Shoreline Abstraction

I am aware that, given the winter we've had, I am failing my blog! Christmas was rightly spent on family activity but I have built up some photos to share. They just need some time spent on them in Photoshop. Here is one taken down at West Wemyss. I pick up all sorts of things from the beach hoping to involve them in pictures at some point - old signs, boots, rusty cans, etc - but I thought I'd try and make something on site.

Quick on the draw: testing the Nikon D90

Out walking the dog last week, I went through the short tunnel that links the east of the bay with Dysart Harbour and was met with a fly past of pigeons. When disturbed, they were swooping in circles around the harbour and returning to a spot where someone had left them some food. I took a few pictures, attempting to follow them. This early one came out the best, which in retrospect seemed to work out nicely as it captured the immediacy and surprise of seeing them. Most of the wings make nice shapes. In the other pictures too many of them are caught looking contorted or like tins of flying beans.

Winter Light (part II)

It's now at one of my favourite times of the year for making and taking photographs. Up here in the north, as the winter solstice approaches, the arc of the sun is getting increasingly shallow. I get a living room full of low, strong light (when it isn't cloudy). The light moves fast when you take time to work with it and I like to play with the long cast of shadows. Here is a link back to a post from nearly 3 years ago:

http://awinterlens.blogspot.com/2008/01/winter-light_16.html
I've had the cutlery set out again...it's almost an excercise, like doing your scales, just to spend time with simple everday objects and light. I was quite pleased with the discovery of the carving fork but I'm not sure the blue linen tablecloth was the best background.

Dysart Harbour

Shell UK Award 2010

I've posted this image before but hot off the press...I've won a Shell UK Award in the Fife Open Art Exhibition, for the second year in a row. Best of all (apart from the kudos and the cheque) is this year's picture was MADE ON FILM (using the Rolleiflex) and printed myself. This is a scanned version of the negative which is quite different from the darkroom print. I kind of like both but the darkroom print is more subdued and has more texture in the snow, and this came out of the scan in an 'ultra-bright' finish.
Unframed prints can be purchased for £65 c. 8" x 8"

A Walk in the Woods (Part 1)

I took a quiet walk with the dog through Wemyss Firs on Saturday. Apart from the Scouts and a few joyriding motorbike scramblers there is rarely anyone else around. I saw two huge Buzzards in the fields beyond the woods, and a deer (a photo of which I will post soon). Chestnuts were falling from huge trees along by the river, and the remains of many open, half-eaten ones lay on the ground. I had taken quite a few pictures of the sun coming through big, old, gnarled trees - Oak, Chestnut, Beech - but none of them seemed to work out. All a bit cliched and poor quality (note to self - make more use of tripod) but I like the effect of the layers in this 'puddle picture'.

The Kiss

It's nearly the Equinox I believe and time to come back to A Winter Lens for a while. I quite like having the 2 blogs, it's a bit like having two houses. I left asummerlens.blogpost with a kiss so I'll start Winter with the same...

View from Dysart over the Forth

This was one of those moments when the mist, light and sea all open up in front of you AND you have a camera to hand loaded with film. I've seen views similar to this a number of times from my bedroom window. A point exists where there is a thin slice of light between land and sky but it is fleeting, usually just after dawn. I've taken quick snaps and used them as a basis for painting.

This was later in the morning. The fog was breaking up and the sun breaking through, again offering a scene lasting only a couple of minutes. From down at sea level I also got a good profile of the ship.

Palma Cathedral

This was taken on a Holga from the roof top of the Es Baluard Contemporary Art Museum, which is definitely worth a visit if you are visiting Mallorca. It has many works by Miro and Picasso and the architecture of the old and new is amazing.

Punta la Nau, Mallorca

No, I didn't lean out over the cliff face with my camera to take this. Not with my partner making spontaneous and shrill panic calls and holding the kids's arms so tight that their hands were starved of blood. With the retreating calls of a certain and spectacular death echoing in my my ear (she went back to the car) I held the Rolleiflex over the edge at 180 degrees and pointed it down, composing through the viewfinder in front of me. This is one of the many advantages that TLR cameras have. The idea originated from German army photographic observers in the first world war who wanted to be able to take photos without having their heads shot off, so a man named Reindold Heidecke designed a camera based on the principles of the periscope. (Info courtesy of Ian Parker's Complete Rollei TLR User's Manual)

Barry Island Baby

I love out of season seaside towns - I grew up in one, although it was sometimes in season - and Barry Island met my need for that dirty realist charm very nicely. Seaside towns speak to me, whispering in my ear “I am what you could have been” along with the sea breeze.

Sunrise

Here are 3 images taken a couple of weeks ago. The sunrise over the Firth of Forth was spectacular. I just marvelled at it until a little voice inside my head said "go and get you camera you idiot, it'll be gone soon". Or was that my son talking from under the duvet? I got some straight shots and then my youngest son wanted to take one so I let him. The weight of the camera meant the image was blurred, but we liked the result and I had a go, slowly panning the camera from side to side.

Earth Mother Moves to Town

I was in Mallorca for the Christmas holiday and caught this scene in Palma. I just liked the idea of the woman being a tree without her realising. And all the connotations of women and nature but in an urban environment with an urbane looking woman. The most captivating idea I have read about the female relationship to the earth was in Meadowsweet by Kathleen Jamie, where she brings to life a Gaelic tradition of female poets. "The women were buried face down, with seeds in their hair, to be imaginatively reborn: 'mouth young, and full again /, of dirt, and spit, and poetry'."