Wide Brown Land - on ways to make photos when the sky is too blue, and the sun too hot

wide brown land - sculpture at the national arboretum, Canberra

My other half informs me that I need to rename my blog. He feels that my life is not ordinary enough.

I feel that my life is better than it has been for a while, and that I like this kind of ordinary.

It doesn't involve much cooking, washing or ironing. The sun shines all day, and I get to explore new places.

I am now in Canberra, catching up with some of my good friends from The Arcanum

We have been virtual friends for 2 years now, meeting on line most weeks to chat and learn from each other under the guiding hand of Jackie Ranken. It is a real delight to meet some of them in the flesh, and also surprising how different the real person looks to the screen persona. 3D is better than 2D in so many ways.

We have been spending time exploring the Enlighten 2016 festival, in which the city buildings are illuminated at night. I feel immensely pleased for of one of my fellow photographers, Mark Kelly, who has his images projected digitally on three of Canberra's famous buildings.

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Exploring Enlighten after dark is a good way to avoid the relentless heat of the sun.

Photography at 35 degrees in blinding sunlight is not for the faint hearted.

National Portrait Gallery, Canberra

National Portrait Gallery, Canberra

Enlighten 2016

lanterns at the night noodle market

Questacon building , Enlighten 2016

National Gallery of Australia- exterior, Enlighten 2016

National gallery 'uranium chandeliers' installation 

uranium glass chandelier

exterior, National Gallery, Enlighten 2016

Stepping outside in daylight is only sensible at dawn and dusk. We dutifully got up early most mornings, heading off to the National Arboretum to see the sun rise. 

Later in the day we kept relatively cool at the National Gallery of Australia, either indoors, or in the mist sculpture amongst the trees in the sculpture garden.

mist in the sculpture garden

We fell in love with James Turrell's sculpture installation 'within without' 2010. Not only could we be indoors and also see the sky, but also we could spend time exploring the light and shapes created by his rooms within rooms, and the reflections in the interior pool.

'within without- exterior '

within without -interior

within without- pool

visitor to within without

some visitors attracted more attention than others.....

inner chamber of within without

reflections in the pool

This land is indeed brown and wide.

Red and parched underfoot.





The heat unforgiving.

The sculpture on the hilltop at the National Arboretum echoes the words of Dorothea Mackellar's poem 'My Country"

It is not my country, but it is the country of some really special friends.

A new road begins with The Arcanum - upping my game with Jackie Ranken

Wakitipu

I am home in sunny suburbia. Winter has become summer and the days are long and warm.

The transition back into 'normal' life after 4 months in New Zealand has been relatively pain free.

No more travelogue. Back to photography proper.

OH ( other half) is at work, and I have time on my hands thanks to the early start that jet lag allows.

I am excited to have a new venture to help me ease back into the daily routine. To spur me on to reach new levels in my photography.

I have been accepted as a member of The Arcanum.

The Arcanum is a new way of learning using the old and traditional method of Master and apprentice. The academy is on line, and I am linked up with people all around the world. We have a library of videos to watch and get one to one Google 'hangouts' in which our work is critiqued by our master ( a bit like a skype call but one that can be observed live by other apprentices, and that is later saved to the Library for others to watch at their leisure).

I am a member of a group of 20 apprentices and have been lucky enough to be selected by the Canon Master Jackie Ranken, whose work I am in awe of. I am confident that she will help me to progress to a higher level in my work. The apprentices work together, give each other critiques and yet all can progress at their own pace.

Jackie Ranken lives in Queenstown, New Zealand, and my favourite work of hers is the series Kitchen Stories in which kitchen utensils find themselves in the landscape in beautiful monochrome images that are both clever and amusing. She is multi award winning, and I feel very privileged to be under her wing.

So far, we have introduced ourselves and said a bit about our 'genesis as a photographer' . We all have very different tales to tell and different interests and skills, which will help us all to grow and develop.

I have put forward some images for critique by my fellow apprentices. With their help I will select 5 to take in to my first critique session with Jackie.

'slippage' © caroline fraser

For this image it was suggested that I try upping the contrast, and try different crops.

Jackie has talked about the importance of borders, and I have added a white border to represent the paper. Immediately the image is lifted. I have also taken out a two week trial of Nik software Silver Efex Pro as used by Jackie to see whether I find it easier to create better monochrome images with this rather than Photoshop. I have yet to decide, but am pleased with the adjustments to the original image.

version 2

Next I had a discussion about the yellow leaf, bottom right in this image.

floating leaves © caroline fraser

The views in the group vary; some preferring to keep it, and others finding it distracting. Which just goes to show that you can't please all of the people all of the time, and in the end have to go with your own preference.

I find the square crop less satisfying, and as one fellow commented, the rectangular image is 'more about the reflections of the branches above' and the square is 'about the leaves'.

You take your pick. I'm going for the original.

square crop

All of this learning is about sharing and being willing to take the time to look at other's work. It demands more time in front of the computer screen.

But I have a feeling it is going to be time very well spent.