so.

Long day today.  Blood test in the morning helped me justify not achieving anything.  Stuck in a bad cycle of too tired to do anything, the cluttered and messy house is zapping my energy, ergo walking in circles aaaand getting out of trackies feels too hard.  Anyhoo!  The one minute I was allowed to take photos of Mr. R in the beautiful and fleeting afternoon light was ace.

onefourfour: FEAR

Our onefourfour theme for September was FEAR!  This is my final piece.

I had the idea of using the water like a cocoon, capturing it just before it hit, creating a feeling of anxiety.  The visual in my head was a dark photograph, exposing for the highlights.  And when I finally got to go shoot it?  It was the sunniest day you ever did see!

I had a friend throw creek water on me, and another pressing the shutter.  It probably would've looked better if I was facing the camera but to be honest I couldn't keep a straight face I was laughing so much!  It was so fun, I love doing things like this for photos.  But it was the sound of the water leaving the bucket WHOOSH, bracing myself for the moment of impact EEEK, then the unavoidable THWACK as the water hit my face that cracked me up.  Oh and it was chilly too (UNDERSTATEMENT).

Post kids I have my photos completely planned in my head, then when I go and shoot it usually comes together pretty well or it takes a happy turn.  This wasn't one of these times.  I was so disappointed (another understatement) when I downloaded these files as it didn't reflect what I had seen in my head.  And to be honest it had been a while since I had a big old FAIL (haven't been shooting enough obviously).  I was trying to edit it into what I wanted it to be but then I had wise Jason Lau's voice pop into my head saying 'you can't turn a photograph into something it's not'.  Or thereabouts.  Anyhoo, good advice.  And so this is what my photograph became.

Here's a couple of outtakes;

Avant Card

I'm super excited to announce that Avant Card has printed the beautiful Emma de Clario from my This Wild Song series as a postcard!  Keep an eye out for Emma wherever you are in Australia.

the accidental portrait

This was just a test shot seeing if I had the focus right but I think it's a true representation of myself right now.  I like the bubbles of highlights, my mouth probably looks like this most of the time, I haven't shown my face in a photo for a while...

behind the scenes with Kim Buck

Hey Kim, soooooo any chance you'd be up for me covering you in charcoal and taking your portrait? .......... my proposal went something like that.

Kim Buck creates photo-realist charcoal drawings and the theme of the This Wild Song portraits is for the artist to become a part of their work.  My idea for Kim was to have her amongst the trees, covered in charcoal so she blends into them, creating a shape that was similar to one of the poses in her own work, and with a white sheet as a canvas.  I found the perfect spot which was the Black Forrest behind Woodend (Victoria), another reason for choosing this area is that my sister lives nearby so Kim could shower afterwards!

We shot the photo on a muggy and overcast day in December.  I'd been flat out with the kids that day, picked up Kim, drove to Woodend, dumped the kids at my sister's, and drove to the location.  The light was fading, which was extra pressure as I'm shooting these portraits at f11 at least, and we still had to make the mixture and cover Kim.

It has been a mad rush all day and I found it difficult to make the transition to artist-brain, to quieten down and look at the compositions of the landscape.  I danced around for longer than usual trying to pick the perfect location, wondering whether the white sheet as a canvas was going to work or look just plain naff.  I was really feeling the pressure with the light fading, photographing someone else, not wanting to subject poor Kim to a reshoot, and wanting to create a freakin awesome portrait.

We made the mixture of charcoal and glucose, with some water and black acrylic paint.  Then Kim got covered in the lovely mixture which you can see above, and I threw some ash and extra charcoal bits on her for more texture.  I couldn't believe it when I got the negs back and I got the shot in the fifth frame, instincts for the win!

By the end of it I was completely exhausted, sweaty, stinky, dirty and totally in my element.  It was a hard day but also super fun and definitely worth it.  Thank you sooooooo much to Kim for being a total trooper and going along with my crazy idea, you are all sorts of awesome.

check out the final portrait and Kim's interview on the This Wild Song blog