drive-by photography

The Softening

| drawandshoot

A-Touch-of-Green

The-Softening-Landscape2

Snow-Cloud-(last-snow)

The-Softening-Landscape6

The-Softening-Landscape4

Last-Year's-LeavesLittle glimpses of the softening landscape and the play of light and shadow by roadsides. Spring has been set in glorious motion and there was a collective sigh of relief from the landscape and its inhabitants.

(click on the gallery of square tiles below to view each image individually)

© Karen McRae, 2015

In Passing

| drawandshoot

Autumn-Dusk2A few more of those slipping-by landscapes ~ Late autumn to winter as we wait on spring.
Tangeled-Garden_Winter-Grasses

[I recently posted the penultimate photograph but I like it paired with the image just below it ~ the unkempt, and the (somewhat) orderly.]

© Karen McRae, 2015

‘The Tangled Garden’ *

| drawandshoot

The-Tangled-Garden(click on image for a larger and more detailed view)

*the modern, gritty, winter version.

Which is not at all like the *original Tangled Garden that inspired the title: a painting made almost 100 years ago, all brush strokes and rich autumn colours. The image here is urban: all road salt and gravelly snow at the edges of the concrete city. ‘Painted’ in 1/20th of a second at the press of a button.

But it would be very difficult to create this image again. The landscape and the light change continually. The synthesis of camera movement and car speed would never quite be the same. To me there is something hopeful and lovely about the whole gritty mess; a push and pull between the focused and blurred, between earth and snow. I like, too, how the subtle flecks of gold graze some of the vegetation – the last bit of light before it falls away. And the idea of painting with a camera, and making images that we might not actually see otherwise (but perhaps still feel).

© Karen McRae, 2015

The Tree Swing

| drawandshoot

The-Tree-SwingAn early winter photograph made from a moving car (subtly layered with a similar drive-by image). I didn’t notice the swing at first but it now seems rather fitting for the dizzy ‘merry-go-round’ feel of the image.
~A placeholder for summer~

© Karen McRae, 2015

Winter Light (Abstracted Landscapes)

| drawandshoot

Winter-Light-and-Shadow_

Winter-Light-and-Shadow2

Winter-Light-and-Shadow7

Winter-Light-and-Shadow3

Winter-Light-and-Shadow8

Winter-Light-and-Shadow4

Winter-Light-and-Shadow10I made the above series of photographs a while ago and had decided that they were pretty much failures. Except.

Except there is something about that luminous winter light and those subtle tones. And perhaps I am reconsidering these images because I recently saw the visually sumptuous movie ‘Mr. Turner’ and these sort of ‘landscape sketches’ have taken on a slightly different meaning. Or perhaps they are still failures, I haven’t quite decided. Either way they are an interesting part of the image making process (for me) so here they are.

Light-and-Shadow-_-GrassesDifferent light on a different day.

[Each one of these images is a ‘drive-by’ photograph, made from the passenger seat of a moving car]

© Karen McRae, 2015