hi hat & snare

waking up

what am i doing?

today i’m waking up to the thought that i’m involved in an affair.  i’m being unfaithful to my art practice, i’m cheating on it to try and have some fun.

my practice had become a little boring and we’d not really talked about it for a while and i got bored and drifted off looking to have some fun.

at first, how i chose to have the affair was an easy option. i quickly got bored and moved to another source of fun.

and fun it was.

however outside of the gratuitous fun part, the affair has at times offered me words that have not endeared me to the affair.

i wasn’t consciously aware of it being an affair.  considering it an affair gives me an out strategy.

considering it an affair makes me consider why i’m cheating on my art practice.

it had become a little staid.

in training to be a forest school leader i had hoped that my art practice would buck it’s ideas up and go with the flow.  instead it’s hung it’s head and not particularly embraced the new opportunities that the forest school practice offers.

maybe my art practice is jealous of the attention the forest school practice is receiving.  it need not be, they are both as important as each other to me.  there is however the consideration of time.  i’m spending way more time with the forest school practice and when i could be with the art practice i’m actually off being flirty with photographs.

how will my art practice take the news?

time will tell.

at the moment it’s taking the news well however it’s turning in on itself and being a little too introspective to be of any interest.  i somehow need to make it feel better and reassure it that my affair in no way is attempting to undermine the critical rational that it has.

although between you and me the critical rational is the bit we need to talk about the most.

i’ll give the practice time and hopefully there will some sort of conciliatory conversation and a new attempt to work together.  i still want to work with it.

it’s being a little off with me and understandably so, it’s not everyday it hears about it’s main protagonist having an affair.

a small aside…

where i’m having the affair doesn’t yet know about the other party involved in the relationship.   given how the practice has reacted today, i think it best that i say nothing to the affairee and just carry on as i have been to avoid causing any more doubt or discomfort.

i’ll carry on trying to have some harmless fun and  enjoy myself.

our branwen loves orangutans.

she wanted to do something to raise awareness of their living environment being compromised by palm oil farming.  palm oil is even used to replace the peanut oil in peanut butter.

on wednseday 30th march she achieved her goal of cycling 16 miles along the monsal trail in derbyshire.  she has a just giving page for donations.

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Branwen-Gray

i helped her by being there as a support and making this little film of the journey.

the photo society i’m a member of have a presidents exhibition to which i have submitted some images.

getting the images ready has been good for me as i’ve gone back over the images i’ve made and reconnected to the ones i most like.

my expereince of the photo society circuit so far has demonstrated an importance of technical ability in preference to creative expression.  i might be biased and i might be a little uninformed as my photo society journey is somewhat in it’s initial stages.

i feel a little disappointed that my confidence is such that this is as high as i feel i can achieve and there is a real risk that the images i submit are going to get nowhere.  i have after all submitted 3 images that are out of focus.

i’m calling them my lost series

i need something from the photo society and i’m not a hundred percent certain what it might be.  to begin with it was somewhere to regularly go.  then it was feeling comfortable in the space and with the people there.   as a photo society it does eventually become about images.  i’ll know in about 10 days if the images were accepted and what comments were made about them.  in my fantasy i’ll win and be amazing and never before has a newcomer won so much so quickly.

i love fantasy while it lasts.

i like easter.  it’s the first big formal holiday of the year and lasts for 4 days.  in recent years it’s often been the scene of an ambitious decorating project.  this year it’s been the scene of relaxation away from forest school portfolio and considerations of images for the photographic society.

i have joined the society.

i’m still coming to terms with the competitive nature of the society structure.  the good thing about this is it’s feeding my art and sport interest.  this has been dormant for sometime.  the society structure displays images in a competitive environment while giving feedback based upon the judges stare.  i am yet to fully understand how the full competition circuits works.

i have two current opportunities with society.  a gallery presence on their website and the final competition of the season.

quietly i talk to myself about competitive image making.

have you seen sook’s pop art documentary ?

i enjoyed the journey he took me on through the origination of pop art and smiled at those points where each individual involved claimed the origination as their own.  pop art seemed to evolve out of the time and feeling about the time.

i consider my own practice and the time i live in.  if i were to start making images in response to my time what might i be making?

i choose to steer away from consciously following the news.  despite this i am still kept up to date with what’s going on.  i’d prefer to live in a bubble of 19th century localism where news from another country takes days if not weeks to get to me.

am i starting to question why i should be aware of world current affairs and what if i am not?

i don’t really want to see images of world events.

i’d prefer to live in a world where there is post teenage government.

i’ve been taking part in the 7 day post a nature picture challenge on facebook.

my forest school portfolio needs to be handed in in late april.  i’ve been working hard on the theoretical module in the past few weeks, saving the practical module to finish with.

using forest school ethos as a basis i’ve submitted an idea to the school of social entrepreneurs scheme backed by lloyds banks and the lottery to help men experiencing under par well being.  i explained it better in the application – honest.

in thinking about the idea within context of the application i also necognise a possibility for research to be carried out and this has lead me back to an academic basis that i might explore but if i do i’ll need it to be on my terms as if not it’ll almost certainly become too overwhelming for me.  … leading to a well being issue.  ummm.

within the image collating for the society i’ve selected 3 images that are intentionally out of focus.  i’ve linked them to the idea of a lost something.  i think i might be considering entering 3 out of focus images to a society competition.  will they get past the initial selection process ?

the language of out of focus is one of wanting to disconnect from the world as it’s presented.  this is in terms of the public state of american politics and association triggered world events.

image contextualisation by title coming from a personal perspective.

it’s difficult being shy.  i feel i have grand ideas but when it comes to it i do err on the side of staying within myself.  the society membership is challenging me to step outside myself,  knowing that the images i have are different in their inception from what i’ve seen so far.  there being an importance set about technical capability over a creative vision.  there being a lot of images that are technically proficient …

being in the society is punctuating my image creation too.  images i’m looking to represent myself are from previous years.  in going forward, my challenge is to create new images.

might i use my stance on

• post capitalism
• possible futures
• politicisation of images
• consideration of energy and it’s consumption
• art and sport
• time
• my own well being

to arrive at something in which i can express myself in an aesthetic manner and that manner being able to catch the eye of the viewer.

a few hours after publishing this post i added the following.

in my list of things to consider i have made some forgottens.

i forgot that i like the concept of nature being wiggly and mans part of nature being described by lines.  i’ve considered this many times within the #leaves #lines images published to instagram.

if i am to rebuild my intellectual concerns, wiggly verses lines is something i need to bare in mind.

an additional aspect of the images i like to make feature a single aspect small within the overall space.  these images give me great joy.  for me they speak of meditative moments within the sometimes nonsense of the built environment around me.

i appear to have several threads of investigation and interest.

i’ve spoken about and considered the competitive nature of the society.  upon reflection i note this is delivered in a positive and supportive manner.  if an image is chosen to be in the  competition, those judging speak of their likes and preferences for the picture.

in those submissions made to opportunities in the past, very rarely did i receive feedback as to why it had failed to come up to what was being expected.   very rarely did i get an indication of why my idea was unexciting.

the journey into the society will at least include signposts along the way.

i went with the flow this afternoon.  throwing off shackles of thought my conscious dialogue explored the forthcoming possibility of making and showing work in a photographic society context.

in my moments of flow today i started to make new connections in the art and sport realm of interest.  the competitive nature of the photographic society providing a backdrop of unpredictability, something what attracts me to the sporting domain.

yet within that competitiveness, what is the game?

early demonstrations indicate an importance of technical competence, for this is in the most part how images are differentiated while in the competitive arena.  but what of titling.

the competitions show us the image and present us with a title.  judges speak of rules and excelling the opportunities to break them.  i spoke of an idea i have for titling an image taken a few years ago.  my interest in setting up a reactionary narrative within the viewer.  the reaction was favourable.

while i sat catching up my heckles were aroused and i could feel some potential fun exploring photography as an expressive medium, intentinally going beyond mere technical proficiency.

i’m begining to react and respond to what i’m seeing.   i’m starting to feel what i might do.  my mind is open to process and exploring what comes of that.

early indications are i’m exploring acceptance and context by risky blatant rule breaking within an unpredictable competitive environment.

i’m up for joining the society and making my voice heard.