Meanderings Issue 4 …
Quotes of the Week
“The ideas “space” and “place” require each other for definition. From the security and stability of place we are aware of the openness, freedom, and threat of space, and vice versa. Furthermore, if we think of space as that which allows movement, then place is pause; each pause in movement makes it possible for location to be transformed into place.” (Yi-Fu Tuan 1977)
“The Photograph then becomes a bizarre medium, a new form of hallucination: false on the level of perception, true on the level of time: a temporal hallucination, so to speak, a modest, shared hallucination (on the one hand “it is not there,” on the other “but it has indeed been”): a mad image, chafed by reality.” (Barthes 1980)
People/Books
The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard (1964)
Another Way of Looking at Love by Janelle Lynch (2015-18)
Pabay – An Island Odyssey by Christopher Whatley (2019)
Space and Place by Yi-Fu Tuan (1977)
Images of the Week
As I was flipping through my images I caught sight of an image of Victoria Falls that I had taken from the air in 2007. We spent the whole day walking alongside the Falls, flying over them in a helicopter and taking a boat to the Island teetering on the edge of the Falls.
However, I chose not to pick these images but to select two black and white images taken at Niagara Falls on the Canadian side. Again, we spent the day taking the Falls from every conceivable angle. The first image was taken from a boat and I insisted on standing on deck throughout the whole trip – in order to get the shot I wanted. I was soaked and so was my camera. Indeed so much so that water ran out of the battery/card chamber as I tried to rescue the images. I was able to do so, but my camera was not so lucky!
Concepts and Ideas
I begin a period of photographic practice tomorrow and have been thinking about whether to continue with the Among Trees Collection or whether to start a couple of new projects I have been pondering for a while. The first is The Shape of Water which will seek to capture the changing shapes, patterns, movement and light of the sea. Given that Skye is an Island, it seems appropriate and relevant to photograph that which defines its geography, history and culture and contributes to its essence.
The other project, inspired by The Living Mountain by Awoiska van der Molen and the black and white imagery of Michael Schnabel (in particular, Stille Berge) is to take tightly-framed images of the Black and Red Cuillin mountains that dominate the landscape of Skye. I would also like to try some night shots with long exposures.
Jottings
I am really excited as I have found some great practitioners in my research of contemporary art practice including the photographer Janelle Lynch who produced an amazing book called Another Way of Looking at Love. This work is relevant to me not just in the subject, its style and conception, but also in terms of the production of the book.
Through this link I found a reference to an American artist called Charles Burchfield who paints magical images of trees and the landscape more widely. It is really exciting when the journey through the research starts to make sense and becomes more coherent.
