Fruit of Summer

July 31, 2014August 1, 2014 | drawandshoot

A robin harvesting tiny crabapple berries. This is perhaps a poor quality photograph, deeply cropped and made from far away, but the timing was pretty good…

♥

July 27, 2014July 27, 2014 | drawandshoot

The Speed of (F)light

Another Purple Martin (male) caught in flight ~ It is difficult to get a precise synthesis of both focus and movement when photographing these birds – I think this is what interests me the most – but this particular image might be the closest I’ve come. I like the somewhat abstracted nature of the form and the simplicity of the monochromatic tones. They might be getting sick of me hanging around, though…

[Click on the image for a larger version]

Wild Blossoms

July 25, 2014August 8, 2014 | drawandshoot

As I sift through my photographs I realize that they are often much more painterly than many of the paintings I have made. I guess I have done enough ‘making of photographs’ that it becomes easier to let go – to be experimental – to play.

Somehow in all that play we stumble across visuals that lure us in and keep us going. That keep us making. Images that express something we want to say or something that we feel even if those things are not easily put into words. It is a beautiful thing to be completely drawn in by what you are working on; to be lost in images and ideas and explorations.

I suppose I am trying to get through a painting ‘slump’ as I look at the many abandoned works littering my studio. Those canvasses seem to be getting impatient, though. I hope at some point the freedom I feel when wielding a camera will shift into a paint brush, or a pencil. These photographs I have been working on are nudging me towards something more tactile; not attempts to recreate what I have done photographically – though surely these things speak to each other – but to push past the stumbling block of expecting perfection and specific outcomes when I put a brush to canvas. This is what I am learning – let go. There is nothing to lose, really, except the risk of getting lost in the work.

From the photographic series ‘Colour Field’
© Karen McRae, 2014

Wild Grasses

July 23, 2014July 23, 2014 | drawandshoot

A photograph made by blending three different ‘drive-by’ images (and a smattering of selective erasing on 2 of the layers). It seems I am ~~obsessively~~ endlessly fascinated by the exploration of ‘movement’ when making photographs. : )