These strange spectral reflections occasionally appear on the wall where a painting hangs in our kitchen; one day I took the painting down, donned a lead apron and stepped into the light (actually, I don’t have quick access a lead apron but the reflected light seems to angle off the microwave so perhaps I should have)…
*A (non-scientific) phenomenon only occurring as the light shifts into late autumn.
© Karen McRae, 2014
Cooling the Landscape
[These are in-camera double exposures with one exposure made using camera movement]
© Karen McRae, 2014
There are moments when it’s hard not to mourn the quick passing of the summer even though we are still in it. Cold rainy days that feel like they were borrowed from another month. A month like October.
And seeing that the Purple Martins have ‘left the building‘. Their summer nesting boxes empty – devoid of those beautiful summer sounds the swallows bring – the babies fully grown, independent. Eventually, hopefully, they will make it all the way to their winter home in Brazil, some of them banded and/or outfitted with tiny GPS trackers. Little winter ‘backpacks’ to tell stories of where they go. When they return in the spring the birds will be carefully caught and the tiny GPS devices removed. The number of Purple Martins is significantly dropping and it’s not really known why so, this data is hopefully a step in finding out what might be causing the decline in their population, and a step too, in finding ways to protect them. You can read more about the fascinating Purple Martin Project here and here on the Nature Canada website.
[The first image is a layered photograph ~ purple martins, a rainy window and a summer landscape made with movement.]
© Karen McRae, 2014
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
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]
© Karen McRae, 2014
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
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
draw and shoot 