P| INTRODUCTION - 'Square Mile'

Brief

Make a series of six to twelve photographs in response to the concept of ‘The Square Mile’. Use this as an opportunity to take a fresh and experimental look at your surroundings. You may wish to re-trace places you know very well, examining how they might have changed; or, particularly if you’re in a new environment, you may wish to use photography to explore your new surroundings and meet some of the people around you.

You may wish to explore the concept of Y Filltir Sgwar further, or you may deviate from this. You may want to focus on architecture and landscape, or you may prefer to photograph the people who you think have an interesting connection to the square mile within which you currently find yourself. You’ll need to shoot many more than 12 photographs from which to make your final edit. You should try to make your final set of photographs ‘sit’ together as a series. Don’t necessarily think about making a number of individual pictures, but rather a set of photographs that complement one another and collectively communicate your idea. You may wish to title your photographs or write short captions if you feel this is appropriate and would benefit the viewer.

Think of this assignment as a way to introduce yourself to your tutor.There’s no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to respond to this brief, as long as you try to push yourself out of your comfort zone in terms of subject matter. Try out new approaches rather than sticking to what you think you’re most successful at.

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Research

From the research referrals the task suggests, I really liked two artists; Gawain Barnard and Karen Knorr.

Gawain Barnard's photography of nature appealed to me so much, I really felt enticed to come into the forests (on 'Edge of the Forest') or float on the clouds (on 'Sometimes the sky's too bright'). I was really moved by it and it is really how I like to capture nature. It inspired me to take advantage of the beautiful nature which is around me, and choose to showcase it in this assignment.

Karen Knorr's ability to document people and almost direct them, was really influential and I really liked it. She is a story teller, whether it is with her series of people in black and white or her series of animals in beautiful architecture buildings (which is obviously photoshopped).

I started developing ideas for what I want to shoot and didn't want to be too fixed on external ideas, so I decided as this is a task to introduce myself, to keep the research at that and go with my own creative mind to shoot around where I live since April 2020 - Margaret River Western Australia.

Before Covid, My partner and I lived in Indonesia, and traveled a lot. I still call Indonesia home. Since we were 'stuck' in Western Australia, and I was used to so much traveling since 2014 (and was basically forced to stop and live in one place without much options to move), I was inspired to explore the idea of Grounding in Motion in my photography on this assignment.

Obviously since May 2022 I was traveling a lot, back home (Israel) and back to my other ‘home’ (Indonesia), but Margaret River became my new home-base.

I did experience a lot of grief regarding my ‘past covid life' and living here in a place which nature is exceptionally raw and the weather is subject to change at any moment.

I thought this is a great metaphor to life and how we should learn from nature the idea of ‘grounding in motion’.

Whether it is grounding in our heart while we are on the move and don't have a specific place to call home, or when everything falls apart and we find grounding in the chaos.

I saw on the forecast there is was a sunny weekend coming up, even though we are in the middle of winter, so I decided to plan what exactly I want to shoot and where, but still allow myself to be spontaneous, flexible and creative on the moment.

My plan was to shoot in a waterfall I never visited in Margaret River town, the closest beach to our house, and another beach I love which is not so far from our home as well.

I wanted to emphasise the elements of nature and how nature is always changing, but also how there is always grounding when a movement happens.

As a surfer, and as Margaret River is famous by it's world class surf, we always feel how small when we are in the raw ocean here. Reminding us how we have to keep grounding in stillness while in motion.

As I experienced PTSD after a surf injury, and luckily nowadays finding the ocean as the most healing place for me, I feel like there is no other way to be other than when I am grounded in my body mind and spirit.

Movement can be very subtle, and can be very raw and wild.

And no matter how big the movement is, it is always coming from nothing and dissolving to nothing.

I started shooting in the waterfall, using my Canon M5 camera.

I am an amateur photographer and one of the main reasons i wanted to do this course is so I can learn better the techniques and how to use more manual functions within my cameras.

I used different functions, just pretty much flicking the modes and seeing what works best for me. I usually use my eye and not work according to laws of photography, or special techniques. However I tried to work with the manual settings more than automatic.

I really liked the images I shot, and even though I had enough material to create a 12 images series, it reminded me of a series I shot in 2020, when a storm hit and the ocean was really wild. My partner and I went to the most famous surf break called 'surfers point', and I shot on film the raw ocean.

I thought adding 4 more images from this series will be a great completion for these images I shot now.

These were shot on a Fuji cam point and shoot, on a Fuji Venus film roll (which was also probably expired. I had it for a long time until I used and developed it. It is a bit of a rare film roll).

I went into the choosing process, and carefully chose 15 images, out of which, I chose only 12. I chose 4 images from the film series, that I thought went well with this current series and will match, and I decided to place them in the bottom of the series.

I fixed few horizon lines which were not straight, but on the raw images I decided to leave 2 of them 'unperfected' as it is more of an angle shooting (not straight in front of the ocean, and also to deepen the feeling of rawness where perfection is non existent).

So at the top there are the waterfall images, the middle the beach and surf images, and at the bottom the wild raw darker images on film.

This to show very subtle movements, sunny days, and beautiful sky and waters, but also the shadow side, the darker side, the 'underworld' which reflects to our subconscious mind, where all of our conditionings reside.

Final Edit

To emphasise my philosophical point of view about water, and grounding in motion. I came back to my research.

I found this wonderful article explaining about balance in art. 

"Balance in art is one of the basic principles of design, along with contrast, movement, rhythm, emphasis, pattern, unity, and variety. Balance refers to how the elements of art (line, shape, color, value, space, form, texture) relate to each other within the composition in terms of their visual weight to create visual equilibrium. That is, one side does not seem heavier than another."

Quoted from the article.

I also found this wonderful article about Tao Te Ching, a very important and wise book of the Tao tradition and philosophy about water and balance.

I study Eastern Philosophy for many years now, and I learn so much from it about nature and from both of them about life.

The idea of flow and grounding is the idea of Yin & Yang, when we find flow and movement in the Yang aspect but we find grounding in the Yin essence. Grounding is not to hold onto things, rather to flow.

If we get washed by a river flow, we don't want to hold onto a branch as we can get hurt, rather to flow with the river.

The rocks are the yin elements while the water is flowing, ever engraving their movement onto the rocks, moving the sand around. The shape of the waves are formed by the crush of the swells onto the shore, or the flow of the river onto the rocks of the waterfall.

Yin and Yang influence each other, there is no flow without grounding / stillness, and there is no grounding / stillness without flow.

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Reflection

I think the images I shot were great, I think catching the movement textures on the water was done well. Perhaps I would like to work more with a long exposure and showcase the movement also in flow rather than captured still. Even though I also like the idea a photograph is freezing a motion, which can weave into the philosophy and idea I wanted to emphasise.

I think it can be a great idea to keep going out in storms and shoot with my film camera as it can be a really cool series over time, as well as on sunny days, small swells and beautiful weather.