Notes and Images from a Small Island (Practice 8 Day 6)

I choose to plough on with my practice, as the weather is kind, and with a poor forecast for the next week I decide to take the opportunity.  This means I am launching into Week 2 without having reflected on my first week of practice.

I arrive at the ‘trees’ on a cold but calm morning.  I have no idea where my practice might take me.  I start to capture the headland, with the remaining trees, from a distance.  “Another record shot” goes through my mind.

As the tide slackens and starts to recede, I change to a long lens and in the process cause a technical failure in my camera – I had left the camera on while I did it!  I bemoan my distraction and incompetence.  I struggle with inspiration, but as the sun rises the reflections of the remaining trees emerge on the loch.  I gradually tighten the crop and barely notice the tide rushing out until the large pebbles and rocks emerge through the now shallow water.

I am pleased, without intent, to have remembered some successful reflection shots taken on Loch Cill Chriosd and Lochain Dubha.  At the time I wrote of reflections:

“I do not want to create a traditional landscape image with both the object (the tree) and its reflection in the frame.  I want to reflect the being of the object, the noumenal dimensions – a glimpse through the reflection.  The reflection strips away the trunk and the leaves of the tree and instead signifies many other things such as the sun, wind, currents of the water and the season. The traditional image of the tree as a physical presence is withdrawn in the reflection.”  (Price 6 October 2021).

However, I failed to recall the first sentence, and consequently produced more subject-oriented imagery.

As I pack up my camera, I know in my heart that I had not produced any ‘keepers’.  I know that creative flow had eluded me, and I know that I should have stayed at home writing and reflecting on my first week’s image making, before being seduced by good weather on Skye, without a plan!