My photo series started in 2020, under lock down. I’m naturally an introvert so spending more time at home with increased work from home was fine by me. After mid year, I was coping, but looking for creative inspiration. I turned to my camera.
For a long time, several years in fact, I had been ticking on our obsession with mobile phones. I grew up with a rotary dial. No I will not discuss age. Really I want to talk about the changes mobile devices have brought in, how I kept seeing my kids and others, joined at the hip to their phone. I don’t do it. Happy to have my phone in another room, I will often go out to garden and leave it inside. I text more than I call, unless its a booking with a client. Because I leave it in other rooms and always miss people calling me.
Finding it hard to comprehend the reliance on devices, it got me thinking about how I use mine, the differences in how I see other people, often with phone in hand and in a big circle of thought coming around to art. I landed on the thought that I would probably only carry mine in hand regularly when using it as a camera. As I mentioned I ticked on this for a few years, with the eventual idea setting for a photo series. I wanted to take pictures solely on my phone camera, on the go, moments in ordinary days, with ordinary objects, through an unordinary gaze. Mine.
In this Intel, I have chosen some night photos I have taken. I pretty much always rely on natural lighting, some soft lights in this series as it was about 8pm and inside. Ambient light, no direct focus on the prop. From the very beginning what fascinated me about art was how it appeared in natural light. Photosynthesis blew up my curiosity and my art. Watching charcoal drawings age on paper left in the sun. Science and art, what a combination. When I’m editing, manipulation is not the name of the game, its usually more in line with cropping to frame the shot.
This camellia was from my garden, had a glorious fragrance and it inspired me. I have used the gentle lighting and black background, a piece of glass from my Grandmothers duchess, to imply the fragrant scent of camellia as it danced into my body and lit up my heart. Excited I took the flower inside, no I didn’t pick it, it had fallen, ripe, to the ground. So delicious. I hope you enjoy and can feel encompassing comfort of my 888 Photo Series – Camellia.
