searchingtoseeNature’s sweet promise
Posted on March 2, 2013
It’s still so cold and bleak out.
As I walked my feet trod a dubious path of churned up mud and wasted bracken. I nodded at occasional dog walkers. Grim smiles. It was a cold day, and I kept my gloves on until I needed to take a shot. The wind whipped up around me on the open fields, and stung through the gaps in my loosely woven woolen hat. Inadequate, I now realised. I pulled it tighter under my chin and sought out bushes and hedgerows for shelter. I had my tripod, but decided to chance it, and when I squeezed the shutter I held my breath and stilled myself against the wind.
The lens picked out ghostly apparitions of dead seed heads dangling dejectedly. Their spidery limbs turned upwards, as if beseeching. They seemed to be whispering their final confession to winter’s close. When I visited them in Autumn they yet guarded a thousand jewel-like secrets; tight, alert and intent, but now they hung open carelessly, tired and resigned. Their secret treasures spent, abandoned.
After a while the wind stilled a little, and the sun showed up and played a little game of hide and seek, dancing capriciously behind the clouds.
Eventually I found what I was looking for amongst the amongst the razed, endlessly barren fields, the naked trees, the menacing thorns and the brittle, tangled weeds: Embryonic signs of almost-life
It was sweet, deliciously candy coloured, and perfectly poised. The tiniest burgeoning sprouts and shoots. Budding. Nudging into newness. Promising life, warmth and light.
I ran home like a child with a smile on my face. My cheeks rosy pink; my heart humming in time with the carefree twittering of the birds.
© images and content Emily Hughes and searchingtosee, 2013
Yellow
Posted on January 29, 2013
Mud+snot+four-year-olds just seem to go together.
Today was a day full of both. All three, actually I should say (apart from the fact that all of my days are full of four-year-olds). I handed out tissues to catch runny noses and cleaned muddy boots before I lined them up neatly. I made snowflakes and drank pretend tea from tiny plastic cups. I praised and I scolded in equal measure. I drew fire engines, read story books about libraries and witches and potties. I mopped up spilled milk. I tidied up toys, endless toys. I opened drinks and sandwich boxes and coaxed little people to fill their tummies with just a few more bites. I built a pretend snowman and flew in the air, waving to the people and houses below. I cast magic spells on impish children who were frogs and trains and racing cars. I sang. I sing every day with a kind of forced, manic joviality that one must have around four-year-olds who are tired and grumpy and want their lunch or just want to go home and watch cbeebies. Songs about sheep and monkeys and stars. Always stars.
The rain fell. Hence the mud. The sky stayed grey.
I’m still waiting for the sun.
Maybe tomorrow?
I don’t think I have ever mentioned in my blog that I work with a girl who is visually impaired. Her favourite colour is yellow. Sunshine yellow. She chooses it every time over any shade of baby blue or girly pink or fire-engine red. I print all of her work on yellow because it seems that her searching eyes find it easier to rest on that gentle, warm colour than the stark glare of white.
(Last year I started a little series of posts themed around colour)
© images and content Emily Hughes and searchingtosee, 2013
Autumn’s still
Posted on October 3, 2012
If you listen carefully you will hear the hushed still of Autumn in the breeze
If you look closely you will see quiet muffled beauty in the closeness
Nature is settling
Falling
Furling
Curling
After the buzzing vivacity of Spring
And the full heady bloom of Summer
Nature is calm and muted
Yielding
Thoughtful
Weary
Winding down
There is a soft, subtle radiance to Autumn. Soothing pastels and rich, warm tones replace vibrant hues. A gentle opalescent shimmering punctuated by
startling instants of vivid colour: the magnificent red of the rosehip, or the garish yellow of lichen, reminding us that life, nature persists. Persevering. Renewing.
© images and content Emily Hughes and searchingtosee, 2012
Flower Friday
Posted on September 7, 2012
Something a bit abstract for today.
Happy weekend everyone!
Emilyx
© images and content Emily Hughes and searchingtosee, 2012
Frenzy
Posted on August 6, 2012
Technicolours light up the stage, and the excitement rises. The crowd gushes in and becomes a swirl of glow bands; a jostle of cameras, phones and flailing body parts. We scream and shout and sing and cheer, moving to the beat, surging in time with the swell of the crowd.
Sometimes, you just need to let go.
Completely.
Some of the fantastic, frenzy-inducing performances at the Truck festival were:
British Sea Power
The Mystery Jets
Tim Minchin
Temper Trap
© Emily Hughes and searchingtosee, 2012
Red
Posted on July 4, 2012
This may seem like a strange thing to write, but colour is very important to me in my photography. By that I mean that a lot of my compositions are essentially aesthetic explorations of colour; the varying subtleties of accent, hue, tone, shade and shadow which build layer, texture and depth in a photographic image.
The light is all we have to work with.
I am planning to post a series of images based around the primary and secondary colours.
Today it’s all about red….
(Much of this is old material newly arranged, so you may have seen some of these images before.)
click to enlarge images
© Emily Hughes and searchingtosee, 2012
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