‘Breathe’ by John Ferguson. Sculpture in steel; Sculpture in the Gardens, Auckland Botanic Gardens. Image; Su Leslie 2020
Wordless Wednesday
art
Layers upon layers
Evening light, Whanganui River estuary. Image; Su Leslie 2019
This week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge asks for interpretations of the word layered.
Do I approach it literally with the layers of a macaron or a cafe breakfast?
Salted caramel macaron. Not only layering of the biscuits with buttercream, but layers within the baking itself. Image: Su Leslie 2019
Hash-browns, mushrooms, eggs; layered to look good on the plate and distribute those delicious runny yolks throughout the dish. Image: Su Leslie 2019
Or stacked container layers, gone awry in high winds?
Containers, Wellington Harbour. High winds have wrecked havoc with the carefully constructed layers. Image: Su Leslie 2017
More broken layers?
Reflections in the contoured glass exterior of the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery/Len Lye Centre, New Plymouth, NZ. Image: Su Leslie 2017
Or maybe layers in art?
Detail, ‘Wave 2’ sculpture by Annette Thas. A tidal wave of discarded Barbie dolls installed at Tamarama Beach as part of Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi 2015. Image: Su Leslie
Layer after layer of discarded Barbie dolls form a wave shape. Layers of plastic and layers of meaning. Image: Su Leslie 2015
And then there are layers created by the two-dimensional nature of photography; compressing landscapes into bands of colour and texture.
Landscape, Canterbury, NZ. Image: Su Leslie 2019
Tutukaka, Northland, NZ. Image: Su Leslie 2019
Not to mention layered images; double-exposures, super-impositions.
Double-exposures; a newly discovered camera setting. Su Leslie 2019
Photo-montage. Su Leslie 2019
Obviously, I couldn’t decide which to focus on.
Just what the doctor ordered
There is quite a lot of evidence that engaging in creative activities improves health — mental and physical. Writing, drawing, painting, making crafts or music, even doodling and colouring in — they can all help to focus our thoughts, increase our happiness, boost our immune systems and even help treat dementia.
I’ve experienced periods of depression for most of my adult life. Of all the treatments I’ve tried, what seems to work best is making stuff; focusing my mind and hands and energy on some creative project, however small. At the moment, it’s Christmas cards.
I’m always a bit reluctant to recommend anything, especially for something as serious as mental health, but there is a significant body of research behind this — and it works for me.
Saturday afternoon craft project — new tote
Posted to Six Word Saturday; hosted by Debbie at Travel with Intent.
Regular Random: five minutes investigating the contents of a shelf
Aprophenia (see below), or a carefully curated installation? Image: Su Leslie, 2018 (click to enlarge image)
I spent much of the weekend in my friend Claire’s studio, photographing the painting and drawing workshops she was running.
In the quiet moments, I turned my lens on the studio itself, including the contents of a shelf tucked away in a back corner.
Shoe art, my friend Claire’s studio. Image: Su Leslie
And in case you’re wondering, Apophenia (/æpoʊˈfiːniə/) is the tendency to perceive connections and meaning between unrelated things (Merriam-Webster).
Regular Random is a photo challenge hosted by Desley Jane at Musings of a Frequently Flying Scientist. If you’d like to join in:
- choose a subject or a scene
- spend five minutes photographing it – no more!
- try to not interfere with the subject, instead see it from many angles, look through something at it, change the light that’s hitting it
- have fun!
- tag your post #regularrandom and ping back to Desley’s post
Playtime in the electronic studio
Blurred, exposed twice, tweaked a bit … Image: Su Leslie, 2017
When photography took on the role of offering verisimilitude from painting, it freed painters to experiment with new forms of artistic expression.
Now, the ubiquity of photo-editing tools offers photographers a similar chance to experiment, play, and test the boundaries of the medium.
Error or art? Moving the camera while the shutter is open. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
In the past, “camera shake” and blurring made a photograph seem less valuable. Now such shots are just a starting point for creative play.
Blurred, another double-exposure and tweaked a bit more. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
Written for Sally D’s Mobile Photography Challenge at Lens and Pens by Sally.
Six Word Saturday: washing the dust from my soul
Ceramic art of John Parker. Fifty year retrospective exhibition “Cause and Effect”. Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Art Gallery, Auckland, NZ. Image: Su Leslie, 2016
The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls. — Pablo Picasso
Six Shot Saturday: Melbourne
A restaurant i think. Victoria Street, North Melbourne. Image: Su Leslie, 2016
I’m spending a long weekend with the Big T in Melbourne; one of my very favourite cities. Here are a few shots from my first couple of days here.
i’ve found a new place i could call home. Faded Victorian architecture and lots of quirky shops and cafes — I love you North Melbourne. Image: Su Leslie, 2016
“Pop up library” — at Queen Victoria Market, Melbourne. Image: Su Leslie, 2016
Taxidermy with bling — Kohei Nawa’s PixCell-Red Deer, seen at National Gallery of Victoria. Image: Su Leslie, 2016
Kohei Nawa’s PixCell-Red Deer, seen at National Gallery of Victoria. Quite disturbing seeing deer pelt through the glass beads. Image: Su Leslie, 2016
Dancing water. Wall of water in foyer of National Gallery of Victoria. Image: Su Leslie, 2016
Sally D’s Mobile Photography Challenge: looking back on the year
Like Sally and Raewyn (decocraftsdigicrafts), I’m using this last post of the year to Sally D’s Mobile Photography Challenge to look back at some of the images I’ve shared in 2015.
There are definite themes that emerge; my growing fascination with the minutiae of the natural world, my frustration with neo-liberal political and economic systems that devalue both human life and the earth upon which we depend, and a growing interest in the interplay between memory and image. And of course art; particularly sculpture. This last has also provided an excuse to indulge in another love — travel — taking me to Wellington for LUX Festival of Light, Gibbs Farm on the Kaipara, and Sydney for the Sculpture by the Sea exhibition at Bondi.
How to experience art in the twenty first century. Artwork: ‘Dust’ by Norton Flavell. Image: Su Leslie, 2015
At Bondi, I noticed an alarming number of visitors treating works of art as little more than backdrop for selfies; this became the basis of my post Putting yourself in the picture: how to experience art in the 21st century.
Bernar Venet, ‘88.5 ARC x 8. Gibbs Farm Sculpture Park, Kaipara Harbour, NZ. Photo: Su Leslie, 2015
A rainy day visit to the monumental sculptures at Gibbs Farm left me feeling renewed and awed at the juxtaposition of art and landscape (Art in the Outdoors: a vigorous antidote to melancholy)
![Art installation, "Feed the Kids Too [Capital]", Turtle Donna Sarten and Bernie Harfleet, Wellington LUX, 2015. Photo; Su Leslie, 2015](https://zimmerbitch.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/photo-41.jpg?w=676)
Feed the Kids Too [Capital], Turtle Donna Sarten and Bernie Harfleet, Wellington LUX, 2015. Photo; Su Leslie, 2015
Riverside, Greenwich, London. Photo: Su Leslie, 2015
Marx’s “all that is solid melts into air” graffiti’d onto rusting pipes beside London’s Thames provoked a piece on urbanisation and unchecked growth — a theme I had already visited in an earlier challenge — On the Half-Gallon, Quarter-Acre Pavlova Paradise.
High density housing on the city fringes. Far from the “Kiwi quarter acre” and beyond the means of many. Photo: Su Leslie, 2015.
Politics was never far from my thoughts in 2015, as the Big T and I joined many thousands of people around the world protesting at the proposed TPPA agreement.
The face of peaceful protest to protect New Zealand’s economy, environment and way of life. Photo: Su Leslie, 2015
Enjoying the beauty of age. Image: Su Leslie, 2015
Photo-editing as a tool to explore the relationships between image, emotion and memory became increasingly important to me, as I began to focus on the natural world and my place in it.
Agapanthus. Photo: Su Leslie, 2014. Edited with Snapseed.
Money tree blossom. Image: Su Leslie, 2015
Autumn. Photo: Su Leslie 2015.
Surprisingly warm for the time of year; the boy-child testing the water. Photo: Su Leslie, 2015
And sometimes I managed not to over-think and seek deeper meaning. Sometimes, I was able just to enjoy the moment and the images that captured that moment — particularly when it meant spending time with my son.
To Sally, many thanks for hosting this challenge. Thanks too to everyone who takes part and makes the experience so interesting, sociable and rewarding.
Wishing you all a very happy new year.
ngā mihi o te tau hou
Sally D’s Mobile Photograhy Challenge: black and white
Seen in Sydney. Woolloomooloo Bay Sculpture Walk. Unknown artist. Image: Su Leslie, 2015
I’m finding it difficult not to feel overwhelmed by the tragedies that engulf so many in the world. I’m thinking not only of acts of terrorism and the on-going refugee crisis, but the less visible evils that are visited upon us. In my own country government policies work hand in hand with corporate greed to create and exacerbate homelessness, poverty, welfare dependence, child deprivation and the long-term consequences of these for physical and mental health.
If feels sometimes that society, instead of being a strong membrane that holds us together, has become infected — a weeping sore through which evil seeps.
Not a cheery thought I grant you, and probably not what the artist who created the sculpture above was thinking. But I found myself looking at the shot with that gloomy thought in mind. Then I found Brecht’s poem below, reminding us that things are always more complex and nuanced that we might want to believe.
On my wall hangs a Japanese carving,
The mask of an evil demon, decorated with gold lacquer.
Sympathetically I observe
The swollen veins of the forehead, indicating
What a strain it is to be evil.The Mask Of Evil
Bertolt Brecht
It is also a reminder of how much art and beauty can help heal us.
Finding peace in simple beauty. Image: Su Leslie, 2015
This post was written for Sally D’s Mobile Photography Challenge. This week’s theme is black and white.
