Where do I start? I stress about every thing, mainly because I’m trying to juggle too many things at once, I hate saying no and I then expect everything to be perfect. Taking on two arty projects at the same time without giving something else up is a good example of that! Somehow I need to find a path through all the chaos and working on composite images a c0uple of days ago gave me the idea for this. The original photograph was taken at Bixlade, in the Forest of Dean and this is layered together with a cyanotype of oak leaves and blended in Photoshop. Maybe there is a path through the chaos!
So I could have just abandoned this challenge and gone and done the ironing but I’m over 2/3rds of the way there so not stopping now! When I searched the definition for this hint, I came up with things like ‘commit to something you have undertaken to do’ and it got me thinking about a project I tentatively started a few years ago, based around the iron industry in the Forest of Dean. I had been inspired by a photographer called Toril Brancher who was appointed Artist in Residence at LLwyn Celyn when the property was being restored in 2018. Rather than documenting the restoration, she wanted to find a link between the many generations of people who had lived in the property over several hundred years and focused on the plant life around the property for her project which she called ‘Could the grass remember?’ Whilst there is lots of information, including photographs of the coal industry in the Forest of Dean, there is very little about iron, even though it had been a main source of industry for many more years, since Roman times up until the early 19th Century. What hasn’t changed though is the plant life and this is where my work had started. My thinking was that I would use cyanotype to record the plant material and where possible, photograph where mines had been and somehow bring the 2 together. Early experiments seemed to work ok but by this time, I was coming to the end of year 2 of my photography studies, covid landed and that’s when I came to a halt.
My task for today’s work was to make another composite using some of the images I had made back then and maybe, just maybe, I will pick this up again and see where it goes. So today’s image is a wet cyanotype made from ferns collected at the Scowels near Bream, at a place known as the Devil’s Chapel and combine it with a photograph taken at the same place at the same time and modified in Photoshop.
I like the image, particularly the rust or iron effect produced with some of the filters in Photoshop but the photograph taken on the day doesn’t come through clearly enough, so whilst this meets the brief, it is back to the drawing board to see it this project still has any potential.
The hint for Day 20 was ‘Hate it’ and I didn’t have to think about this one. I absolutely loath the dreary wet days we seem to have had for weeks and yet again is was lashing down outside. I had recently learnt how to make abstract images using multiple exposures and custom white balance settings in camera and today, I would try this from the dry warmth of out conservatory. It took several attempts, but this image has raindrops on the window, rain falling in the pond and the barometer, which shows ‘change’, hopefully for the better.
Another odd hint for Day 21, ‘Make art from your last rejection’. I haven’t really had many rejections as I haven’t really submitted work for anything much. However, members of the RPS Landscape Group were recently invited to submit up to 2 images for the Landscape Exhibition 2025. We were advised that only 1 from each member would be considered and one of mine has been included, and so for day 21, I have gone for what is technically my rejection from this submission. I have reworked the image so that I can honestly say I have made some new work. Another infrared image which has turned out quite different from when I originally processed it.
I have a few days to catch up on so will do a few in the same post rather than separately as I don’t have great deal so say about some of them.
Day 18 was a case in point. The hint was ‘Make it green‘. My interpretation of green was environmentely friendly,but I got stuck with that so reverted to some work in progress, which was partly green and that I needed to get finished. A Mariner’s Compass that I had started at a workshop using a technique called Foundation Paper Piecing. I had done a little bit in the past but our tutor introduced a different way of working which I found quite tricky but having got the hang of it, actually quite like it.
I needed to get the piece done before Friday when we had out next meeting so this was an ideal opportunity to work on that. I had already done 2 of the 4 blocks so another one achieved my challenge and only one left to do to complete the work.
Day 19 hint was ‘Make your work commercial’, which I chose to ignore because my artwork is my leisure time and if I think of it in commercial terms it becomes too stressful. Instead, I went back to some infrared images I had taken a few weeks ago but not got round to processing and I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the result. I had always been told that in order to take decent infrared images, you needed sunshine. Not so. A few months ago I listened to a talk by a photographer who does quite a lot of infrared photography and he said, you can take infrared in any conditions, you just get different results.
Clearly this image needs to be processed but you can already see some definition in the sky so I thought it had some potential. You never know what you will get with infrared though so the end result was a pleasant surprise. A number of people have thought it was a frosty morning but no, just another grey day.
Another very obscure hint but it certainly got me thinking and I’m starting to enjoy trying to work out how to address them. So, I could have made some cheese scones for my other half but is that art? And then I started thinking about who else might like to know that I’m thinking about them.
I have a 98 year old uncle, my mother’s younger brother, who now lives in a care home in Falkirk. I visit whenever we are up north and write from time to time. I can’t phone as he is stone deaf but I’m in regular contact with his key worker and she keeps me up to date with how he is. For some while, whenever I’ve visited, I’ve come away with as stack of photographs and I’ve been thinking for a while that I should do something with them. I plan, eventually to make a book with some of them, with labels and little memories for my children and grandchildren but for now, a card made from some of the photos with a letter for Uncle Harry.
Another obscure hint, does it mean make something you can use for domestic purposes or the focus of your work should be something domestic? I have gone for the latter, the ironing.
I mentioned in an earlier post about an upcoming workshop on multiple exposure. Well on Thursday we had a short Zoom session with the tutor prior to the workshop, to make sure we could get out cameras set up in advance. This includes exploring multiple exposure settings but also creating different custom white balance settings. The idea being that we will learn to create weird and wonderful abstract images. Having really no idea what I was doing, but excited by the prospect, I decided to have a go with the ironing pile.
Maybe I should just wait and learn to do it properly 🤣🤣. Day 14 done though, I am now half way through.
I interpreted this hint as who inspired me and started to think about some of the strong women in my life. To start with my maternal grandmother, born in 1892, the second youngest of 5. She was a huge influence on my life and I’m sure none of my siblings would dispute that I was her favourite. As the oldest of 7, she made sure I had special times. I would stay by myself with her and grandad for holidays when she would take me out on old peoples trips with her. One of our favourite outings was to the York Cafe in Falkirk where we would have a ‘fish tea’ in the upstairs restaurant and for those who don’t know, a fish tea consisted of fish and chips, bread and butter and a cup of tea.
She taught me to knit and crochet, which considering she was left handed and I right, wasn’t easy. I would embroider with her and she would turn my work over to look at the back and ‘tut, tut, tut’, it was supposed to be as neat on the back as it was on the front. She lived into her 90s, walking down to the town every day to get her ‘messages’ and always popping in next door to see if ‘old Miss Cockburn’ needed anything as granny reminded me that she was ‘over 70 you know’.
I was the oldest of 7 with 3 sisters and 3 brothers. Father was always in work but didn’t earn much so mum, who had trained as a tailoress when she left school, took in sewing. Mum made all of our clothes and it was not unusual for there to a wedding dress or curtains lying on top of her old treadle sewing machine which now resides in my dining room. I learned a lot from my mum, not least how to make a little go a long way and NEVER, throw food away! This is mum on her 21st birthday
My daughter is a strong woman too, it must be in our genes. and I have to admit that I have learned a lot from my daughter too. She works hard but still makes time for her mum and I enjoy nothing more than a girly lunch with Justine.
And then there is me, a mix of all of them, or at least, I am what I am because of them. I should at this point add that I am no expert in amalgamating images in Photoshop, although currently working though an online Photoshop workshop, so hope to be able to improve on this when I have done.
Anne Bryson Photography 