real paradise - aurora borealis and reindeer in Lapland

aurora borealis, Nellim, Finland

As previously mentioned, I prefer cold places to hot.

Something to do with the comfort of hiking boots and thermals reminding me that I am about to go on an adventure.

A long awaited trip to Finnish Lapland with friends.

Snow, wilderness, reindeer, and if we were really lucky the aurora borealis.

We were really lucky.

aurora borealis, Lapland

aurora borealis

For once I was really glad that I had taken my tripod on my trip. Camera exposures to catch stars and the northern lights are a few seconds long, and hand holding the camera is not an option. When the aurora starts 'dancing' in the sky you know you are really, really fortunate.

The days are very short at this time of year. Sunrise and sunset only four hours apart, with a lovely blue twilight that lasts for some time before and after. The sun did not emerge above the horizon during our visit, but just moved slowly around below the top of the hills.

We did a bit of ice fishing on Inari Lake. I don't think anyone really expected to catch a fish.

The best bit is drilling a hole. The ice was about 70cm thick.

The fishing rod was tiny.

Fishing had the potential to be a very cold, zen-like experience.

It is a very popular sport in the summer when the lake is swarming with mosquitos and the bears are awake in the forest.

Reindeer are plentiful. Most are in the wild until rounded up for stock taking.

Reindeer herders know their own stock from the markings cut on the reindeers' ears.

They have a book of ear markings.

reindeer with ear marking

lunch of reindeer stir fry

a reindeer passes by our picnic spot

Some facilities were a little chilly.

snowy seat

instructions best avoided

the scenery was everything that I had hoped

Lake Inari

trees in the snow

sunrise

I took many, many photos of trees, and if we hadn't been so busy fishing, snow shoeing and aurora watching I would have taken many more.

A place of peace and beauty. 

 

trees at dawn

 

space matters - making some new work - experiments with first aid items

Since my MA project is currently entitled 'Space Matters', looking at the need for breathing spaces, I took a first aid space blanket to the woods this week and laid it out on the ground.

As you do.

If you are an 'artist' you can do almost anything and call it 'research'.


And yes, I did watch carefully to make sure there was no one else around.

Having photographed it I used as the base for a double exposure.

Space/space blanket/first aid/station were the words in my mind.

I placed it in the air, up a tree, on the ground.

It felt good to be making something new.

Over the pond.

I am not sure what I was trying to achieve.

Just playing. Which is how my work usually evolves.

Keep trying different things until something catches my attention and feels right.

When I got back and looked at the images I was initially excited, and then felt that I was not really conveying the message that was intended.

I seem to have a desire to wrap things.

I am often taking photographs of bits of string.

What does this mean?

I really don't know.

But I did label one series of images of electric fence tape  'Don't fence me in' which should tell me something.


I took the 'blanket' to Dungeness. Plenty of space there. And lots of wind too. It was very difficult to pin down. I used stones.


 I found it difficult to make anything work, but a video of it blowing in the wind was more successful

.

The wind put me off using the space blanket a the beach, and when I returned to the woods I tried taking photographs of it wrapping a tree.



Such a different feeling. I felt as though I was trying to keep the tree safe.

I enjoyed this too.


Again nobody was looking....

Having tried a space blanket I felt obliged to try a bandage. I wrapped it around the branches of a tree.



And then overlaid it onto another tree.

I am not sure about the twigs from the first tree showing up.

I like the random colour overlay in the colour version of double exposure.

Now I need some more authentic bandages, preferably gauze or open weave.

I don't know where this is going, but I am enjoying the process.

And yes I am a bit mad. Probably have been for some years....

It reminds me of collography and using some open gauze tape as my subject matter for printing.

Themes that come to mind;

tape /wrap/fence/protect/enclose/confine

what do these have to do with 'space'?

It seems to be more about lack of space and being fenced in or enclosed; the opposite to what I seek in the landscape.

So how could I represent this opposite more effectively?

hmmm. I will sleep on that.

last night's transient  middle of the night idea was wrapping twigs.....

World cup trees - Spain is dead

Spain is dead

What can I say?

Apparently this is highly significant.

This tree seemed appropriate.

It is from Joshua Tree National Park, USA.

(I don't have any dead Spanish trees; sorry).

World Cup Trees - Belgium vs Algeria

Here is one for Belgium vs Algeria, which is the next match to be played. I shall be out enjoying Matisse Cut-Outs at the Tate Modern, and will feed back later.

playing in the digital darkroom

redwoods

It has been a busy week.

Home from New Zealand and back to suburbia, with a quick trip to Scotland and tea at Buckingham Palace thrown in.

Why Scotland?

Number 1 child, currently living in Canada, has recently announced her intentions to get married, and for the wedding to be in Scotland.

Wonderful news on all counts, but there are some disadvantages to the scenario for your truly as "mother of the bride" which I will not trouble you with, related to the distances involved for all parties.

Suffice it to say that I am already having wedding nightmares and there is more than a year to go.......

I will keep a nightmare diary to amuse myself.

Nightmare number 1

The first caterer, when asked how much they charge for corkage coolly replied "£35,000".

It will get worse. Of that I have absolutely no doubt.

Up on Deeside, acting as venue scout, I bumped into Prince Charles driving his Range Rover just outside Balmoral. I was in a custard yellow hire car photographing trees; the best way to keep calm that I know. I didn't get to tell him why I was photographing trees, or why I was driving a yellow car, but I am sure he would have approved of my deep communion with nature.

The forests in Deeside are lush and green. I allowed myself 10 minutes with my camera before pressing on to visit a potential wedding venue.

Forest, Deeside © Caroline Fraser

A welcome sight after a 4am start from Gatwick.

green green grass

The grass is certainly greener and lusher up north.

Deeside

And the roads quieter.

"River Dee"

River Dee

Job done. Progress made. Details secret.


So here are a few more trees.

My current desire is to improve my monochrome photography, so I have had fun playing in the digital darkroom that is Nik Efex Software.


Today I have selected  one image to see what might be done with it.

unadulterated original

the trees are prickly 

vintage camera effect with 'light leak'

 

double exposure effect

Triste 2 effect

Triste seems the most appropriate right now, for I have just become a world cup widow. By the time it is all over I will probably have about 35,000 variations on a theme of trees.

Christmas greetings - with a bit of red from the Greenway

Happy Christmas © Caroline Fraser 2013

It's that time again.

Blowing a gale outside.

presents wrapped...........and unwrapped because I couldn't remember what was in them; foolishly thinking that I would remember ............

labels added to save a second unwrapping before the intended recipient's official unwrapping.

Time to make a festive e-greeting for my friends and acquaintances.

Time for a bit of 'fiddling'. This is not a rude word in my book,  so please no rude comments.

When OH asks me what I am doing as I sit glued to the mac, he gets the same answer every time; 'just fiddling'

Which really means that I don't wish to explain that I am experimenting with pictures that I know he won't be interested in, playing around with layers and seeing what I can create from a simple image or two. Only by experimenting can new ideas take form, and while most of them are discarded along the way, once in a while something good comes from a few minutes or more spent in Photoshop with old or new images.

A Christmas greeting then.

What can I do in a few minutes before heading out to spend time with friends?

A quick look back through my folders of photos for 2013 tells me there aren't any snow pictures. For when I visited iceland to take snow and ice pictures it rained incessantly.

So a bit of red then?


Browsing through my folders from 2013 brought back memories of another cloudless ( almost) sky day and a long hot walk through a part of London I never knew existed.

Back in the heady days of summer I went on a guided walk in Stratford, east London, on the  Greenway.

Greenway

I never can resist a lamp post

Walking along the top of the 'Northern Outfall Sewer"  has its down sides on a hot day, but the mixture of Victorian architecture and new London tempted my fellow photographers to get snapping.

I lapsed back into my suburban photography mode

fence

tree

house

lamp post

tower

fence, wall, bush, tower

This seems to be a habit that I can't break.

fence, tree, tower

fence, tree

fence, tree 2

I have a desire to break the image in half, horizontally.


or if not, then vertically

tree, post

towers and posts

Anyway, I was looking for some red for Christmas

And saw this

red and white

Back in the summer I experimented with multiple exposure of this red and white tape and got this....

more tape; multiple exposure

Which I did nothing with until today.

I popped it into Photoshop with another almost identical image and put one on top of the other.

Blended them with multiply mode and a little bit of  Topaz Adjust from Topaz filters and made this

Happy Christmas

Which is nothing like the original, but with a bit of 'fiddling' I now have an abstract that will be my Christmas e-card as I like the reds and the pearly whites.


Happy Christmas!