Evolution of an idea

Resilience

My image Resilience (created December 2021) was selected for the Planet Recovery Project exhibit by Labyrinth Gallery in the UK. The exhibit will be online for the next six months. Their set up is quite unique and looks like a real gallery tour. The online exhibit can be viewed at this link. 

I always find it interesting to read or hear about how someone came up with their ideas, so here is a back story that I hope you'll enjoy.

I originally took photos of a clear cut piece of land in 2013. I found it devastating to see, and knew that someday I would try to create an image with a message.

My first attempt was created in 2016 and combined my image of the clear cut land with a photograph of a mill I took in 2013. 

It was one of my first digital compilations. I combined the two photographs to create one "mirror" image. I rotated the photo of the mill, to make it look like a reflection and then converted the colour image to black and white. I called the final image Wounded.

Wounded, 2016

Wounded (def'n): 1. An injury to an organism, especially one in which the skin or another external surface is torn, pierced, cut, or otherwise broken.  2. An injury to the feelings.

Last year I created a new compilation which was inspired by the untitled image by Jerry Uelsmann, featured on the cover of his book Uelsmann Untitled: A Retrospective.

My first take was this:

Under Our Protection, Take One

I decided that was too dark, so I changed the sky to a more hopeful one and also changed the image to square:

Under Our Protection, Take Two

 

Then I took an online workshop with Maggie Taylor and my creative world expanded, so I re-worked the concept yet again and titled it In Our Hands:

In Our Hands

 

I printed it and pinned it to my bulletin board. Then I started fretting that it was a bit dystopian. Was this image actually coming from me, or had I been too influenced by the original inspiration piece by Jerry Uelsmann?

A short time later I was browsing through a junk shop with a friend and spotted these: 

which lead to this:

Resilience

Resilience was created from twelve different photographs and is part of the Haven Series that I'm working on. It's quite a different concept than my original image Wounded.

(Editing note: I seem to have different font colours in this post, but I have no idea how to fix it. Sorry!)