Trailings Project - Community Involvement

I mentioned in an earlier post that I will be hosting two exhibits during April and May 2021....well, it's really one exhibit that will be displayed in two locations at the same time. Different things in different places. Crazy me.

Anyway....as part of this whole project, I decided that I wanted to involve the community. So...I printed up some cards:

And I put them into containers:

And I placed them in various locations around our town trails:

The cards have been in circulation for 9 days. So far, 180 cards have been put out. I have moved some of the bins to different locations, so I know that 60 cards have been taken from 2 of the bins. I'll be checking the other 2 bins on Friday. And...I have received emails from four people with photos and one poem. A pretty good start!

I was disheartened when I found 15 cards dumped in the woods (not included in the above totals). Why do people do things like that? Anyway, they must be good quality cards because they lasted a couple of days outdoors with no damage.

And...I have received one amazing email from someone who took a card. I'm not sure where it will lead, but I'll talk about that soon.

Trailings Project

Sara and her walking companion, Riley

 I have been working on a photography project for the past year. It officially became a "project" several months ago in my mind, but it had very humble beginnings.

Last year was one of strife and challenge for me, and one of the most difficult periods in my life. I became depressed, something I never thought I would say about myself, and ended up on prescribed medication. I really couldn't see how I was going to continue to hold myself together. 

I was walking my dog Riley every day, and every day my thoughts would whirl and swirl around in my head during our walk. They were dark thoughts indeed.

I'm not sure when things started to change, but they did. I started to notice things around me. The light bouncing off the ripples on the river, the sweet scent of the wild roses blooming, the crunch of the gravel beneath my feet on the trails. Little observations that became things to focus on, taking me outside myself and my thoughts.

Being a photographer at heart, I began snapping some images with the phone I carried. Then I started writing some notes when I returned home, just simple records of the weather and some of the sights I saw along my walk. 

Instead of thinking of my daily dog walk as a chore, I began looking forward to it. Our walking route became longer, along the LaHave River and up through the walking trails. I wouldn't use rain, or cold, or anything else, as an excuse to cancel our walk. We walked in all types of weather...on days so cold, my teeth would ache...on days so windy, we had to lean forward to make progress...on trails so iced over, we would have to skirt the paths and go into the woods...and on hot days as well, days so hot that I would long for my teeth to be aching with cold.

I started carrying a camera and a notebook, documenting sights and recording memories. I printed some photographs and pinned them to a bulletin board above my desk. My notebook writings became less observational, and more introspective.

The forest was working its magic. My mind was engaged with the beauty of nature, the wonders of life.

I am a photographer, but Trailings is more than a photography project for me. It was as if the forest wanted me to tell it's story. Sounds crazy, I know.

I will be exhibiting my Trailings collection, photographs and story cloths (more about these later), at two locations from April 1 through May 31, 2021. Throughout the coming months, I'll talk some more about how my daily walks through nature inspired my creativity and saved my state of mind.

Wabi-Sabi

Our photo club has not met since March, when the COVID-19 pandemic shut most of the world down. We now meet virtually, including our "field trips". Last month, our theme for submitting images was Wabi-Sabi.

What is Wabi-Sabi?
 

According to internet sources, in traditional Japanese aesthetics, Wabi-Sabi is a world view centred on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. Wabi-Sabi nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: 

nothing lasts, 

nothing is finished, 

and nothing is perfect. 

I have been attracted to this type of image for a long, long time, but I wasn't familiar with the concept of Wabi-Sabi. 

On a walk with my dog in August, I was enthralled with the leaves on the trees that had been decimated by some kind of insects. They looked like lace...fragile and beautiful.

Over the past year, I have been working on a photographic series that I call Trailings. Most of it involves photographing details from my daily walks along the Bridgewater trails. Sometimes I bring a finding home to photograph. This feather is far from perfect. It shows evidence of the passage of time, a favourite theme of mine lately.

I saw these flowers laying on the road, just off the curb. I walked by. Then I turned around, walked back, and pulled out my camera. Why, I don't know. It spoke to me, and I needed to capture the image.

This example is from a beach walk in July. I was actually running....frightened and exhilarated at the same time, with my camera raised above my head and pointing behind me as the plovers were on the attack and determined to chase me out of their comfort zone. Not a perfect photograph. But an outstanding memory.

Choices - Making a Still Life

Daisy Photo Shoot

I have heard some photographers say that they only press the shutter once or twice in each location. They spend most of their time walking the site, framing the best angle in their mind and then take the shot.

I don't do that.

I do spend time thinking things through ahead of time (provided it's not something that you just need to raise your camera and grab shot). However, there is something about the process for me that makes it a necessity to press the shutter. It helps me think. For a still life, whether it's out in the field with a landscape image, or in the house with an actual still life, I make many photographs. Different backgrounds, different angles.

Then when I look at the images on my computer, I make more decisions. There are as many ways to process images as there are to take them. I decided that I liked the image on the right the best - just a solid background, slightly off centre. And then I played a bit.

The original image is on the left, with a slight vignette added. The next image is desaturated, with some colour left on the daisies. The third image is a wild card, with heavy textures and processing done with the press of a button. For my final, and favourite, image....I took the original (on the left) and darkened it, adding some moodiness that I decided I liked.

For me, the image on the right has taken a "ho hum" still life and added some drama.

The final result, a little larger: 

A Touch of Sunshine

I always find it amusing when someone says that photography is just the press of a button. Okay, let's be honest. Sometimes I don't find it funny...I just want to sigh.

how mood affects an image

An image making challenge for me this month over at Inspiration Collaboration involved bubbles, specifically a painting by Helen Eaton called Blowing Bubbles.

This challenge took me in a few different directions, and was a good example of how mood can affect the outcome of an image. I'll show you two paths my creative journey took me.

First, a photograph of bubbles in my drinking glass, courtesy of club soda, got me heading for my camera.

This is a "real" photograph, with the colour amped up a bit. My clear glass was sitting on an orange placemat when I took the photo. I thought the image was interesting, but it didn't really grab my imagination.

A few days later, I was thinking about the image again. It was a terrible week in the news. Marches and protests were held all over the world. Years of systematic racism, and the filmed murder of George Floyd by a white police officer, erupted into outrage not seen in years. I am white. My whole life has been what some might call privileged. I cannot, just cannot, imagine what anyone who does not have white skin must face on a daily basis. My heart actually hurt at some of the things I saw reported on the news. How can people treat each other like this? Worse than animals? 

I was in this mindset when I tried to work with my bubble image again. I changed the image to black and white, overlaid with a gritty texture. This is the result:

The Rising

I don't make political statements, and keep my thoughts to myself. But in my mind these bubbles symbolize people. People coming together. People rising up through the darkness from oppression.

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Where will it all end? I hope for a better world. And I hope...really hope...that my hope starts to be stronger than my fears.

My emotions came out through my editing when I was working on this image. Dark and brooding, it was a good exercise in how working with art can release inner feelings.

But it was not a good match for Helen's Blowing Bubbles painting. So the next week I had another inspiration. This is my creation...another "real" photograph:

Bubble with Joy

Happy bubble...bubble over...bubbling with joy. Where do I feel like that? In my garden. No matter what's going on in my life, or in the world around me, walking through my garden brings me joy. Yellow, the colour of happiness, a flower to convey a sense of place, and bubbles to signify joy, combine to visually express how I feel in my garden.

As I said, this image wasn't created on the computer. Here's how I accomplished it:

I have a clear paperweight filled with bubbles, and I took the photos while holding the paperweight over the flowers. Sometimes creativity can come into play without a computer :)