Thursday, October 9, 2014

The Dusk Series




 I took these images at the MacDowell Art Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. I was there to write, which I did, working most of the day and coming up for air around 5pm, an hour and a half before dinner. It was then that I escaped from my studio to go for a walk. At that point, though, in the woods, it was already beginning to grow dark. I initially had a hard time shooting anything in focus, which drove me nuts. But then I thought, the hell with it, I'll exaggerate the lack of focus. I began moving the camera, and liked the effects. So I eventually opened the shutter, focused on a point of light or a patch of color, and jerked the camera around during the exposure. I looked like a bobble-head on speed or some kind of strange wood-pecker, standing in the dusk with my camera on the periphery of the woods. It sounds odd, but it was a meditative and creative exercise. Something like discovery.
I loved it.

I found that when I moved the camera, the lens "painted" with both light and color, in streaks, sparks, and glows. The results looked like pastels, like no images I've made with a camera before. I became obsessed, and began going out for twilight walks every night.

While these images aren't petrographs, they investigate the same ground: the liminal spaces between seen and intuited, light and dark, day and night, "focusing" on moments of transition rather than stability. Here's a sample of the images...

Note: This will be the first installment in an image-series based on walks I plan to take at dusk at different times of year, in different parts of the planet. Stay tuned.

Thanks for looking! -- Pam