River Stories 1, oil, Conté & etching on Mylar
I don’t know where this might end up (messier, maybe – it seems too colourful, it bores me …) but it is what I’m wrestling with at the moment. Well, we’ve been wrestling for a while. Slippery fish.
© Karen McRae, 2014
© Karen McRae, 2014
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. : )
From the photographic series ‘Colour Field’
© Karen McRae, 2014
The roadside wildflowers are rich and beautiful at the moment. I can’t resist trying to capture compositions as we zip by.
[A drive-by photograph, layered and tweaked]
From the photographic series ‘Colour Field’
© Karen McRae, 2014
Long exposures of fast-moving water at night. These photographs were made during a paddling/camping trip and although there were lots of stars in the inky sky there was no glowing moon, so in order to light the first and last images I ‘painted’ the slipping-by water with my headlamp and set the camera to make 30 second exposures. In the middle image you can see my paddling friends are lighting the rapids (and the fluttery bugs) with their own headlamps.
(Unfortunately, I didn’t have the camera set to raw mode when I made these photographs – poorly planned on my part – so the image quality is not that great…)
© Karen McRae, 2014
[A composite (layered) image ~ swallows & grasses]
© Karen McRae, 2014
Above: Purple Martins in flight
I stopped in to see the Purple Martins after a very early start to my day. If I were a Robin I might have got the first worm…
There is a lot of activity as they are busily collecting materials for their little nest-box homes. I spotted a pair of Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) attempting to build a nest in one of the boxes. It seemed that the Martins were discouraging their presence but those Starlings are tenacious.
Above: Moving in ~ A Starling in flight, gathering nesting materials
Each type of bird has its own wonderful shifting form when in movement. I don’t think I could ever tire of observing and trying to capture these various forms. Anyway, I like how these images look a bit like drawings and this process is giving me some ideas (and reference material) for an art project.
© Karen McRae, 2014
Fog spirit, © Seb McKinnon with original photography by Karen McRae
I’m quite excited to present some amazing work by Montreal artist Seb McKinnon, starting with the little collaboration above. To create this image Seb worked by shape-shifting three of my photographs together until he conjured up an ethereal fog spirit in the landscape.
When I asked him to describe his creative process these are a few of the words he sent me, “As an illustrator, I’ve developed a personal technique that relies heavily on creating chaos in order to find my subject. In other words, I mess up the canvas in a very subconscious way with digital tools, a very intuitive process, quick actions, quick responses…”
I think this technique is illustrated very nicely when one travels through the collection of artwork on Seb’s blog, which I have had the pleasure of following for the past few years.
Back to the little fog spirit. It is part of much bigger story; Seb is no ordinary illustrator.
KIN Mask Concepts © Seb McKinnon
He, and his brother, filmmaker Ben McKinnon, have been working together on a gorgeous trilogy of short films called KIN Fables which bring together Seb’s extraordinary artistic vision, Ben’s outstanding cinematography, and a myriad of other talented collaborators. Even the haunting music score (Clann) that runs through the eight minute film was composed by Seb.
I hope you take a few minutes to experience the magic of the first film, KIN, which has already won some cinematography awards and was recently featured as a Vimeo staff pick. You won’t be disappointed!
To help support the making of the next two films, Salvage and Requiem, the McKinnon brothers have a Kickstarter campaign on the go until the end of March. You can visit their Kickstarter page here to learn more about the trilogy, and to see some of Seb’s inspired artwork made just for KIN Fables and contributors to the project.
I’m honoured, too, to have been invited to collaborate artistically! I’ll be making some photographs to support the multimedia aspect of the project, which, along with photography, includes a graphic novel, a full length music album, and paintings and illustrations.
You can watch the Kickstarter video below to find out more about this inspiring project, and you’ll “meet” the McKinnon brothers too! This where the power of community and collaboration come together and make things happen.
Places to go ~
Website: www.kinfables.com
Kickstarter: KIN Fables Kickstarter
Production: Five Knights Production
Facebook: KIN Fables
Kin Fables in the Media ~
The Concordion: KIN fables: ‘a musical, visual journey into fable’
The Main (Montreal): KIN, A Journey into Modern Fable
Knight & Girl © Seb McKinnon
draw and shoot 