365 MONOCHROME 2014 - aka 'Plan B'

Introducing the Project - Day 1 - 10th January

Now with 'Plan B' being in the title you may think that 'Plan A' has been ditched but it hasn't, I'm still developing it, but it's not ready to put in front of the public just yet and it could be a while!  So meanwhile I needed something that I could do over a period of time and that would provide all those things a project is supposed to, motivation, inspiration, challenge etc., etc.

Dying Rose

In searching for ideas, the commonest one seems to be the 365.  It sounds simple, take a picture everyday (yes everyday) of anything.  What to do with them varies between, posting on social media sites, blogging or creating calendars. I wanted something with a little more focus (no pun intended) and this brought to mind last October when I ended up rooting around in one of my old boxes (you know the stuff that languishes in the attic) and came across some of my original black and white images from my photography training.

Desaturated Rose

That was in the pre digital era, back in the day of hand rolling film and wet processing.  I trained using a huge twin lens Mamiya and Pentax K1000.  Decisions were made well before any photograph was ever taken as to the type of film to load, which ultimately had an effect on the final image. There is something about a good quality black and white print, where colour plays no part, and I tended to gravitate towards the grainy harsh films and papers.

Day 2 - Kildonan. Isle of Arran - 11th January

With no decision or start made on a project, the catalyst came when I was throwing out a bunch of flowers that had lasted since before Christmas.  Some of the roses hadn't opened but had dried on the stalk and I decided the time was right to get off the fence and actually do something! So 10th January 2014 is day one of 365.

Day 3 - Harder to recognise without his red breast - 12th January

In deference to the digital era I've decided to go monochrome and not just black & white. But all images in the project will be of a single hue, and I hope to blog every couple of weeks with some of the results.

Monochrome Rose

Dark Rose

To and from photographs

A few weeks ago I posted an article on photographing smoke not realising how this would go on to influence a totally new experience that I was going to undertake.  I regularly try to do something new, just for fun so I had booked a weekend with Brodick Castle rangers to have a go at wood carving. Never having picked up a wood chisel before it could be amusing (if not dangerous!).

The beginning 

The two day course was run by Marvin  Elliott who lives and works on Arran and has work in both public and private collections around the world.  His little studio sits opposite the harbour in the lovely village of Corrie.

Marvin's studio

The weekend started with a short talk before heading off into the forest, chainsaw in hand (that’s the professional hand of a ranger!) to pick a piece of wood to carve. And this is where the influence of the previous photography started to take effect.  In the wood I looked at, I could envisage the wonderful swirls of smoke and hidden patterns and had a perfect picture in my head of a finished wood carving!

 

Work in progress

Needless to say my skill lacked sadly behind.  I had never tried to carve wood before and I happened to pick a well seasoned piece of beech – a piece of concrete would have been easier to chip at! But I did persevere with pictures of smoke roses, periwinkles, hands and general swirls in my head.  These were modified as the day went on and I envisaged drafts destroying my smoke images as the chisel when where it wanted and wood split and refused to bend to my will.

The end result was not quite how I had imagined it but undeterred I went on to carve a sea serpent, on a slightly softer green piece of wood, which now sits proudly in my garden.

 

Sea serpent in the making

Now resident in my garden

Whereas my inspiration came directly from taking a photograph, I found it fascinating to listen to Alex Boyd this week, whose inspiration led to a whole series of photographs.  Alex is an internationally recognised photography, most known for his Sonnets series see some on this link which features a character called Henning who features in all the images, wearing a white shirt and braces, in remote / iconic locations around Scotland.  Alex was on Arran and gave us an interesting talk on how he developed the idea to take this series, along with the trials and tribulations along the way!  His love of photographic and art history, and influenced by people such as Caspar David Friedrich and Anselm Kiefer, motivated him to take a fresh look at locations around Scotland.  The resulting enigmatic photographs often have a dark hidden message.   Alex is currently exhibiting at the Douglas Hotel – worth popping in for a look. 

Sign outside Marvin's studio

A Carbon Suspension

Swirlpool

As I've mentioned in previous blogs I like a photographic challenge and this one fired my imagination after I’d seen a couple of interesting pictures in an article and I couldn't work out how they’d been taken.  So despite the article repeatedly mentioning ‘patience’ as being a key element for the task, I had an hour to spare (actually I was distracted away from what I should have been doing) and my carbon suspension was burning merrily in the corner of the room.

Who's watching over you?

Now it is fair to say that my suspension probably contained a lot of other particulate material as it was a fairly obnoxious incense stick, but it burned slowly and with a consistent stream of pale grey smoke.

 

Rose Garden

Smoke is a fairly complex substance and even Leonardo Da Vinci (c1480) made comment and compared black smoke (carbon based), with white smoke (water based).  I can only presume my grey smoke was a combination of the two.

Periwinkle

And so the challenge began with choice of background, lighting methods and the best camera settings to use.  It was a surprise as to just how fast the smoke moved and there were several obstacles to overcome, not least getting the pattern of smoke where I wanted it, to achieve anything like a good result.

Tubular

Ventilating the room (a total must) created drafts and eddies and allowed excess light in through the doorway; focus points moved and I abandoned the tripod quite quickly; and then there was the need to light the smoke trails. 

The proposal

But a quick hour resulted in a couple of nice piccies – but maybe this is one challenge I will only task my more advanced students with!

Chaos