searchingtoseelittle fishing boat
Posted on June 4, 2014
This image was inspired by a recent trip to the lovely harbour of Lyme Regis. I pegged the boat shot, and when I got it I visualised immediately how I wanted it to turn out, so I was excited to get home and work on it. I’m really pleased with the result. A few people have asked me how I achieve the layering effect. I may try to write another post explaining in more detail when I have more time, but in essence I use Photoshop to layer up the images and then I work on each layer, effectively ‘painting’ parts in and out of the image to achieve the effect I want. It takes a bit of practice to get the hang of it, but I find it a very rewarding and creative process. You also have to make sure you start off with a really strong image which is well composed. This way it will carry the layers much more successfully.
© images and content Emily Hughes, 2014
Beach days (III)
Posted on May 28, 2014
Beach days #4
Beach days #5
I’ve been working on this beach series for the past couple of months. I started work on it because a gallery owner local to West Kirby (where I grew up) liked some of my layered work, but wanted something coastal. I’ve struggled with naming them, though (it’s always a problem!), because even though they are all from very specific locations, they are deliberately quite abstract.
For me, working with layers give me greater freedom to explore the local environment: the texture, colour, form and atmosphere of the landscape, and (hopefully) create something fresh and new, which is at the same time recognisable to its particular location.
These two images are from Sidmouth, which is a place we visit often as a family because my dad and step mum live there. The children love the beach, and searching for crabs in the rock pools.
You can find the whole series so far on my website, or in my artfinder shop.
© images and content Emily Hughes, 2014
In defense of daydreaming
Posted on May 21, 2014
We are never real historians, but always near poets, and our emotion is nothing but an expression of poetry that was lost.
Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space
shelter me from the storm
lose me in the mists of time
Who gives a truer account of history? The poet, or the historian?
Thank you to Chris Bronsk and his excellent post repercussions for reminding me about and bringing me back to Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space, which I have always read and savoured as an unreserved celebration of the pure joy of intimate poetic expression. The power of the poetic image is something which transcends history, time and even language. It is able to speak directly to our consciousness without the need for translation or interpretation. Through poetry, we can connect with our past, and with our imagination. Bachelard believed that “for a simple poetic image there is no project; a flicker of the soul is all that is needed.”
I have always been a fierce defender of daydreaming, and make time for it every day. I believe it is more than ‘escapism’; daydreaming makes us more open to the possibility of poetry – both receiving it and expressing it. It gives us the opportunity to indulge our dreams, create and practice the possibility of alternative realities; to reflect, be brave and honest with ourselves, and speak directly to our weary souls which are generally neglected, bruised and battered by the necessary drudgery of the day-to-day. Indeed, Bachelard has also been linked with the surrealist project which advocated the practice of (day)dreaming, or dislocation from reality, as a deliberate political act. Ultimately though, daydreaming (the ‘irrational’ primitive realm of dreams, poetry and imagination) provides us with a counterpoint to rational thought, and can actually help us to live happier, more fulfilled lives.
Let us then safeguard reverie, as our rich inner lives provide a vital antidote to reality, and I hope that today you are able to carve out a little chink in your busy schedule for daydreaming.
© images and content Emily Hughes, 2014
beach days
Posted on April 18, 2014
beach days #1
beach days #2
© images and content Emily Hughes, 2014
Designated
Posted on April 18, 2014
Petru’s journey… the photograph travels on, and this is a wonderfully multi-layered response…
I followed this photograph’s journey for a while. I lost the track of it round about after summermlee posted the work that he, and other collaborators, made based on this photograph. Recently Emily Hughes posted a request for another address for a memory to be made. She felt it wasn’t time for its journey to end. Bravely, I put myself forward as a possible next participant. I don’t like journeys to end merely because there’s nowhere else to go.
In reading others’ entries I was struck by how people must’ve changed within themselves within this year (this month is a year since the journey started) it took for this photograph to travel this world.
Within myself, a year ago, I was too shy, had too little self confidence. I’ve since taken part in other collaborations which gave me the faith (thanks summermlee) in my work to forward my address…
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Give me light
Posted on April 5, 2014
I made this picture a few weeks ago. It was a perfect sunny afternoon – one of those first precious ones of early Spring which you just want to soak up slowly, deliciously. I was sitting at my desk working and listening to Tell Me by Troubadour Rose (if you don’t know the band you should check them out – Bryony’s lyrics are just gorgeous). Sometimes a line in a song just gets you, and sparks something. Anyway, I put this together and posted it on twitter and the band tweeted me back just an hour or so later to say they loved it! You hear many negative things about the internet these days, but really it’s a wonder – such a powerful tool for communication.
© images and content Emily Hughes, 2014
opalescence
Posted on March 31, 2014
It’s been an up-and-down few weeks, and I haven’t been as active on here as I would like to be. Getting the time to post is proving more and more difficult, unfortunately. I went back to my little skeleton leaves, and decided I hadn’t quite finished with them. I had a feeling they would work well as layers. I use this technique a lot in my images, and it’s a surprisingly creative and enjoyable process in which unexpected things often emerge. Here, it served to enhance the shimmery opalescent shades – which were just the merest suggestions before – to create something light and lustrous, and a little bit summery.
© images and content Emily Hughes, 2014
destination
Posted on March 15, 2014
The journey of a photograph is looking for new participants. It has been such a creative and inspiring journey, but it’s not ready to end yet. Currently the photograph resides in New Zealand, and although I’m sure it’s enjoying it’s little sojourn there by the beach with Maureen of kiwissoar (and how envious I am of it), it needs to move on to new destinations. If you are an artist, writer, photographer, or any other type of uncategorisable creative being (aren’t they the best types?) and think you might have something to add to the journey, please contact me , or sign up via the blog. Contributions have been varied and unique, each and every one, from solargraphs to mosaics, and poetry: check out the blog to see where the photograph has been and what it has inspired thus far. I can promise your practice and even your being will be enriched for it. And you get to join a wonderful little virtual community of creative minds.
The journey is an entirely collaborative effort. Visit the blog to read more about its beginnings.
Here’s to travelling onwards…
Emily
© images and content Emily Hughes, 2014
sketches
Posted on March 11, 2014
Spring surprises me every year. Like a switch being flicked, the sudden buzz and hum of life at volume jolts me into attentiveness. As the earth shakes off its heavy, muffled cloak of winter, a veil lifts from my eyes, and instantly they start to sketch shifting forms cast by the wayward light. As the sun shone on our little garden yesterday, we dug to find relics buried amongst the clusters of sprightly iris and anemones proudly splaying their pert figures. I instantly loved the bare little skeleton leaves, which quivered gently in the breeze as they generously sketched and re-sketched their intricate framework against a canvas of rich coffee soil. I like to think the earth kept these little treasures safe for me, just waiting for the light, and for my eyes to open.
© images and content Emily Hughes, 2014
searchingtosee 
