intriguing number of choices and the offerrings of consumerism. But when you settle into the endless stimulation your heart rate goes up, the blood rushes a bit faster, the brain kicks into gear. You feel yourself quickening, sharpening and responding to the world in a braver way.

But the biggest charge for me, is the scale and significance of the architecture. I connect with it instantly. Steeples, towers and bridges catch my eye and it's all up there where the trees usually are. I am looking up, I am elevated so I forget my feet. I am so rapt that I forget how far I am walking!

Isn't this what makes a town into a city? The quality of the architecture, the designers, the typographers, the planners? And again it's the conservationists who understand the importance of hearing the sounds and songs of our history through great buildings, streetscapes and gardens. Meticulously guarding heritage and encouraging experimentation from the very small to the royally grand.

And then we the people create the stories of the streets and villages within it. We add the heartbeat.





There's a previous London post here

News Flash!! This photo of the Shard taken that day was a runner up in the Open House, AJ, Gallery of Photography Photo Competition, 2013

Always an apprentice

 

Are we always beginners? I remember setting a goal to try blogging for three years. Now two thirds of the way there, am I getting somewhere?

The inspiration was to have an online studio, a sacred sharing space for an aspiring light seeker. A soothing cushion between a harsher world that any introvert would prefer to avoid. Time out to listen to the voice that comes from a calmer place, urging quietly; create, have courage, go deeper.

Aspiration, from the latin "to aspirate, breathe life into." And that's what is needed to continue at all, a pledge to apprenticeship and artisanship. To always be the vulnerable student, the breathy beginner.

An apprentice light seeker, inwardly and outwardly, strengthened every day by creative practice and soul searching. Juggling the paying of bills and reaching for the stars. Getting through the darker days as opportunities in Ireland recede and recede........Taking a deep breath, diving even deeper than before. And rising to the surface with small treasures to share.

If you are beginning......make space for a voice that will soothe and invigorate. Call it a blog if you must......you might end up listening to yourself and believing what you hear......





Note: The Foxglove Lane blog began in February 2011. See the first ever post Raining cats and dogs here. It took 2 months of blogging before there was even a single comment!

The beauty of the web......

After a year of blogging anonymously I agonised over the decision to "go public." It was then I realised that anonymity was not only my shyness, it was also the fear of not being good enough. Self expression and openness was totally discouraged by most of my teachers as self indulgent, navel gazing, trite, cliched, passé, twee, and every other put down you could imagine. The surprising thing is that an art school education fully endorsed this too. Art school criticism can be very harsh and too many of us learn to play it safe there in order to get through the course and get out with our degree and our dignity intact!

Later as a teacher I could see first hand the way students were often pigeon holed early on in their studies and were there to be educated out of their bad habits. Exploring your heart and soul in creative work or aiming to be successful as an artist seemed to be reserved for a select few. While I also love "art" at that level, there has to be more space for other kinds of imaginative production. I now believe that creativity is a tender flower which thrives better in a child like world of wonder and play, than in the narrow strictures of academic criteria.

Has this changed? Recently I told a friend how art college far from the liberation and exploration you might imagine can be tough especially for young women. She told me that her daughter who completed her art school education a few years ago has never fully recovered from the loss of confidence she suffered as a result of "only being good enough for a design course" as opposed to "fine art!"

One of the many positive aspects of a blogging life is the culture of generous feedback. The community are both personally creative and supportive to others. Because the web has been a positive space to share, and engage with other creatives, I eventually took the risk of going public and was gradually able to reclaim my face, my name and my creative space.

On a recent visit to a new local museum, I was astonished to find only two references to roles played by women; nuns who handmade stunning golden vestments for priests, and wives, cooks or maids and what they served up for dinner!! In years to come I think women's creativity will be encapsulated by present day female bloggers who have given voice to a more diverse and liberated world view.

There's something about the web which women utilise particularly well. It knits us closer together through daily connecting, we can exhibit our creative work within our own control and we can celebrate and share more of our inner lives. Delicate, feminine, strong, beautiful........and downright exciting to be part of.....


From my post on Vision and Verb a global gathering.

Humans are drawn to the dusk light

I walk, I snap, I share, I learn.

Then the next day I do it all again! This is the creative cycle.

Last year I set out to create 1,000 new images in my quest to reclaim a personal exploration and creative life. I ended up taking over 20,000 photographs in 10 months, mostly within a 5 minute radius of my backdoor. Who knew there was so much to see, explore and capture just under my nose?

I have noticed however that no matter how many photos I share, the greatest responses I get are from people who just love sunsets. Human attention is always drawn towards the changing dusk light. The uplifting glow of the sinking sun combined with the lengthening shadows and the fading birdsong, make it a magical event each time.

Every evening that I find myself photographing the western skies over County Waterford I wonder how it is possible ponder the same sky over and over again? But every evening it is unique and new! Nature creates change by the minute and I have become acutely aware of this. These photos were taken within the twenty minutes of that special twilight time, from just under a hedgerow.

By the way, you may have noticed that I am finding it harder and harder to keep up with responding to and following up on comments here. While I love and appreciate each and every one, I hope you will understand that I am becoming more focussed on making the images. The more work I do the more I can share and develop!  If you'd like more of a chat I am much better now on Facebook and on Twitter and I upload photos there too almost every day!

I am also with some difficulty trying to learn more about the technical side of photography, such a steep learning curve, so hopefully this year my work will improve. Again a big thank you for your support and encouragement. I continue to learn so much from you all.