On words, memory and the moon

homage to Paul Kenny © Caroline Fraser

Having a strange day today.

Clearing out a room for the purpose of redecorating I came across a diary from the millenium year that I had forgotten that I had written.

Back to memories again........

I also found my girl guide pencil and cat badges. What happened to all the others? I had an armful.

I wonder what I did to achieve these. We had no cat and we had no dog. OH has kindly searched the web for me and found that I had to care for an animal for 4 weeks.

girl guide animal lover badge

Perhaps it was a hamster.

I probably had to feed it just like I usually did........

girl guide artist badge

 And I was an artist as well.........

I wonder what sort?

All I do remember is that I learned how to change a car tyre. (- did I get a spanner badge for that?)

I became a Queen's guide.

Which then allowed me to leave.

I was not brave enough to say "I have had enough, thank you".

It has taken me about 50 years to be that brave.

Last weekend I spent two days in the company of one of my photographic heroes Paul Kenny

Paul kenny 'Seaworks' 

His recently published book is a thing of great beauty.

Currently he works with scanned objects, creating images with repeated motifs and laden with metaphor.

Circles represent the world, and squares represent man made objects.

Microscopic landscapes representing wider worlds.



He encouraged us to make images from the confines of a small square of the world that might represent other stories or landscapes.

framing the landscape

I got very stuck. An hour passed and I had not made any images.

Mr Kenny pointed me in the direction of a small round fungus and said 'that'll make a good picture'

No pressure then.

And I had been working so hard to try and avoid copying his motifs and style.

I did as I was bid, and added some grassy stalks.

I processed the image with the aim of making a moon or other planetary orb.

Homage to Paul Kenny © Caroline Fraser

And then today in my lost dairy I came across a poem that I wrote in 2000, and which had slipped my mind.

Poem

It feels as though they are meant to go together.



Along with some words from Robert Frost about writing poetry and his poem about the moon.

On poetry - by Robert Frost

Moons and words..........

Memories and images.

Forgotten and found.

I shall have to start cutting and sticking again; so much more pleasurable to read than a digital diary.

Oakville

the joys of familiarity

Pond © Caroline Fraser 2012

Familiarity brings joy to dog and I.

We finally made it down to the woods today.

I have been missing them, as has dog. Duties elsewhere meant I didn't get there all week, and I felt frustrated. So did dog.

My other half opted to join me, but had to retreat almost before we got started , due to an unexplained pain in his leg that made wading through thick mud a bigger challenge than he was ready for. I hadn't the heart to admit that walking alone with dog and my camera was what I had hoped for all along. Peace and quiet. Time to think. To get my fix of nature.

Nature is my passion. Other photographer's choose different subject matter for their 'fix'.

A couple of weekends ago I had the privilege to meet Mark Power, Magnum photographer, at an IPSE workshop. Mark is a documentary photographer. He talked eloquently for a couple of hours about his career. I already knew of his work and book The Shipping Forecast, which I greatly admire. He showed prints of his new series of works Mass taken in Polish churches; beautiful large format prints of church interiors during worship. It seems that the influence of the Catholic church on his life has compelled him to make this series, having initially frustrated him and then creating a sense of envy for those who have a faith.  Having a strong feeling about an issue is a great reason to start a project, and his love of Poland is eloquently shown in his book The Sound of Two songs.

He made me stop and think when he talked about the challenges of going into a foreign landscape and trying to make pictures that are of interest to anyone else. I thought about my recent trip to Burma, and how little emotional attachment I feel to the images that I made there. How much time does one need to spend in a place to fully convey something meaningful to others in one's images?


Mark Power talked about his work in the Black Country, looking at the impact of the recession. I had not realised before that the two industries that are most likely to survive in a recession are beauty and the sex industry. Sales of lipstick used to climb during a recession as people sought to feel better about themselves. Now it is nail polish that indicates how well the country is faring.

Pond 2 © Caroline Fraser 2012

I cannot claim to be a documentary photographer, but I have in mind to make a small book on the offerings that people make in Buddhist temples, only because whilst travelling in Burma one has to think of something to focus on when visiting more temples than one could possibly imagine to be possible in 14 days.

Offerings of money, flowers, bananas and drinks are made to Buddha as a means of merit making in the Buddhist tradition of striving for a better life.

More on this later.........

I will leave you with lipstick and nail polish on a figure in a Buddhist temple, holding offerings of flowers and money.

Michael Kenna versus Taylor-Wessing ............ no contest on the emotional front

Lake Bridge, Hongkun, Anhui, China by Michael Kenna 2008

Dog got a raw deal today. I trundled up to London to talk money with some finance people, and then took in two galleries with a good friend by means of compensation. Dog stayed at home in her bed, having had a brief sojourn in the woods to see the autumn colours and clear blue sky this morning.

Financial meeting was long and frustrating; I wanted to fill my stomach with the tasty sandwiches and fruits on the table, but have you tried talking, listening and trying to look vaguely intelligent whilst wrestling with a prawn sandwich? It just doesn't work, hence the chocolate brownie later.

I have been determined to see Michael Kenna at Chris Beetles gallery for a while. My friend wanted to see the 2012 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery. So we did both, with tea in the middle, and chocolate brownie; all very nice for a Wednesday afternoon.

Two exhibitions, one day. One left me completely cold, and the other filled me with awe and respect.

4th prize

This image won 4th prize in the Taylor Wessing. I cannot see anything particularly special or moving about it. The subject looks sad, but that is all that I can say.

 This one of Mo Farah lacks any relation to the joy and triumph of this summer's olympic games.

I have never been a portrait photographer, but enjoy capturing images when travelling, and it seems to me that unless you know the subject, it is difficult to convey any true feeling to the viewer unless there is something particularly poignant, tender or disturbing about the image.

Child, Myanmar  © Caroline Fraser 2012

My favourite portrait from a recent trip to Myanmar is of this child in a small hillside village. It means a lot to me, but probably leaves other viewers cold. Portraits are a lot about memories and emotions experienced at the time. They are very personal things.

Time to move on then ............ to the Chris Beetles Gallery; a nice space in a nice part of town.

And what treats we found there.......... 50 black and white photos by Michael Kenna, landscape photographer. he works exclusively with a medium format Hasselblad, printing the works himself in the darkroom from film. A craftsman at work.

The prints are all small...........7 3/4 inches by 7 3/4 inches, and hand printed in limited editions of 45 by Kenna. The price of prints goes up as the editions sells; those on view in the gallery varying form £1350 to £5150. A lot of money for such small prints..........but of such beauty that I would willingly part with large sums to have one hanging on my wall. They convey tranquillity, stillness, beauty and a sense of calm. That to me is worth so much more than a portrait. I have never experienced all of those emotions from one portrait.

He even gets away with blurred foregrounds in his image of the pyramids, a fact that fills me with joy.

Michael Kenna said of his own work in 2009.....

'I prefer suggestion over description. The world is pretty chaotic , seemingly always speeding up and getting louder and more visually dense. I am interested in finding and/or creating calm shelters from the storm, places where quiet solitude is encouraged and inner contemplation possible. i think we could all use a break from time to time........'

I am with him all the way.

Landscape wins, hands down, every time.

you can take a horse to water................

but you can't make it drink.........................


I am physically unable to take a photo of a waterfall and gain pleasure from the experience. I can only think of calendars, and supersaturated images with long exposures that leave me cold.

Iceland has many very spectacular waterfalls, but I will never be able to do them justice. Instead you will find me turning my back, looking at the ground, and seeing what I can find.

At the site above ( see if you can spot the photographer up at the top) there was a little mass hysteria from some of the fairer sex on our Icelandic adventure, who had reached their saturation point where waterfalls were concerned. We wandered around, and admired the concrete bridge that made this particular waterfall a little less attractive than some others ; the intended perfect photo being in the other direction with a mountain in the background..........


I really don't like being told how other people do it, just as I don't like reading about places before I get there, in order not to have preconceived ideas about what a place will be like. I had a mini rebellion, taking out my smallest camera , a tiny Lumix, and making some double exposures of the colourful plants beneath my feet. I didn't compose, just snapped away, more concerned with the colour than the forms.

The rebellious girls  mused on the idea of a girls only photo tour that allowed stops whenever someone requested one, be it for a flower, mountain, sheep, cat, dog, house or just to go shopping. It seems that someone has already taken up this idea , offering a tour  for women only with tuition and hiking, but no shopping. But what fun we had with a balance of sexes. I am not sure I could manage without some male entertainment; we had yoga demonstrations, ice-cream eating and endless logging into phones, laptops and iPads to amuse us. It transpires that some groups of male photographers don't feel the need to talk to each other at meals, preferring to interact with their apple devices at the table.

There was so much that we saw that we would like to return to capture. The waterfalls were impressive but not what I came for. Men with massive back-packs dutifully composed the "standard" shot which I didn't attempt,  and went home happy...............

Iceland is a photographer's dream. Whether you like the bigger or the smaller picture you cannot fail to be overwhelmed by the beauty of the landscape.  The mosses and lichens are worthy of a tour in themselves. Dawn at the glacial lagoon is to die for, with low light on the fragments of glacial ice.

We vowed to come back. I would have returned already if I had any annual leave left from my day job.

I have started having nightmares in which I am on my way back, but the plane is overbooked, and I am offered a flight to Vienna or Paris instead.

 It seems that I have been hooked by this beautiful landscape, and I know that I will be back next year.


 I am well and truly smitten.

We had a great time, thanks to Daniel Bergmann, author of Iceland Landscapes our expert local guide and lover of nature.

The colours are extraordinary,  and I hardly know where to begin in creating something meaningful from the 1000 images that sit on my laptop waiting for the editing process to begin.

I will have to make do with listening to the music of Sigur Ros which transports me back there, and working on my images during the long winter evenings that lie ahead. In writing this I find that I can see the results of their Valtari mystery film experiment at the NFT next week; something to really look forward to as I have fallen in love with their music.