A mysterious relationship

The camera lens enhances the ordinary and the everyday by capturing, focussing, and saturating each image. The shutter clunks, the motors whirr and the computer chip inside records every tiny detail of light and shadow. This daily photographic partnership between us, soothes, uplifts and excites my soul........

A close ally, this camera never interrupts a train of thought or a conversation inside my head, remaining the silent partner in every creative project. I am there to supply the intuition but the invention of the camera made the magic of photography.

And who knew that just when I thought I had seen enough for one day the camera would seek out a pearly snail shell attached with invisible glue to a dying skeletal petal? Something small, surprising and beautiful in this damp set of fields which couldn't possibly yield up yet another crop of images. Yet there it was, tiny, golden and completely perfect in my world.

A mysterious relationship exists between Mother Nature, the camera and me. Sometimes it works best to allow the pair of them to do the talking and just go along for the ride.......

Sparks fly!

Seemed like a good idea at the time. The Christmas tree was tinder dry but I never imagined that the meadow would be so dry too. Who would expect that in the middle of an Irish winter?

It happened fast. While I was trying to figure out some fancy camera settings, the blaze took off. The drama of a raging fire not too far from the house, obliterates all other thoughts. Betwixt and between taking the photos and stamping out the increasing flames I started to shout my head off .......but didn't put the camera down! Hey that's fire for you, it demands your full attention, but on the other hand the creative process is also a kind of flame that luckily is also hard to subdue.

I am not a fire woman at all! More of a water soul. So to be this close to such a powerful and overwhelming furnace of a fire, with glowing sparks flying in all directions, took my breath away.

I needed to put out the burning meadow fire alright but that little flame of creativity, the one that has persisted in spite of damp drizzly conditions at times, that one I decided, I would nurture and protect and encourage to spread. Mmmm .......hopefully it will spread like wildfire and even more sparks will fly!

Is creativity just about putting one foot in front of the other?

 

 

 

 

 

These are just some of my favourite photographic memories from 2011. All of these photographs were taken just 5 minutes from my back door where I observed nature on Foxglove Lane continuing to express itself in ordinary ways. Some times I went out with my camera in a happy mood as the sun was shining or the flowers and bees were plentiful.  Other times I expected nothing and pounded the lane in the grey mist...just hoping to come across a friendly mouse or an interesting insect. On these days little surprises would capture me.....leaves turning golden, seed heads blowing in the wind, ice on dandelion petals and I would come back with a bouncier spring in my step. It was about just doing it.

2011 was a year of bereavement in my own life and I have no doubt that the whole blogging experience and the kindness of strangers mitigated the sadness in different ways. While I was losing someone I was also gaining someone, I found some other part of myself again. An inner world, a more fearless creativity, a sense of seizing the day with more urgency. Recovering from a bereavement seems to be a similar process, it's about getting up in the morning and putting one foot in front of another.

So for 2012 I will continue as before, putting one creative foot in front of the other, not thinking too much about all those ifs and buts, living life for each ordinary and extra-ordinary day as it comes. Is that what creativity is really all about?



Happy New Year dear friends!