A resurrection for a Queen

So here I go again with a sudden burst of creativity. 

I think I may explode with mild enthusiasm. 

I've been pretty uninspired recently, especially since my mother died earlier this year. It's as if my creativity died with her, or that urge to say "Look mummy, Look what I can do" has no outlet anymore. 




At least I've been busy, and working with music almost everyday has started to inspire me. Also having a few new toys and a great set up means I am comfortable in the studio again. Although my damn back wouldn't know it....

(My backs a whole different bag of shit, I have an extra vertebrae and it messes with me big time)





My photography has suffered also. I've only been happy with a couple of photos recently and question absolutely everything I do. 

It's so destructive. 

You criticise your own work so much that it gets canned before anyone else can make a decision about it. It's a shortage of mojo combined with a self indulgent fear of failure that has plagued me forever. 

So I tell myself it's not good enough and no one gets to see it.

However, my urge to shoot is strong at the moment and I am starting to view things with my photographers eye again.


Here's a photo I took recently that I am happy with. Taken in Joppa early October
Berwick Law from Joppa



Everything I do is still for her but I'm a new person, a better person. 

A resurrection for a Queen.

Forgotten remnants of our unnatural world

I'd been to this Forest before and taken photos but was never happy with any I had taken. It's so difficult to catch the right light in a forest. The darkness and atmosphere only comes into play when there is light also. Direct sunlight to pick out silhouettes and cast long shadows across the dells and clearings is what I love.



On this day I was blessed to have these wonderful conditions. Although cold it was beautifully sunny and this usually dense forest stripped of it's leaves bathed me in shafts of sunlight as I wandered, taking photo after photo after photo after photo....

This is from the quirky wee entry to the forest


The forest Backs onto MOD property and there is a perimeter fence that goes around the rear of the forest. I wonder how big the forest was before 'Her Majesty' commandeered the land, although this could be said for all the forest on our fair isle.

This clearing was thick with Rosebay Willowherb and was a magical place in the frost and shattered sunlight


There is virtually nothing left of the great woodlands that covered this country. Which is why these small pockets, wildlife havens and wondrous things to behold need to be looked after and enjoyed by all, before they become more forgotten remnants of our unnatural World.

I specifically looked for this spot and was very excited to delve into this wee dell again

Kinghorn and Country

On this day we were treated to intense skies and silver light. I've always wanted to visit Kinghorn. It's always seemed rather exotic, with it's mixture of schemes and Georgian grandiose. It also has this view and a wonderful calmness to it. Like the gently lapping sea sifts the pain out of living.



Pettycur Harbour is a proper Gem and seemed to have a thriving community, with what seemed to be working fishermen gathered together chatting in the sunshine. The boat yard cat seemed to have some learning difficulties but we got on just fine. I think he's just terribly misunderstood!



This was probably the last nice day of the year and there should have been lot's more people walking along the shore, but it was quiet and peaceful. Perhaps Kinghorns obscurities will be it's saviour  and help to keep it a bit weird and wonderful.

I bet it's truly magical in the winter.......     I have to return.

Moments

The joys of walking. Just walking along with my camera in my hand or over my shoulder. Wandering aimlessly taking endless pictures with my mind. I frame every scene in 3:2 and snap with every blink, I occasionally take a real photo, but this all depends on how instinctive I am feeling. Street photography is all about instincts and capturing a moment. Obviously moments are happening all the time and some moments for a lot longer than others. The fact that we remember our lives in moments,significant moments,that serve as book marks or post it notes structuring our pasts,has made us-as humans-develop the means of capturing them physically.



"Often while traveling with a camera we arrive just as the sun slips over the horizon of a moment, too late to expose film, only time enough to expose our hearts." ~Minor White

Perhaps I do get some satisfaction from seeing a moment I would wish to capture but am too late to. Seeing with a photographers eye offers me a window into the beauty and honesty of our monotonous lives and even without physically capturing them I am exposed to the idea and artistic relevance for a fraction of time 'the moment'. Seeing in photographs often gives me a shallower view of the world. A framed view,with blinkered eyes,only open to the extremities of my compositions.



This however is the photographers focus. A place for Zen and meditation. An afternoon, a day, perhaps a week can disappear into the ether when the 'photographers focus' is enabled. I find myself lost there with a scrap book of other peoples memories. I am happy there. More happy and content than ever before. I am free there. Free from the negativity and the pressures of being me and I never want to leave.

Skateboarding (my first love)

Chris 'switch kickflip'


Skateboarding, My first love. The first thing I truly got obsessed with. As a child Skateboarding encompassed everything I enjoyed in life. Rebellion,sticking it to the system and generally falling over (a lot). It introduced me to music and dress sense and gave me a sense of belonging, something I'd been longing for. I learn't to appreciate individuality and healthy competition,out with 'High School Sports'. As I grew up it became more and more important to me and during my angst ridden teenage years became a constant source of pain and frustration for me. We didn't have an indoor Skatepark in Peterborough so when it rained I used to get so angry and had nowhere else to release this anger but on my parents and any hard surface close enough to punch. This lasted until I found music and other paths of creation to help release the tension.

Me 'Hardflip' in my boat shoes (photo by C.Niemc,edit by me)


I am still truly in love with 'Skating' it has become a part of me and will be until I am gone. She introduced me to some of my best friends and SURFING, the thing that makes me most happy today.

Chris frontside tailslide

a duck in the graveyard

So I've returned to 35mm and had some mild success.

I love my 80's Pentax P30! Yeah she's a bit temperamental and yeah she's heavy, But man does she make me happy! It's a different sort of photography. A slightly less spontaneous craft, with more thought and measured timing involved due to the expense,time consumption and convoluted aspects of processing film.



It does look great though!

Kam Chan's Camera Obscura @ Axolotl Gallery

If I write about other Photographers or Artists it is usually because they inspire me. But not today, as today I am writing about an Artist because they just blew my mind!

I wandered casually into the Axolotl Gallery (as I do) and wandered around in a clockwork direction (as I do) to be greeted by the illustrative type works of Paul Mowat and Catherine Clark. These were all great works with Paul's work being very subtle but atmospheric depictions of people using the subway(interesting idea for oil paintings) and Catherine's work being bold and energetic portraits with an almost unfinished Dali-esq vibe to them-that were very beautiful and unsettling in a way.

After seemingly finishing my wander I stopped to speak to the Owner Sarah Wilson and other staff about the exhibition who explained there was more to see, namely Kam Chan's Camera Obscura. I was ushered into the back room through some thick curtains, only to be bathed in complete darkness except a small square of light being cast through the middle of a Blacked out window. I had been told what to expect but for some reason hadn't really comprehended what it was I was about to experience. As my eyes got used to the darkness shapes started to appear across the walls and it suddenly dawned on me that I was standing inside a giant Pin Hole Camera! I was surrounded by the projected silhouettes of upside down New Town Tenements and as my brain started to unravel the mystery little details started to show themselves to me. I stood in wonderment for a couple of minutes transfixed and hypnotised by the subtle movement of the trees and changing light and thought to myself what a beautiful thing I was experiencing. I couldn't quite believe it and neither will you.

Altered Images is on at Axolotl Gallery on Dundas Street until the 4th of June and I urge everyone to go. It has to be one of the best installations I have ever seen.