searchingtoseesunset over Belo
Posted on February 23, 2018
sunset over Belo Horizonte, 2015
Photographed with Kodak portra 400 120 film on rolleiflex TLR.
© image, Emily Hughes
reaching for star dust
Posted on June 26, 2015
I love photographing seed heads. It’s a mild obsession of mine. They are a popular subject these days, it seems, appearing on everything from kitchenware to lino prints. I’m a big fan of Angie Lewin’s lino cuts especially. I think it is a bold simplicty in their structural form, and an unassuming elegance which makes them so enticing and lends itself so well to so many different media. I have always felt like they are beseeching in some way; offering up their fragile form to the wide open sky. To me, they have become a symbol of the infinite, innocent generosity of nature’s gentle rhythm.
Usually, I would reach for the macro lens and get in close (as I did here, here, here, and here again!), but I decided to try out my rollei with some black and white medium format shots for a different perspective, still keeping the aperture as wide as I could. Unfortunately I had a bit of a light leaking incident, which is why the last image has a flecked, slightly grainy appearance (the film was fine grain), but I decided not to correct this. I quite like the otherworldly effect. It’s a bit like a meteor shower, or some other celestial phenomenon. As if their willowy limbs are tentatively reaching out to greet a scatter of star dust.
© images and words by Emily Hughes, 2015
on being
Posted on June 29, 2014
horizon
Posted on October 2, 2013
The line between the sea and the sky is
the end, and then the beginning of something
new. A promise
to Future’s wings which
fan the fire of juvenile desire
and go! Flee! Don’t turn back your eyes
must face forwards now and new things will be yours
to mould in your cupped hands like a smooth,
ripe mango. Many a journey lingers in your
laughter and foamy fingers cling to your stern,
but don’t look back on your wistful daydream
it stays there still on the shore and looks on,
upon the horizon.
Sure and sheer it cuts
a straight line clear as the deftness of your serious eyes
which gently tug the sky back to the earth
and yes, a neat line is a satisfying thing nestling
in the smudges of drab grey space which surround us.
Some things can be wonky and charming like
teeth, or fringes.
But not a horizon.
© images and content Emily Hughes and searchingtosee, 2013
The Canyon
Posted on September 3, 2013
I wasn’t going to post any pictures from the Grand Canyon, as they weren’t really very good, but then I got some black and white prints back from the rolleiflex, and I realised they had captured something I wasn’t able to capture in digital.
This one best sums up the awe and the austerity of the landscape, I think.
© images and content Emily Hughes and searchingtosee, 2013
For later
Posted on March 24, 2013
I wonder if she will remember this moment. The feeling of his vast hands cocooning hers. All the impetuous haste of youth, she had.
I can do it!
He tried to slow her down. To show her. With the wisdom of the knowing tortoise. (She didn’t listen, of course.)
I have saved it for her, anyhow. For later.
For when she is ready to remember. When she needs to understand who she was, and who she might be.
© images and content Emily Hughes and searchingtosee, 2013
Coherence
Posted on March 10, 2013
The sky drops right down to the sea, and shears a perfect horizon at the edge of the world where the air meets salt water. The sea exhales, lilting undulant murmurs which curl and crease up to a wrinkle and then smooth again in turn. Rise and fall. As regular and certain as the breath, as the expanding and contracting of the lungs.
The sun flickers and wanes. A light bulb going out. It skips and glints across the frothy tips.
It’s always there, and always to be found. Once it has found you, and you have absorbed its salted sweet essence it will seep into a chamber of your heart and never leave. You will always be able to find it there, when you need it.
And you will always come back for more.
*****
© images and content Emily Hughes and searchingtosee, 2013
Rolleiflex
Posted on September 8, 2012
At last I have some recent images from my beloved rolleiflex to share.
These were all taken this summer in Sidmouth, Devon and various locations in France.
I didn’t make any adjustments to the images apart from the odd minor crop or straightening of a wonky horizon as I wanted to show them as they are (although some of them would work really well in black and white) This constitutes two rolls of film (you get 12 to a roll), so I was pleased I got so many images I liked considering focusing was pretty hard (the focusing screen is very dark on my camera), and framing can also be quite tricky. I was also guessing a lot with exposure as my light meter is broken.
For those who are interested I used Fuji Reala which is a print colour film (C-41) 100 ASA. It was out of date which probably accounts for the graininess and the slightly antique colour cast they have. For some I used a tripod but most were handheld.
© images and content Emily Hughes and searchingtosee, 2012
Lubitel
Posted on June 12, 2012
I posted a while back about using real film again. I have a big tub of old film; a mixture of 120 and 35mm, both transparency, and print. I am planning to slowly work my way through it using various old cameras I own.
These were taken by Marlow riverside back in wet and windy April (or was it May… or maybe June?!). This is Fuji Reala 120 film shot with the Lubitel (medium format). I used a tripod (and got lots of strange looks – you don’t often see cameras like the Lubitel out and about anymore!) though it was pretty tricky framing the shots as the viewfinder is so dark, and as you can see it was quite an overcast day. I had to end up straightening most of them in picasa as they were all wonky! Focusing by eye is pretty much impossible, so you have to guess the distance, though I think I kept the focus on infinity for all of these.
Nothing amazing here, but I like the muted colours. I think the quality is not bad considering the film was way out of date and the camera is, well, pretty basic to say the least!
© Emily Hughes and searchingtosee, 2012
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