Icebergs and cold turkey ..... scroll free september

SCROLL FREE SEPTEMBER

Today being the 1st of September, it was lucky that I heard about the idea to give up social media for a month on the very first day of the month in question.

Just in time to put a quick post on Facebook and Instagram giving my intention, and then to promise myself not to even open the apps for the next 30 days.

I am going to go cold turkey. A bit like dry January, but I am allowed wine. Just no social media.

scroll-free-september is an initiative by the Royal Society for Public Health. We all know the problems it causes, but convince ourselves of good reasons to continue anyway.

FOMO

I'll see what I miss, and what I gain.

If I don't post, then I wont need to check whether anyone is looking at my posts.

And what do they achieve anyway?

...... I am not sure I know the answer to that one.

I am keen to see how I spend the time that I might otherwise have used aimlessly scrolling.

I might even then have some time to share some of my images from Greenland; a place so special that I have not been able to think what to say about it.

Holding it in my head.

A place of stark contrast between land and sea, mostly covered with ice.

a house on a rock

Where homes are built on rocks, and where the ground is covered with snow for about 9 months of the year.

Where transport between villages and towns is by boat, plane or sled. There are no connecting roads.

sled

Where electricity and other utilities are supplied in pipes above the ground, due to the permafrost and rocky ground.

Where fishing and tourism are the main sources of income.

fishing boats, Ilulissat

Where the icefjord creates an ever changing environment in Disko Bay. Icebergs breaking off the glacier and heading out to Baffin Bay, small fragments eventually reaching as far as Canada.

Icefjord, Gronland

Where village life is harsh and somewhat untidy.

Ilimanaq

Ilimanaq village refuse collection

Greenlandic home

Yet all of this set against the exquisite beauty of Disko Bay, where the sun doesn't set in summer, and the night sky could be mistaken for daytime.

The low sun illuminating the ice in subtle majesty.

photographers at night, Disko Bay

Disko Bay, Greenland

Iceberg, Disko Bay

Ice flow

midnight light, greenland

blue ice

blue ice, Disko bay

red boat, Disko Bay

Just posting these images makes me realise that I wish to return. I would like to explore the coast in my own time, taking it all in. Five days is only enough to see what is there, and not enough to say anything meaningful photographically.

It is only familiarity that brings me the ability to have something to say. Time to truly immerse in an environment.

The silence and calm waters were everything that I had hoped for.

Photographs taken from a moving boat will never convey the experience adequately.

A sea that rippled like liquid mercury at 3am in the morning as we returned to harbour left everyone spellbound.

One of those moments that lives on.

Not on Instagram.

Not even on my 'proper' camera.

A special memory

In my head.

birds in flight - compositing on the ipad - on art and photography

Murmuration by Fiona Watson - etching

I went to the London Art Fair 2 weeks ago.

OH ( my other half) came too.


And there I found birds. Soaring and free.

OH found free whisky, and kept himself happily amused while I drooled over the birdies.


'Murmurations' by Fiona Watson and birds in flight from 'Mirando al cielo' by Rosa Basurto were the most memorable images of the day from my perspective.

works by Rosa Basurto

I found the images uplifting. Something to do with the birds.

I have a thing about murmurations.


This one is fairly extraordinary. Amoebic. Visceral.

Anyway, you get the picture.

I started wanting birds in my images.

And as I don't have any photos of flocks of birds I realised that I might need to starting cutting and sticking some in. Compositing, as it is otherwise known.

So I started playing around with my ipad using tools for cutting and sticking.

These are some that I use on my ipad.

I started with a stone.

flint stone

I added a photographic landscape

Then some texture, some lightening and finished with an imagined landscape.


Complete with birds.

flint stone composite- imagined lands 

There will be more stone images. I have a lot of stones from around the world.

But first I need to photograph lots more birds.

And teach them how to fly.............


Not to mention refining my cutting out skills.




You can keep up with my 'stone of the day' experiment here


Some of the apps that  I use are listed below;


Snapseed for a variety of lens and texture effects

Juxtaposer for superimposing images

DistressedFx   for textures

There are many out there, and many are free.

Just like the birds.

And apparently the whisky.....

free money for artists; have you claimed your Payback?

I was delighted to get an article into this summer's LIP magazine about my weekend with Independent Photography South East (IPSE) back in the spring.

LIP magazine is one of the publications that I am able to use for my annual claim for Payback.

If you have had your work published in any books , magazines or on TV you can claim royalties though Payback on an annual basis. The average payment for a visual artist is £285. All you need to do is complete an online form listing the ISBN numbers of all the publications that you are included in. The royalties relate to the public use of your articles/books by libraries and also cover secondary usage such as photocopying.

My first claim last year earned me a few pounds. This year I hope to earn more due to my publications that are now lodged in the British Library and other national libraries from my publishing house Hawkwood Press. (see here for my illustrated poem) entitled Hawkwood, about my suburban sanctuary.

If you are a visual artist then there is a good chance that you can claim something; what are you waiting for?!