A Liitle Sunshine

I had arranged with Celine that I would help out at the Fotonow Office this morning. She is busy setting up the West End Gallery Finale taking place on Monday the 24th October 2011. While I was in the office re-sizing images ready for printing, the sun was blazing outside and I felt the need to photograph the scene. When I left I just shot a couple of images. It was the colours that attracted me to the scene. A bright blue sky and beautiful autumn colours.

I had borrowed the Diana F+ from the ERC and shot images around my home to test it out. I used a colour transparency film. I received the negatives back in the post today and they are mostly a disaster. Here are two of the images. As the Diana F is a lomography camera I can say that there is a lot of Poetic/Creative License in these images!

I haven't edited these images because they are not good enough to use for anything. But they are experimental. I wanted to try the DianF Camera because for one of our Assignments I have to use 120mm film. I love my Mamyia 645 Camera but I was hoping to find something that was lighter to carry. Unfortunately I don't feel that I can master the DianaF to use it for this project. However, I do love Transparency film because the colours are just amazing.

This was meant to be a double exposure ...it turned out to be a triple exposure

The colours of the leaves against the blue sky was beautiful but this shot doesnt show this as I'd hoped.





BBC 4 Ceramics: A Fragile History

As I was searching for something to watch on TV, I came upon this new series and watched with interest.

I was particularly enthralled and moved by the work of John Dwight, a 17th Century artist. His daughter died at the age of six; after her death he sculpted two figures of her. They are exquisite pieces of work that touched me.

Images from the BBC website

 

Another artist featured on the programme was Paul Scott who fashioned a commemorative plate for an important event that was taking place in our countryside, namely the Foot and Mouth epidemic. Paul Scott stated that he wanted to respond to this catastrophe and honour the cows that were being slaughtered and sacrificed.  He said that when he saw the images of cows being burned on television, he saw their feet as dancing in the flames.

The programme showed that ceramics enable us to recall history. Pieces have been made to commemorate all kinds of historical events from the Royal to the ordinary person celebrating weddings and birthdays etc.  They give us an insight into historic moments.

I had not thought of ceramics in this way but this art has been in our ancestry for 1000's of years. It has been a strong, practical and useful as well as an art form. Working with clay is to work from the source. One of the artist being interviewed said that all work created by hand can be viewed as a cleansing of the soul. Being creative frees the mind and allows the spirit to take control. Once the cognitive skills have been learned and practised, perfection can ensue. The artist is free to create what he feels.