Notes and Images from a Small Island (Practice 7 Day 2)

I head out in the pouring rain to hunt down that patch of light between the squalls.  While I subscribe to taking photographs in all weathers, and particularly on Skye this is important in capturing the essence, I find it difficult to find my mojo!

I am disappointed by this morning’s efforts and feel I need to focus and work carefully.  However, in dodging the showers, and working quickly to make the most of any improved conditions that come my way, I am inevitably less able to find the creative flow that comes when I can sit peacefully considering the world around me.

I immediately leave the script I had written and begin photographing the dead heads of Rosebay Willowherb.

These prolific flowers, that line motorways and country lanes, have a fascination for me, particularly in the summer and autumn when the delicate yet resilient stems give way to intense orange-brown leaves and then die back leaving the white seeds destined to create yet more Rosebay Willowherb.  As I make my way to the forest, I am also attracted by the droplets of rain in silver birch trees and stop to take a few shots.

When I move location and subject, I find it takes a few days to rekindle my eye and technique again.  The diversions along my path – the Rosebay Willowherb and the silver birch – are subjects and techniques I have produced before, and I want to move on. . .

Despite my best efforts at recalling the techniques and ideas of previous work, I feel that the images below reflect my mood and haste.  However, having said that, I do believe that they capture the sense of chaos, interiority, and entanglement of the forest that I had been working on last spring.  I also like the almost tapestry aesthetic of the autumn colours.  If the course of my practice follows the same path as my return to water and the reeds in Practice 6, then my best work will emerge as I re-familiarise and immerse myself in the location and subject.  These are the times when I feel closest to the being of other objects.