William Oldacre Photography

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Intuition And Our Common Past

Light Signatures series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion, yellow, green, red, muted, streaks, layers, pattern

Shrouded Smear, 2013 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)

I’ve been operating intuitively since I began making images. I had no idea what I should be doing or why but gradually I evolved my own interests, reasons and techniques.

Over the past several years I’ve spent a great deal of time self analyzing in an attempt to verbalize my intuition, intent and interest. It’s been difficult but it’s getting easier as patterns in my behaviour emerge. This is all well and good but it’s entirely my own perspective. Up until a few weeks ago I didn’t understand the commonality of my images – I was unable to see what they mean to you – other than the visceral response of ‘oh, that’s cool’.

As part of the process of creating a book for my upcoming gallery visits I decided to write something to include as an afterword. As usual it was entirely my own perspective on my efforts. But, I was extremely fortunate and thankful to have a group of very supportive friends review the book as I was designing it and provide critical feedback.

One of them generously rewrote the afterword and in the process we discussed something amazing – well several things, but in particular something about our common experience of traveling in the back seat of the family car on long journeys. – ‘The acceleration of motion was with us in the towns of our childhood. From the back seat of the car; undulating black ropes of telephone wire, zippering crop rows, distant still clouds and smeared trees whipping by – airplanes turning above the curving overpass.’

Now I have a glimpse of our common past and can tie that to how the motion and movement has motivated me to make what I make.