Video experiments

These videos are part of an experimental body of work that I would like to explore further.

Following in the recurring themes of re-appropriating imagery (often harmful and stereotypical), rigid procedural experiments, analogue, and digital loops and layers of production, and projecting upon the body, these videos and the resulting still reflect aesthetic and process pathways.

Firstly is the video ‘ The Royal Samoans in Betty Boop’s Bamboo Isle.’

This is a 1932 Fleischer Studios animated short directed by Dave Fleischer. It is known for its early use of rotoscoping, but more importantly to me was its use of traditional Sāmoan song performed by a group known as ‘The Royal Sāmoan’s ‘, and its use of dusky maiden tropes, harmful stereotypes, and blackface.

This film to me has a harsh juxtaposition between the beauty of the traditional songs and chants and the garish cartoonisation of culture in the resulting film.

I combined this film with my own works which I created by setting myself strict parameters. I usd my phone (easily accessible tech) and set 5 alarms a day in which I would record one minute of footage, wherever I was in my day. This was process-driven over aesthetics and beauty, the task being to capture my life with a repeatable process.

I took this footage, and again being driven by process rather than looks, plus my recurring themes of layering, blended it in Premier into mashups of the days. To me, this footage represented the antithesis to things like Betty Boop’s Bamboo Isle, which relies on stereotypes and dreamy facades. My footage was unceremonious, blunt, and true. My processes of layers and cycles of analogue / digital treatment and re-treatment were utilised.

I then combined the two films, my truth, and the dusky maiden lie, into one tumultuous work. They clashed harshly, but that was the point. I then reprojected this upon my sister, in her representing the body of a true person, a Sāmoan woman, and experimented with re-videoing it. The still at the end of this post is a relic of these experiments.

The experiments to me about tropes like the dusky maiden and the noble savage, and the harm they do in the name of aesthetics, beauty, palatable and understandable culture. How they then feed into ideas about what is a ‘true’ Sāmoan or not, something that I have grappled with all my life as I do not fit a certain mold. The work is a reappropriating of the harmful, eeking out the beautiful from it (the soundtrack), cleansing it with my truthful footage, and re-projecting it upon the body so it can be reclaimed, absorbed and cleansed.

A still from video experiments combining the Betty Boop film with 5 videos a day videos, and projecting that back onto the body, and re-videoing.

Video works - Product of New Zealand?

A video work as part of ‘Product of New Zealand’.

An audiovisual component of a larger project that centered around unearthing ‘artefacts’, clues to my family history, in boxes in the garage. Many of the works for this exhibition had their genesis in these explorations. The artefacts… photos, albums, writings, documents, ephemera etc. was used to blend into other works through collage and layering.

For this work, i projected these artefacts upon myself, watching my form blend into their textures and colours, sometimes losing myself, other times standing starkly out. This follows my regular exploration of projection upon the body, and reworking it through re-videoing, and layers of process.

In the context of this exhibition, this work was projected upon an installation of the very boxes from which i got my artefacts. This includes the box marked ‘Product of New Zealand’, from where I got my exhibition name.

The production quality is lo-fi, using easily accessible equipment like cellphones and apps like Hipstamatic.

Garage Hunt - artefacts.

entering the archive, one step at a time

It's always so long between blog posts. I'll do better, one day. I promise.

One of the primary reasons I signed up for my own website was so I would have a place to reflect, to muse and to put stuff. One of the main things I wanted to do was to go through my vast photographic archives and pick out things that stood out, and put them here on my website. This website was less about advertising myself, or putting specific commercially driven work up, and more about me talking to myself about my work and convincing myself of it's merit, or pushing myself to have it exist somewhere other than on my hard drive, or in my boxes. I have had a long period of disillusionment about myself and my work and this is part of trying to work through it, and figure out a few things about what being an artist / photographer means to me. Part of my problem is self doubt. That sounds pitiful. Let me rephrase that, basically I wanted a place that could hold all the parts of me I extracted while digging in the past, as well as house new work should and if I did it. And if people came to peruse, or to read along, awesome. If not, well I would still be enjoying myself in my little corner of the internet that I carved out and claimed.  (And paid for may I add!)

Well, in true me fashion, I have been glacial in my pace to fulfil this task, and there have been long pauses and lulls, and not a lot of reflecting. I am hoping this will change as I get better at making time for my creative processes, and hopefully I will be seen more often, lurking here in my corner of the internet.

Here's how I see it going... I trawl my archives, find something of merit or interest, put it up here, and then I ramble. Woo hoo. 

Let's start the archive diggings off with an image from circa 2006/2007 when I was a student at The Photoschool

Maria. circa 2006/2007. Colour Transparency film (scanned). by Leala Faleseuga 

I loved studying at The Photoschool. It was at a time where we sat on the cusp of the true digital age of photography, well in my opinion, in my tiny realm. Most of the course we did using film or transparency and it was only towards the end of the year long programme that I got my first ever digital camera. We were on the edge, about to tip into the world we live in now, where everyone is a photographer of sorts at all hours at all times because their camera exists in their pocket and using it is like breathing. Our image saturated world became an image saturated world on roids, and I wonder what it did to the craft of photography. Back then it still was feasibly a bit of a guilded craft, still the realm of the professional. Now.... all the meanings have changed, the context has changed and what it means to be a photographer has changed, how we produce it, share it, how it exists. Inevitable, change is always inevitable and it's best to hold on for the ride and keep your eyes peeled, and then find where you fit. Finding where I fit is something I have been exploring and struggling with, but not in a bad way, just in a way which means when I finally figure it out wherever I fall in the kingdom it will be comfortable, a good fit, because I took so long thinking about it.

This image was taken at home, my family home where my mother and some of my siblings still live, a place I have lived many times on and off. I remember the light, the deep orange of a setting sun. The windows of this room face west and if you hit it right, right weather, right time of year, right angle of the sun, this is what you were rewarded with, a density and richness of light so pungent and thick, warm, the deepest point of the goldenest of golden hours. The scan doesn't do the colour justice, our monitors probably won't the transparency film did though, it did a beautiful job. I can't remember what type of film transparency we shot, hell I might even be spelling transparency wrong. I love film. I love shooting film, it is how I learnt photography and while I love digital now too, and my iPhone photography, there is a slight disconnect in comparison to the deep love I have for the analogue. I shot this my Canon film camera, can't remember the model. I can't remember the settings but I know I would have metered the light manually using my hand method that was taught to me as a 13 year old and has served me well ever since. Like a dinosaur I often use it with my digital camera, even though they have pretty spot on light metering systems. My dad gave me my camera, when I was 11 or 12, seeing my burgeoning interest in photography he made sure the fire was fed and I had the equipment needed. Thanks dad. The model is my sister, long suffering Maria who to this day is often my model. I just remember seeing the light hitting the lounge wall and knowing it was good light, and calling for her to come. It all starts with the light, photography is capturing the light. Good light is orgasmic and so full of potential to a photographer. She dutifully posed and I snapped a few pics, one of which was the photo you see above. 

Until next time. 

 

Leala x

this one time....

I am not a natural diaryist or journaller, depositing into the chronicles of my life regularly seems hard. I guess it is always superseded by the visual documentation and narrative that always fills my mind and head space.

It is a practice that I am in the process of cultivating, or shall I say, re-cultivating. There was once a time in my life where I wrote freely and often, nightly at least. It was a rich and fertile time creatively, and I seek to return to that one day.  

I used to write by hand, but man, due to the lack of use of said handwriting, writing by hand is a chore, leaving my hand sore  before the work is through, leaving the page an illegible mess.

In this digital age, only typing can keep up with my rapid and disjointed streams of conciousness. 

And here, I decided to put up that very thing, my first entry into my digital diary, rough streams of literary bullkaka, straight from my mind to the keyboard, and maybe printed out if I remember. It is my attempt and making the diary and journal keeping a possible reality, of allowing myself an outlet that exists only for my own cathartic dumping, maybe never for sharing.

But here, let's share it anyway, because it's weird and wonderful and because it was my first entry, a starting point of such, a step toward healing myself with my own words....?

 

It was late at night, so remember that.

12/11/2015 2:00am

 

Just watched Wild, have already read the book previous so knew what to expect.

The main thing I got from the movie is a familiar creeping sense of mortality that has been following me for a while now anyway. An acute awareness that every moment slides on by never to be held again, and our sum of them all is finite, limited, coming to an end as we march on through life. Marching to our doom and demise. This acute sense of time running out, slowly but surely (if you’re lucky), it nestles on my shoulder, reminding me, imploring me, to enjoy it all and surrender to it, surrender to the inevitability that it I will all end and blow into the dust, into the ether, and all we have tangibly is the present. My son is five and my parents are ageing, my body is beginning to fail me, none of these things will wind back, time will not stop, they will all continue on their tangents until the end. I am convinced this is the time of my life, of our lives, that we look back on with fervent love, nostalgia, longing and regret. When your body is able, your children are young and love you well and you have a perceived length of the road ahead of you. You console yourself with time, I have time, there will be time, but it is but a fallacy because none of it is guaranteed. In my old age I will reminisce with an empty womb and empty arms, maybe alone, about those days that flew by, with my son at my breast, or asleep in my arms, my love loving me well and my family near and whole, and I will rue spending so much time departed from it all in my phone, or in my worries,  or trying desperately to capture it,or in the future and the past, because possibly I never enjoyed what was in front of me for want of what was coming, or want of what had been. What silly fallible creatures we are. In this imperfect life I want to live it all and remember it well, and maybe there stems my compulsion to document…. rooted in the notion that it is all impermanent, it is all sliding away, and my memory cannot hold it all, so I snap and snap and capture and document. But remember, or don’t forget, to enjoy it and be in it and a part of it too. I hoard images to hoard memories to surround myself with all that I loved, reviled, remembered and learnt, I hoard them all because deep down I know they are fleeting.

There is a foreboding about it all but also it brings everything in focus, when I let myself feel the creeping dread that eventually leads me to enlightenment and a better way of living, let us hope it is not too late. In the creeping dread lies all my secrets and motivations. 

a late night on the internet

Nothing unusual really, I am pretty sure late nights on the internet are as unremarkable (yet also strangely vital?) as air. Unremarkable until the choice to consume them is removed... denied and you suffocate (but I neeed to be connected, what about my followerssssssssssss?!), forced upon and you drown in the very substance that gives you life. I've put myself in the position where I am now forced to be on the internet at 1.49 am as opposed to being in bed. I cannot and should not be pitied. It is but my own doing after all...

I am doing some research for some branding and re-branding projects I am doing for design studio. I've undertaken the first year introductory course in order to (hopefully)  begin to fill a long-standing void in my practice, in which  I love and adore graphic and digital design, but lack the basic skills to create my own.

In my late night internet meandering I stumbled across the work of Dave Homer , initially sparked by this gorgeous poster that I saw while exploring around Christchurch last week....

Neil Finn tour poster. Dave Homer. www.davehomer.com

Neil Finn tour poster. Dave Homer. www.davehomer.com

I was drawn in by the beautiful gestural type, rife with movement and fullness, almost juicy even, like fruit at bursting or pods brimming with seeds. A stream of imagery and ideas paraded through my mind, sparked by a fleeting glimpse of this poster, and I returned for a closer look.

 The poster on a whole was unfussy, solid in it's design, simple and to the point. The communication was housed in all the tenants of good poster design, yet given an illustrative twist with the unique typeface.  Now, I am no design guru, at the beginning of this year I barely knew my Helvetica from my Futura from my Avenir, and things like grid layout were superbly mysterious. However, I have started reading and thinking about good design, the more I learn the more fascinated I get. Good communication, after all, is vitally important to everything from setting boundaries for toddlers, to our love lives, to what we consume and how much we'll pay to do it, to the next geopolitical skirmish. Good design aides good communication. Now, I am but I novice, but recently I got turned onto researching about the Swiss International Style, and found it utterly fascinating, and in this poster I can see those core elements of poster design at play, but given illustrative gravitas with the expressive typeface.

Just my observation, and I am but a lowly acolyte at the temple of design. 

The poster is beautiful none the less.

And that is my late night ramble for today. 

 

post exhibition come down

Hint: It involves a lot of sleep. 

I've been in recovery mode since I had my exhibition at the end of July, I never realised how little sleep I had in the lead up to the opening, until it came time to recover.

On the 24th / 25th  /26th July 2015 I had my very first ever exhibition 'Product of New Zealand?', at Seventeen Tory Street, and what a great experience it was!  

Gruelling, but great. Currently I am working on a larger blog post about how it all went, but for now I just wanted to do a little post about how things have been post-exhibition.

The lead up to the exhibition was hectic, a real trial by fire. I have never put together an exhibition before, let alone hosted my own solo one... hell, I had hardly been to any exhibitions at all in the last 5 years! I look back and realise that I had existed in a state of constant adrenal highs, followed by deep dips, short naps, and another burning high. I did not get a lot of sleep, and I was borderline manic in my preparation and creation of work, but somehow I still enjoyed it. I think I just was relishing being in an artistic realm again, I was buzzing on ideas, creative fires burning when nothing else was.  Unfortunate events struck in the two week lead up, in the form of diabolical vomiting et al (contracted by my son and spread to myself and three others of my household), and then an outright case of chicken pox in afore-mentioned son. I couldn't do much by scream WHYYYYYYYYY NOW, and to be honest, I would not have made it through without the help of my mother and sister, who stepped up and cared for my son when I was absent and creating.

Which leads me to the purpose of this post, a forum for thank yous and aroha:


I could not have completed this undertaking without the help of many wonderful people. Thank you all who have helped me along the way, and who have supported me and given me so much love and encouragement.
Kauri – for being an understanding son.  
Mum and Dad – for everything.
Mum and Maria – for doing the bulk of the caring for Kauri in the vast absences that have resulted from my study this year – I couldn’t do it without you.
Dad, Mata, Hannah, Teresa, Mark, James, Maulu and the rest of the family – for also helping take care of Kauri, always willingly and with so much love.
Maria – for always being a willing model and co-collaborator in my weird plans.
Mark and Mata – for willingly letting me use your words and images
Sierra – thanks for being a great cheerleader and telling me to take this path, and to the rest of the whanau, thanks for being awesome! 
Ana – thanks for everything and also being the best cheerleader ever
Mel, MJ and The Photoschool crew – for encouraging me back and supporting me every step of the way.
Steve – thanks for your great mentoring, and opening my eyes to what photography can be.
All my fellow students – thanks for being great support and inspiration
I am bound to have forgotten people, it’s currently 4am. Please forgive me!
Other thanks go to:
The Concerned Citizens Collective, Leilani and the Kava Clubbers, Letting Space, David Cook, Whitireia…

I would also like to acknowledge the late Prof. Tony Whincup – your passing has left such a great hole. I cherish the time I did get to spend studying under you, it may have been short but it was immensely rich and I learnt a lot, even in that short time. Fa’afetai lava.

And that's all for now, honestly, I didn't realise how much recovery I needed after this sort of outlay. I am only now finding the energy and head-space to start thinking critically about how the exhibition went and what I can get out of it for moving forward. 

More post exhibition debriefing to come.

x Leala

late night exhibition prep

It's rather late at night, midnight to be precise... And I'm at school! I've been here tonight working on some more gum bichromate experiments. These are intended for the exhibition on Friday and I know it's cutting it fine but i just can't help myself, I love experimenting with this process so much. It is life. 

I tried to insert a little snapchat video of what I've been up to, but it didn't work, butts. I'm Here's some sneaky pics instead👍🏼. 

 

Po marie! 

-Leala

 

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#first...kind of

This was supposed to be my first ever blog post. But somehow I managed to delete it, and now I am reposting it, but it's no longer going to be in the right date order, and I have no idea how to remedy it. I have not idea how to return it to it's rightful place in my blog hierarchy. Boo me! Welcome to my world people, the world of marginally competent but predominantly techno challenged. Good at bluffing my way around squarespace, but only just. 

So here is my maiden blog post, in a not so maiden position...

-Leala x

Welcome to my maiden blog post, on this, my brand spanking new website. Oh happy days, oh joyous life. 

Please know, this is quite a stretch for me. I tried blogging, once or twice. It was ok, and I enjoyed it, then it petered out. I was not the next big thing, I was not a rising it girl, I was not doyenne of the cyber fabulous. Turns out, I lack a certain drive to tell people my thoughts, and talking to the void of the internet was far less appealing than binge watching Game of Thrones, and, you know, general life and living. 

But here I am, back again. This time it is in the context of me and my artistic practice - or lack thereof.

I have returned to study, after a long absence, having taken up pursuing a Graduate Diploma in Applied Arts (Photography) from Whitireia Polytechnic. I have been absent academically, but also artistically, I've spent the last 5 years figuring out how to be a mother and be competent in my home realm and family life. It was quite a shock to the system, but an enjoyable one. Before the birth of my son (who is now 5), I was finishing up my Bachelor of Arts (Pacific Studies) from Victoria University. By finishing up, I really mean finishing up, I was sitting exams at 38 weeks pregnant. Ha! Life's been full and fun and awesome and I sure have learned a damn lot already, though there wasn't a lot of time for my creative practice.

I have always been creative and artistic in one way or another, and it gives me great joy and pleasure, though I haven't always honoured or realised how important a part of me it actually is. This year is a chance for me to reconnect with my creative practice, and really consider if and how it might work for me in the future - I want it to be my life and career, though even saying that is super intimidating! 

Photography is a major part of my personal practice, and has been part of my life since I was a child. I have vivid memories of utilising the family point and shoot for my own personal projects. My grandfather was a keen photographer, and I often remember him with his Contaflex, snapping and preserving family history, teaching me how to photograph the toadstools our in the front garden.When I was around 12 or 13, my dad gave me my first Canon SLR film camera, and I was hooked.

In high school I joined the photography club, and spent many, many hours and lunchtimes in the comforting still of the darkroom. I still love being in the darkroom, the thickness of black, so black and dark, you'd never experience it on the outside, life has too much light, even at night. That enveloping soothing dark was broken by the warm red glow of the safety light. To me this was a lesson on the enormous power of our eyes, once you let them adjust, you realised how well they could see with so little. There would always be the constant trickle of water, and (hopefully) the hum of the extractor fan. It was like being in some sort of cave of myth, or what I might imagine a womb was like. Prints would be hanging up drying, and make for an interesting nosy. People would come and go, and you'd exist in a camaraderie of creating, or alternatively, you'd be alone. Occasionally people made out, alas though, not me. Not matter it's state though, I loved it. It was a room brimming with potential energy, fabulous works were waiting to be brought forth. 

 It was endlessly exciting to me to be alchemist in the balance of art and science that is photography. The technicality of developing and darkroom practice was fascinating, the mix of chemicals, the pursuit of 20 degree water, the precision of time and timing, the art of manipulating and capturing light. Photography, after all, was a scientific experiment before it was an art practice. Some of this scientific wonder has been lost in the demise of analogue printing and processing. Maybe lost is the wrong word, maybe it has been more re-distributed, and now it's less about chemicals and processes and more about sensors and pixels. 

I am endlessly grateful I got to learn the craft in the darkroom, and using film. Learning to meter light with your hand, operate your camera manually and understanding the fundamental principles of photography is so freeing, you have the flexibility to apply these skills in so many ways. Shooting with film really taught me about the decisive moment, and how to pursue it when you may only have 24 shots. Shooting without the ability to review was a great learning curve too. Cameras these days are amazing, and I love them, but I still return to these lessons I learnt all those years ago, whether I'm shooting digital or film. I am grateful that these traditions still live on at my school, The Photoschool, and all these years later I can return to the darkroom, develop my films, maybe try a pinhole,or experiment with historical practices like cyanotypes and birchromate printing. There is no limit to the possibilities, in a digital world, the hand processed and printed still appeals to me. I move freely between the digital and the analogue, considering how each can benefit whatever vision or project I am attempting to bring to life.

And so here I am, returning to my photographic work after such an absence.Wish me luck! I have fittingly put my Instagram feed up at the head of my blog, as seriously, that was about the extent of my photography over the last 5 years. And that's OK. I love Instagram and all those iPhone apps, they helped me keep my connection to my photography alive, when it might have dried up forever. Some of it's well over-cooked, or embarrassing, but I leave it all up there as a record of how I was at the time. And they're fun! And they're part of the new wave of innovations in photography's relatively short, yet massively prolific history. We are living in a world saturated with images, it's never been easier to capture an image, share it, print it, or keep it as digital ephemera. And it is within this context that I have to figure out how to make images of meaning and value (to me). Yay! I'll look back and look forward and think about it all, and hopefully come out the other end with something worthwhile. 

- Leala 

winter shoot with maria

My sister is long suffering, in that she is often roped into being my model. Whether it's just for fun, or a serious project for school, she is more often than not. gracefully willing to entrust herself to the camera. 

These are some pictures her and I did for fun, out in the backyard at home. She had put together a rather sharp outfit, and because she was feeling it, she requested photos.  It was a good opportunity for me to shake some dust off the Canon 6D, playing around with different ways of capturing, tentatively exploring portraiture again. I feel I have to go easy sometimes, push too hard and I might scare myself off, silly as that sounds.

We just went outside, on a crisp winter afternoon that was rapidly turning into dusk. The light was flat and cool, her outfit snug, the atmosphere happy. We just mucked around, moving here and there, having a laugh and giving it all a go. Most of the outfit was from my closet (good one Maria), including the boots. We have a black Labrador, and there were dog offerings on the lawn as I had been remiss about collecting them up lately. I was eagled eyed and dodged any poo piles, however, much to my horror, Maria managed to stomp right in one, in my beautiful boots. Arg! As yuck as it was, it did garner fits of laughter, because what can you do, if it's not laughing it would be crying, and we had not time for that! 

This shoot was also a good chance for me to continue playing around in Lightroom. I am new to Lightroom, only having learnt it this year. In my earlier days as a photographic student (around 2006-2007), we still shot on slide transparency or black and white film,  interspersed with digital work. Working with film and transparency was challenging at times, but also incredibly rewarding and a great training ground photographically. There was not unlimited shooting, you were bound by the limits of your roll of film, and this taught you to really consider how you would use each shot. There was no opportunity to review either, and I feel that I work in such a different manner using film, than I do when shooting digital. I am unsure if either is better or worse, maybe they are just different processes. Deep down I think that working with film really is my favourite mode of working, its what I first knew of photography, and I enjoy it's straightforward simplicity. 

As a student all those years ago, I did not learn Lightroom, just Photoshop. Photoshop was my stalwart, and I loved it well. However, now Lightroom has come along, and I knew I needed to upskill and learn how to use Lightroom efficiently if I wanted to keep up with current best practice. And what a revelation it has been! I am in love with it, even though I still consider myself a newbie. Any opportunity to practice, play around and tinker with it is welcome, and that is what this set of photos was to me, a great chance to have a good play. I fiddled with different treatments, different presets, different white balance... all of it really. I know that the more I play the better I'll get, and that I just need to let go of the idea that I need to be getting it perfect right off the bat. The learning is in the play, the learning is in the experimentation! They're not particularly cohesive, just a whole lot of trying this and trying that. 

So these images are happy tests, fun experiments and serendipitous mistakes. They are not perfect, they are not the most exquisite best, or who knows, maybe they are. They have had a light treatment, not too much really, I just pushed and poked and tinkered and pried until the image appealed to my visual sensibilities, and once it did, I moved onto the next. Such fun!

:)


developing my gallery at a glacial pace

“This is harder than I thought.”
— Me

Indeed. This website development is proving harder than I thought. I think I am still attempting to vanquish my natural inclination to keep my work to myself, and to keep my thoughts in my head (as opposed to the mercy of public cyberspace).

Guys, sharing is hard! It would seem my initial bravado is wearing off.

I'll get there though. Currently I am very time poor, school is hectic and I am preparing for an upcoming exhibition this month. An exhibition. Can you believe? It's freaking me right out, sharing my work is not exactly my safe space, and this will be my first ever exhibition, of any kind. Ever. And it's all me, all alone, all on my own. ALL SOLO BABY! (Eek?) 

Probably what's putting most of the pressure on is that this is a mid year exhibition... of a year long body of work. In short, I don't feel ready! Too bad buttercup, it's part of the course requirements. No escaping that fact! More importantly,  I have been readily assured of the method to the madness, so there's nothing left to do but put my trust in the process and go at it full guns blazing, and to make sure I dial share-phobic tendencies right back!  

Ah... but back to my sparse gallery. It's suffered. I am still navigating how to use squarespace to it's fullest potential, but so far it's been rad, easy enough for a dinosaur like me to navigate, and somehow magically command. So now just to start sifting through my archives, and pulling at this years work, and curating something worth looking at.

So far, I have only conceded to uploading this image of my son as a baby, being flung skywards by his father. I love this image not for it's technical or photographic merits, but for the memories it evokes and the happiness I remember. I remember the sky was a hypnotically beautiful purple, and when the rainbow revealed itself, we drifted outside to marvel at it. I had my camera at hand, and when my sons father began to fling my son up, up, up and up, I caught this moment. My instinct as a photographer overrode any maternal worries that may have been lurking... maybe he's going too high?...and I just captured what I could. The pure joy of my son is evident, and I knew there was no need for me to worry, he felt safe with  his father, and therefore so should I. I am glad I didn't mar such a moment with unnecessary worry and caution.  What fun.

As I have mentioned previous, this year marks a return to photography and creative practice after a lengthy absence. One thing that did keep me going however was a project I set myself, just before the birth of my son, to capture at least one photo from each day of his first year. Having these simple parameters really encouraged me to shoot when otherwise I may have let the photographic spark die. Sometimes I stressed about getting the day's shot, but mostly it was a simple project that I could adhere to and keep some polish on my documenting / photography skills. The funny thing is, though I completed the project, I still haven't found the time to review, edit and compile all those images into a cohesive body of work. They exist in a digital limbo,easily forgotten. It is my hope that I will be able to  finally re-engage with the work and finish the project, sharing some of the best images here on the website. I am looking forward to seeing what memories come back as I review back over that precious first year. It all seemed a blur at the time, so I will be grateful for what moments I managed to preserve in photos! 

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on weddings

Sometimes I do weddings. Not often, maybe because I never chased them down, or maybe because I haven't quite figured out how I fit with the current iterations of wedding photography, or if I fit at all. Mostly, probably, because just haven't been photographically active in that way, in a commercial sense, where I look for jobs, for money.  My last two weddings were freebies for family members actually, and the motivation behind doing them was not for money but for love, and for the compulsion that lives within me to document and tell stories, and for the itch to take photos.  

Weddings are hard work. Hard, honest graft. I get a certain anxiety before each one, where I mull over my ability to capture the event in all it's glory. Me being me, I probably have some doubting words with myself, but then always shake it off with a determined bravado. The day is high pressure and busy, there is so much to capture. It's a one shot kind of deal, no replays, no do overs.  I have only ever worked alone, so the task sits squarely on my shoulders, while two DSLR's swing around my neck. (I feel that the next day). 

Once I start shooting, I tend to settle in and become so compelled to document that there is not chance for anxiety to shout my bravado down again. I loosen up and being to revel in the pleasure of taking photos and capturing the day, the emotions, it's honest beauty. 

And at the end of the day I am elated and joyous, and look forward to the hours of editing and processing, whittling and refining what I shot into a truthful narrative of a beautiful day. I agonise over details, and ponder possibilities, and happily relive precious moments.

I have done less than 10 weddings, I am but a novice. Yet even those few have taught me vast lessons about documenting, working with people,  crafting images under pressure, and having faith and confidence in myself. I relish the chance to story-tell that each one brings, the chance to practice my craft, and to learn. 

I will begin updating my gallery page (it's currently bone bare), and some of that will be wedding work. In the meantime, here is a video I put together for a wedding I did in 2014. Images are all black and white, however I did colour too. I edited the wedding in Lightroom, and please note, I was very new to Lightroom! I have learnt quite a lot since then, though I am still learning it's ins and outs - it was not around when I was at photography school. The music is generic YouTube music.