Decision making time

I found out some news a few days ago that is both exciting and daunting at the same time. My Trailings exhibit at the DesBrisay Museum has been moved from a corridor wall into the main exhibit area and I'll be able to show my photographs and stitched art all in the same location. Exciting! (originally, I had planned two exhibits to run concurrently...photographs at the museum and stitched art at the library...due to space limitations).

However, since my show will be in the main exhibit area, the date has changed and will be for the month of March instead of starting April 1st. Daunting! I am generally feeling organized, but am in a bit of panic mode at the moment. 

The new plan in a nutshell: full exhibit at two locations

March: DesBrisay Museum

April & May: Margaret Hennigar Public Library

All in all, having one month less to fret about everything is great. Instead of continuing to "create" I will be forced to start preparing. Exception: I will continue to work on quilts...I have to finish my current project and create at least 2 more...hopefully 3 more....by mid January. Why so early? I'll have to include them in my exhibit guide, which will need to be created in time for a test print, review, and final print before March 1st. 

Exhibiting in the main space means more photographs will have to be chosen, printed and framed. Hence, my bulletin board test prints have been reorganized yet again.

Note for curious onlookers - the photo on my left desktop computer is me with my son

I have narrowed down the scope and organized the photos into just a few categories: 

Top row: ice patterns

Second Row: the white series

Third Row: Reflections

Bottom Row: Misfits, yet important to me

There are approx 45 photos in those rows, which I'll have to narrow down to approx 20. At the bottom of my bulletin board, you may notice a green photo which is a picture of a rock surrounded by ferns. I'm sentimental about that photo because there's a story behind it. But it just doesn't "go" with anything else so it's going in the discard pile.

Today (Friday) I'll be heading over to the museum to measure the 3 walls in the exhibit area to get a better idea of exactly how many photographs and quilts can be shown. I have a general idea, but general is not good enough at this point...I need specifics so that I can place my frame order.

And my list writing is getting more serious!

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....

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.