Changes In Season
Analogue Hocus Pocus On The Driveway
THE world out there where most of us exist in time and space, can seem to be so same same ditto ditto day after day. Not so in the natural world that we can see, touch, taste and smell, change is the constant state. But that other world we live in, that on some screen kinda world, where the screen is like a window to things we can’t touch, that world seems same same, ditto ditto, a daily rollover of yesterday and days before.
The world of beliefs, convictions, thoughts, philosophy, politics, conspiracies, fashions and ideas et al, like a rollover button. Nothing new under the sun the wise man said. The reputedly wisest man.
I try to see outside of my own edges, around my own corners and down the side of my own shed as far as I can. ‘Try’ being the operative word. In truth I struggle with seeing outside of moi self ……………it doesn’t come naturally, it takes work. And maybe it is the same for all of us.
Change can be hard, and conscious work.
To gather new perspectives, hear new music, dance new dances, listen to different voices, see new sky, see single leaves fall, see the birds, to see where the wasps nests are…..
it takes time. Conscious time.
Unless of course,
we live naturally wide eyed, naturally gobsmacked, constantly OMG and awake.
(mind you being awake has become a much maligned state of mind of late, for reasons I don’t totally get)
Like why is it so bad to be ‘awake’?
Generally I can manage it (the mind shifting), all by myself. In my wiser moments. Other times, life does it for me, pleasantly, but not always so. Change doesn’t always come with sugar. Sometimes it’s the bitter pill.
You only know what you know.
Recently………. (and I love this about Substack) someone posted a selection of their fav reads with links,
and
kaboooom!
There it was, and there was I in a whole new and delightfully sensorial place! Here is the KABOOM link. Come back tho. :-)
The link content isn’t the point here, the point is that it was wonderful, new and totally outside my well worn and habitual pathways. A place and project I never knew existed. I dunno why that surprises me.
Whether I like it or not, even when I am trying to be bigger minded or shift myself into new spaces and be more broadly visioned, subconsciously I think there are forces that try to keep me nice and comfy and within a degree of same same ditto ditto. We like familiarity, perhaps on a physiological, psychosocial and nuerological level that we are not even aware of. Like your brain having you crave sugar and you thought it was you doing it. Nope!
We may know that saying I alluded to above, about change being the only constant we live with.
Todays post is about change,
change up the driveway, change close to home, change that’s happening on my doorstep as we speak.
Weeks ago, while it was still autumn, I got into a darkroom mood and shot some paper negatives of the driveway, it being beautiful as ever in its autumnal transitioning into winter slumber. Using some of my serious analogue cameras and getting into that rhythm I love so much with old school photography around home, I was in one of my happy on happy places. The mixing of chemicals, loading of film holders, setting up the shot, getting beneath the dark cloth, shooting by intuition, developing, processing the images. Hands on stuff, and wonderfully slow. (remember I am a tortoise at heart)
Here are the images I took over several breezy and balmy days. On one of those days my analogue mate Colin came around and we had some fun times with our cameras shooting paper negs. Here’s a basic article on Paper Negs I wrote in 2015 if you want to know more or this is new to you.
We had a lot of fun. Colin is way way more technical than me, my brain gets fuzzled with certain kinds of details. Here we see Colin metering his exposure times with his trusty phone app, and doing a brilliant job. Me being me, I tend to shoot the breeze a bit more and between the close proximity of the darkroom, diluted developer and lots of hours guessing exposures……I usually get images that are workable, and even negatives deemed failures can be rather cool.
So now, at the time of finishing this draft, we are definitely and officially into winter, the fire is burning on the hearth, the leaves on the driveway poplars have all gone now. The trees sleep. These days capturing the changes were funtimes. Despite it being winter, Colin and I intend to hit the road one day soon with a whole lot of film holders loaded with old photo paper to take old school photos. McKinley Rd Creatives is all about such adventures.
As always, thanks for reading.
Ka kite
Graham
P.S. Paper negatives are beautiful, and while using silver gelatin photographic paper is simple compared to historical paper emulsion processes, there is so much slow pleasure there. Any image formed with a light sensitive emulsion is to some of us way more beautiful than those formed by digital pixels.
Here are some links you may like to look down the side of the shed at, past your normal vision.
Maybe a kaboom for you.
Gustave Le Gray (1820–1884)
And this from my friend Quinn
Loved this GG
This is great!