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.

Snow in the city

I do love the snow. So many great photographs have been made in snowy weather. I'm thinking of masters of the medium - Andre Kertesz, Henri Cartier Bresson, Willy Ronis, and that classic shot of priests playing by Mario Giacomelli. So when it comes I really want to get out and shoot but I have that little voice in my head repeating "beware of the cliché". It's hard to avoid, especially in Edinburgh with all it's city centre church yards, gravestones and monuments. I take them anyway.

I was pleased with this though. I leaned over the parapet of St John's Church terrace and looked down to see the remains of someone's lunch and was caught by the tiny detail of brown coffee and orange-coloured soup.

Nikon D90, Nikon 35mm f1.8G

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.

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'."

Urban Graffiti

Urban graffiti can be a bit of a hackneyed photo opportunity - surely it's too easy to make a good photo out of somebody else's picture. But when you find something you like there's a sense of pleasure in preserving a piece of someone's creativity before it inevitably gets erased. Isn't that what is behind a lot of photography anyway - capturing a moment in time that can't be repeated?

Aerosol

Having posted up a number of black and white images I felt the need for a splash of colour. I found this old aerosol can, weathered beyond product recognition, on Pettycur Bay. When I began taking photos of 'found objects' from the beach I had a tendency to think that these things - old shoes, cans, bottles, cardigans - had been washed ashore, but the more I scan the beach the more it becomes apparent that they left there. Beach parties, picnics, rough sleepers, local boat owners all leave or lose things that become part of the shoreline.

Sandscapes

I took a few images at Pettycur Bay this afternoon. This is a place I keep returning to as I always find interesting views and I love just being by the sea. My only concern in that my dog doesn't charge across the area I'm showing an interest in and ruin the ground. He nearly always does, so I've developed an elaborate play of encouraging him elsewhere with biscuits and other treats. If that fails I pretend to be interested in some other part of the beach and he just goes and digs there.

The space between things

Winter Light

There is about a 2 to 3 week period each year when the sun just manages to skim it's way across the horizon and (when there are no clouds in the sky) the light streams into the house. It reflects across the sea, too, so it's quite uncomfortable to be in the room with it and we usually draw the blinds. I had been setting up the table for my birthday party dinner last year when I noticed the long shadows it made from the cutlery and took this photo. I've waited another year and made a series of cutlery/shadow images. It takes me to the elements of photography - light , shadow, form, time - it's a shock to discover quite how quickly the winter suns moves across the sky. The composition you thought you had got just right keeps moving!

Edinburgh Blues

finding the mini parked here made me smile.

Dragons

The sign in the window read:

"Dear Customers

I am closing down the shop on the 25th December. Due to the family situation, I've to take that extra step, to spend more time with my family in the future and there-fore I've to help my husband with his work as his secretary.

I want to say thank you ever so much for all the big support off all my local customers and I feel so sorry to let you all down.

We wish everybody a lovely X-mas and all the best for the future.

Sabine Issard-Davies"

Recycle your shopping bags

or if you're anything like me I get to the checkout and then curse myself for leaving my eco-friendly bags at home and have a(nother) minor guilt trip about not helping to save the planet

The day of the Autumn Equinox