Ideass!!!!!!

Exhibition Idea

I was looking back at the pictures I took of the signage that was trying to control the environment around the Peak District. These are a couple that I like:

I wanted to use these pictures in some way. Ive been looking at the environment in my own practice in the studio and have been collecting receipts to look at how consumerism is taking over. 

After thinking for a bit I started to collect some leaves and wanted to have a go at transferring the pictures onto them. The reason being I want to emphasis how although it maybe advertises being one with nature, we are also trying to control our experience.

This is an attempt at producing the leaf with image transfer:

The return.

Went back to the Peak District yesterday. I must say it was rather lovely when the ice had hit the fields at the top of the hills. Very peaceful   Looked like an Eden with all the frost sticking to he leaves of the trees. Glad I went even if it was cold and snowy! Got some great shots. Mainly went there to get the inspiration flowing again!!

The Long Road Project.

         

Throughout the weekend I have been looking at the vast detail of the Peak District and have noticed that the area conveys a peaceful feel within the environment. Being from the city and living within the city of Stoke-on-Trent, you forget how quiet the country side can be.

On the second day of the residency I took a trip up to Dovedale, where I found there was even more detail and colour within the landscape. Walking along the river was a lovely experience as the sound of the rushing water conveyed such a passive feeling, creating a great atmosphere for me to shoot in.

Being a photography student, I have documented this weekend through the medium of photography, by capturing different aspects of Ilam Park and other areas within the Peak District. I have enjoyed learning about how three other mediums such as, Animation, Music Technology and Fine Art, can capture the essence of such a beautiful place, and represent the area in completely different yet exciting ways.

One of the main focuses of the weekend, for me, was the immense amount of colour of the area, and how you could see one colour of a certain tree, such as orange and yellow and how that would contrast with the greens of the grass or the blue sky.

My thought for the Long Road Project , is to represent the area of the Peak District through blurred and focused image. I want to display the Peak District in two different ways as I want to discover how my viewers will see the Peak District and if the viewers of my images capture the same feeling from both pictures of the same area.

Another main experience which I enjoyed this weekend was exploring the area, and having quite a lot of time to just walk around and photograph the beautiful landscape.

Overall the weekend was a great success, as I now know not to just experience a certain place and its landscape through vision, but also through sound, and in some circumstances, touch, as everywhere creates sound as much as every place has a certain texture for us to feel and see.

Peaceful to Mayhem

I really enjoyed going to Ilam and it really opened my eyes to what is just around the corner. Unfortunately I could not stay at the hostel as it was full but I really wanted to be part of this so I decided to drive to Ilam each day to take part. When driving to Ilam it felt weird as the roads changed from motorway to main road to country lanes then at Ilam it changed to path ways and dirt tracks. I like the fact even though it was only a 30 minute drive from my house how different it became. Not only for landscape but the change of input that man has on the environments. Like Stoke-on-Trent has a lot of man made input e.g. shops, houses, roads ect where as up in Ilam even though Man does keep the environment nice its a lot more natural with tree's and animals. I want to show this change within my work as it is the Potteries Museum after all so i feel the Potteries need to be interpreted in my work somewhere.

Ridges and Furrows...

Doug Rouxel, lecturer in Music Technology.

Whilst my primary purpose in attending the retreat at Ilam was to support students, i also found time to do some exploration of the surrounding area, and got out and did some walks, took some photographs and made some recordings.

My initial area of exploration was of the caves in Dovedale, and some of these proved interesting to explore, with some great limestone architecture, however whilst this was enjoyable, none of it really fired my imagination. I have some recordings of the spaces which I may return to in time, but there were areas of exploration which I found gave more immediate results.

The second area of exploration was Thorpe Cloud, which is an imposing looking flat top hill over the valley from Ilam, at the mouth of Dovedale. I decided to walk up here on a whim, and really enjoyed the view, what struck me initially was that whilst Thorpe Cloud is currently a standalone hill, it was clearly at some point part of a much longer ridge, which ran from Bunster Hill (on the other side of Dovedale) right the way through, and the erosion of Dovedale has caused the two to become separated. I opted to walk the ridge "as was" and went as directly as I could from the top of Thorpe Cloud, across Dovedale to the top of Bunster Hill, there are some nice photo's below which illustrate the through line of the original ridge.

The view from Thorpe Cloud Across to Bunster Hill.

From the Bunster side, across to Thorpe Cloud.

The satellite map makes this history quite clear, with the (very) historic ridgeline being more obvious from above than Dovedale itself. Whilst Dovedale dominates the view for people on the ground.

View Thorpe Cloud in a larger map

There were a couple of discussions which took place over the weekend which centred on the idea of conservation, particularly the objections which were made to the raising of the Stepping Stones at Dovedale (linked to "health and Safety by the Daily Mail, for example) by Derbyshire County Council (under their statutory duty to maintain rights of way in the County) - the article linked above quotes people who feel that they are a "natural" part of the valley which should be maintained in their current state, rather than improved, yet the stones were only introduced in Victorian times, and the improved stones were apparently laid by iItalian Prisoners of War in the 40's - the idea that they have been shaped by "generations" seems to completely miss the hundreds and thousands of years of change which have taken place in the valley, much of the most dramatic aspects of it without the help of people at all.

One area where the actions of people and the actions of geology seem to be in sync in the valley is the rolling ridges and furrows. Walking down off Bunster Hill, the light from the setting sun caught nicely off the ridges and furrows which are left in the fields below, which are nestled on the ridges of the valley floor, which are in turn nestled in the furrow of the valley.

Borrowing Nature ..

The long road project ...

I was eager to get involved in this project because I enjoy working with nature and walking, I wanted to take advantage of this great opportunity to learn from different areas of work and how to approach each of them.

 It was great learning to, instead of just glancing and shooting an image, to stop and listen to the different sounds around you or focusing on your footsteps in the dark, to guide you about, and not just relying on what you can see. Influenced by using our different senses from the workshops I wanted to not just take photographs to print on paper but to explore touch as well. Also, from learning about Tim Knowles and his work, I liked the idea of trying to get as much nature involved into my work rather than just documenting a place with an image. From this I spent the weekend shooting 35mm film black and white images and stealing various textured objects, these include, stones, fossil rocks, tree bark, wood cuttings and various different leaf types to print my final images onto. As I am going to print on textured objects I had to think carefully about the images I was taking and what would work best upon the surfaces, I decided to focus on pathways and how they are naturally framed by the trees ect, but also the odd random close up object like mushrooms ect, this all challenged me to think differently about what I was shooting and was a great experience to explore textures and patterns.

I enjoyed just going off and exploring in our own time, letting my feet lead me all over to discover new places and scenes. Ilam is a beautiful place and was a loverly place to explore. We walked all the way up Thorpe Cloud to see the gorgeous view from the top, whilst there I wrote down some of my feelings and thoughts. I tried to tap into all of the scences whilst shooting images so that I can remember them as a package. It was great to be out in the countryside with nature and relax, just to breath, small things that you do not normally think about.

Overall the weekend was a great experience to discover new ways of working and looking at things, the workshops taught us to look closer at the place around us and notice the smaller details. Ilam Hall was a perfect location as we had the freedom to go off and create our work with the use of rivers, hills, sheep, history, woods and walkways. I thoroughly enjoyed the trip and all we learnt, I plan to go back and return the objects that I have borrowed as printing materials and leave them where I found them as finished pieces of artwork.

The long road project

The long road project has been an amazing experience. Being an animation student always working in a studio on photoshop started to close my mind off to other projects. This was a great opportunity to get me out of the studio. When I first heard about The Long road project I was unsure about whether my style of work would relate to Richard Long's documentary walks.
But when I started researching about Richard Long's practices I was inspired by his work and I started to generate a lot of ideas of what could be in exhibition at the Potteries Museum.
However, to create something animated was challenging. So I focused on the movement of water as well as looking at the scenery and how the weather and colour can change the atmosphere. Especially from Thorpe cloud when the sun came from beyond the clouds it was beautiful.  
Walking towards the bridge I never expected to see a rainbow so close though it only lasted a few seconds. I noticed while taking photos of the water throughout the weekend how the colour can change in the sunlight. While taking photos I had changed the effects to negative which created interesting colours and water patterns, while the sunlight was reflecting on the water there were different colours.