Notes and Images from a Small Island (Practice 3 Day 2)

I wake up to a misty morning, but the sun promises to shine through, so I head out.  I walk along the loch and it is clear that spring is not far away – catkins and pussy willow are moving in the breeze, and large numbers of blue tits are flitting among the silver birches.  As I make my way to the woodland where I plan to undertake my photographic practice today, I reflect on the presentation I gave to fellow PhD students earlier this week.  In the discussion that followed there was much support for experimenting, playing with my camera and just trying out new ideas.

I am not yet happy with the images I am taking in the woods – they lack the interiority I am seeking, the techniques I am using are not yet delivering the results I hope for and I am not seeing how and when the portfolio will come together – having said that I see this work as something that will be presented to the Format reviewers as very much Work in Progress.

I decide to work on multiple exposure images and am keen to capture the lichen covered trees in a way that gives a sense of what it is to be among these trees.  I am troubled by the white and lifeless sky and am minded not to include it in my images, but sometimes it gives a sense of the exterior of the wood and a means of making way and escaping from the woodland.  I try different combinations of exposure and intentional camera movement and as I work, I think about a comment from a fellow student who suggested that the glimpse of the unnameable glimmer might be seen as the moment in time between the two exposures used in my images.  I am very taken by this as an idea and need to reflect on it over the next few days of practice.

The milky skies gave me intense and saturated colours in the woodland this morning and I am pleased with some of the images.  I need to perfect my technique in terms of sweeping the camera and ensuring the movement continues after I have pressed the shutter.  This is something I normally do but I think I was distracted by the lifeless sky – in an effort to omit it I stopped moving the camera.  I also need to continue to work on interiority and really giving a sense of what it is like to be among the trees.