Tag: connect

  • Singing Into The Void

    Singing Into The Void

    Light Signatures series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion, red, green, muted, striated, streaks, swoops, patterns
    Red Vascular Muscle and Sinew, 2013 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)

    At times like these I feel I’m singing out into the great gaping void of the universe. Casting my thoughts and ideas out into the nothingness. I sat in the garden outside my studio this morning listening to the sounds of the city breathing and waking as it often does in the mornings and I could hear some birds singing away in the trees above me. As I sit here now working on this image listening to Daft Punk’s new album I feel a tremendous poignant sadness.

    We are all self contained islands, each driven to connect with one another right from birth. This separateness is the well from which we project great beauty out into the void. Ironically, it’s also the source of much pain. It’s the essence of our humanness and the singular source from which our great strengths and great weaknesses arise.

    I’m compelled to cast my efforts outward not horde them quietly away. I thought I was doing this in the hope that someone else would hear them and feel the same way but that doesn’t feel right. I’m doing this for the same reason I breathe – I need to, to stay alive. I’m doing this for the same reason a bird sings in the trees – it’s part of who I am.

  • Equivalents

    Equivalents

    Light Signatures series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion, green, muted, circles, bubbles, shapes
    Undulating Green Smoke, 2013 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)

    I just read about a body of work Alfred Stieglitz made of clouds he titled Equivalents. For him, they were equivalent to music. I’d never heard of this work of his before but it immediately felt right. The premise that you can make photographs that represent something as ephemeral as music or emotion is at the core of what I do – finding a way to articulate the emotional state of urban living.

    As I’ve said in the past, my interest lies in the instant when waves of movement coincide – intersecting actions that reinforce and multiply each other. Music is an important enabler when photographing and finding these moments. Music was essential for me as I photographed for Coloured City and music is absolutely essential as I edit and finish images. Music allows me to see into an image I’m working on – connect with it on a fundamental level so I perceive what it can become as I methodically expose it’s potential – it puts me into the right mind state.

    Anywhere there are large numbers of people living, there is an accelerated pace – an increased potential. The greater the urban density the greater the pressure of possibility – not too dissimilar to compressing gas into a liquid – the pace of action is elevated and with it the coincident intersections.

    This is when it gets interesting – when it gets fun.