searchingtoseefrangipani flower
Posted on January 25, 2015
… a little burst of sunshine.
© words and image Emily Hughes, 2015
powder puff dreams
Posted on January 18, 2015
I found this unusual flower on my trip to Sri Lanka where the hotel grounds were scattered with them. After some research I discovered they are from the tree ‘barringtonia racemosa’, otherwise known as the ‘powder puff tree’. They really do look like exquisite little powder puffs – dreamy, light and graceful. I love the way the festive shocks of vibrant pink and gold contrast against the creamy white strands. They look so elegant and otherworldly – like floating sea anemones, or delicately unravelling strands of silk – against the rustic earthy- grey concrete wall. I overlaid textures of crumbling Sri Lankan walls to the images to give added character.
desire, 2014
© images and words Emily Hughes, 2015
birdwatching (II)
Posted on January 9, 2015
I don’t often photograph birds, mainly because I’m not a fan of big unwieldy telephoto lenses. It is not because I don’t like birds; quite the opposite in fact. Although I don’t confess to being an expert, I can spot a few more common varieties, and I appreciate their beauty and grace. More recently, my six-year old daughter has become obsessed with birds, and enjoys spotting and painting them, at the keen instruction of Alex – nature lover and regular bird expert. We spend a fair amount of our free family time at RSPB reserves, and more recently at this WWT wetlands centre in Slimbridge (which is well worth a visit). It was a beautifully clear, ice-cold frosty day and the light was pure gold. Perfect. Quite the most beautiful light I’ve seen in a long time, actually. Usually at these places I’m content to busy myself with photographing the scenery, or getting up close with my macro lens, but the swans, ducks and geese were abundant and friendly, so I managed to get close enough to steal a few decent shots.
I named this part II, because I realised I had done another birdwatching post in Easter 2013 (although there were no birds in that one – just an egg!).
© images and words Emily Hughes, 2015
self
Posted on January 5, 2015
chrysanthemums
woman
self – November 2014, Sri Lanka
© images Emily Hughes, 2015
surf
Posted on January 3, 2015
breathe
Posted on January 1, 2015
When I push the shutter release, I close my eyes.
(Annelies Strba, from Shades of Time)
I have done a lot of reflecting during this holiday period. I’ve read a lot of blog posts and facebook updates about fresh starts and being thankful and realising what’s important, and all that. I’m not knocking any of it. It’s all good and true, of course. It’s been refreshing, and liberating, to have some time to just be without the pressures of work and the day-to-day (of course I know this is only a temporary state, so I’m bracing myself for the full onslaught which comes with immersing myself back into the deep end of life). One thing which has struck me head on, though, throughout all the great stuff (and there is lots of great stuff!) is just how busy 2014 has been. And not entirely in a good way. I always like being busy. I need busy. But I have learned it is definitely not good to busy yourself to the point that you find yourself collapsing in a crumpled heap over the finish line on your hands and knees with a white flag between your teeth. It ends, usually, in tears, frustration and wounds, the kind of which you can’t slap a plaster on; the kind which take much time and effort to heal. It benefits no-one in the end, least of all you.
So at the start of this year. This shiny, brand spanking new clean sheet of a year, I am going to gift myself some much needed advice.
Just give yourself a moment.
Just breathe.
Breathe in
and out.
Look.
Close your eyes
and
see.
Happy New Year to all, and I wish you a peaceful, fulfilling and inspiring year ahead.
© images and words Emily Hughes, 2015
scapelands
Posted on December 30, 2014
In order to have a feel for landscape you have to lose your feeling of place.
(J.F. Lyotard, from “Scapeland” 1989)
In his essay “Scapeland” (1989), Lyotard apprehends a sense of landscape as a kind of non-space which defies topography, history and geography. His is a bleak picture of a guarded, clandestine, unreal, uninhabitable space without destiny. For Lyotard a landscape is a violent, disruptive force; like a freeze frame of a camera it seizes time, interrupting the linear narrative and the order of place (1989: 216). It is impossible to describe with words – somehow they become cumbersome and heavy – which are powerless because the landscape has already worked on the mind, dissolving it, and has “made it vomit itself up towards the nothingness of being there” (1989: 20-21). […] I often feel that the act of taking a photograph is intrusive, almost aggressive […] The negation of place which is landscape is violent in its passivity. It is there, yet it arrests us, and denies us something at the same time.
[extract from an essay I wrote about in-between space in 2002]
© images and words Emily Hughes, 2014
grace
Posted on December 28, 2014
There is a quiet sort of grace in the gentle ebb and flow of the world around us; the sparse, sinewed kink of flowers against a stone wall; the comforting swell of a hilltop on a mountain walk; the twist of the dying roses’ sepal artfully languishing in an old glass beer bottle of a busy café. Even the merest ripple in a lake on a still day; the dense, deft weave of wild forest grasses, or the willowy elegence of noiseless pine trees [how many years have they stood, poised and calm as the wisest of shaman, hushed, mighty and knowing as we rush around like crazed ants at their feet, lost in the dark. They watch us bump into each other beneath them and curse and move on as they sigh and shake their noble emerald heads above in the clouds]. These are the things which quicken my heart and steady my breath. When so many big things are happening. Things I don’t understand; things which cannot be understood. I look for the quiet things.
******************************
I wrote this post a few months ago, before I lost my way with blogging, and life [temporarily – it’s good to be back. I’ve missed it more than I can say]. I still find it relevant now; perhaps even more so given I have spent a lot of time recently reflecting on
intent
[in relation to my life, and my practice]
and
grace
[a word which emerged from these thoughts]
It’s heartening to know, coming back to my blog now to find this post, that I might have been on the right track.
Time to get back to it.
© images and content Emily Hughes, 2014
seed head study
Posted on October 30, 2014
I love shooting macros at this time of year. Autumn is such a rewarding subject, just as nature is settling, cocooning; turning inwards for the long winter ahead. I never tire of photographing seed heads either. Endlessly captivating, they offer forth their generous, basin-like heads, sheltering a bounty of tiny jewels secreted within. These ones looked still young to me, and they stood out, green and proud amongst a scene of quiet decline around them.
© images and content Emily Hughes, 2014
Press On
Posted on October 28, 2014
Cath Rennie, musician and photographer from the UK has created a poignant, hopeful response to the journey of a photograph project. You can listen to, and read her entry here. http://journeyofaphotograph.com/2014/10/27/press-on/
Click on the link for more information, or to take part in the project: http://journeyofaphotograph.com/about/
.
tick – tock – tick – tock
step – step – step
.
I loved the idea of this project from the beginning, over a year ago now. It set a seed, inspired me to look towards from a difficult time, into the future, a place I hoped to reach.
Sometimes you don’t know why you do, you don’t even know if you can, you just know you have to. You press faith into faith, and hope the meaning will come clear. You keep laying each mark, and trying to build. Through a series of connections, you begin to make up a whole. Throwing stars at the moon, hoping to leave a pattern.
This project itself is a journey of many parts, gaining more resonance and a sense of itself as it moves on. Each bone in the spine is essential. I love to think of how long it might…
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