Trailings Project - November update

Shifting Seasons

I'm generally not a fan of photographs made with intentional camera movement (ICM)and mulitple exposures, but it seemed appropriate for this image. It was a dreary day in early November, but the rain brought out the red colours in the dying undergrowth and the white bark of the birch trunks brightened up the side of the trail. I wanted to capture the idea of the changing seasons so I set my camera to take a simple multiple exposure, combining two images into one. Shifting time and shifting seasons.

It's also time to shift focus for my Trailings project. The opening date of my exhibit is April 1st, which seems a long way down the road, but the background work for an exhibit takes time and planning. So I must shift my focus from creating to curating. The biggest challenge: how to select 20 images to exhibit from the 3000+ photographs I have taken?

It's actually not quite that challenging. I considered only 400 or so of those images worthy of publication in a book, and of those I only ran test prints on 100 or so. So...I have to pick 20 to frame from approximately 100 images.

How to narrow down the selection? Do I pick a theme? Do I pick a style of photography? Do I pick a specific subject? I attended a webinar recently about project based photography, and the speaker suggested taking all your photos and sorting them into different piles to see if a theme develops. Sort, discard, resort and sort again to see what happens. 

I have a large bulletin board over my desk where I pin up test prints. I do my sorting and resorting on that board. My focus for this project has changed dramatically over the past few months and many "possibles" have turned into "discards".

the "possibilities" bulletin board

the discards

So now I have to narrow things down and curate photographs to create three things:

1. 50 to 60 images for a photo book (must finalize book and run a test print, review and finalize, and print final copies!)

2. 20 images to print and frame for exhibit (must order frames, print and frame images!)

3. an exhibit guide with photos and "blurbs" about each image (must create the book, run a test print, review, and order multiple copies!)

And then there are the quilts that I'm making for this project. Three completed, one quilt top finished and ready to quilt, and three more to create! Sometimes I get a little anxious thinking about it.

Update on the public participation cards mentioned in an earlier post: 162 cards were removed from the bins on the trails by the public. It's possible that some of those cards were destroyed...one bin was stolen, and another bin was thrown into the town pond. Never fear...it was rescued. Ten submissions have been sent by the public, including 2 poems, 3 written statements about the trails, and many photographs. Only one person has contributed fabric for the proposed community quilt, so I may have to re-think that side project. The good news is that all 10 people have requested monthly updates about the project. It's great to have the public interested!

Fingers are crossed for more public participation...I requested people to send their submissions by December 15th. What I do with these submissions depends on how many I actually receive. To be decided at a later date....