I know I didn’t invent anything new, it has been done before
It started as a vision in the back of my head that I couldn’t silence. I spend a lot of hours driving, roads are my mood board and this year I was swept away by this spring on roadside and fields. Daffodils, then little purple crocks and blue bells, then rapeseed fields and dandelions, tulips and other garden beauties. Next chapter was the trees blossoming in pink and white: hawthorns, blackthorns, rowans, bird cherry, magnolia shrubs. It happens every year, the spring, but it has never had such an impact on me.
In previous years I have noticed spring and most years I have gone on a spring celebratory walk with a camera with snippets of the “feeling”. Never a big deal. However, this year it was (still lingers) loud. It might be a mixture of factors – more noticing the little things, the unconditional cycle of life, maybe the autumn and winter felt a little tough on me, maybe my recent realisation that the gap between “work” photography and my creative work has widened. Or that I have recently started walking with no distractions (podcasts, music, conversations) so feeling the surroundings is now a “thing”.
And here we landed: bold and beautiful spring with one of the boldest approaches in photography techniques- direct flash.
My instinct said it will bloody work and I was right. The sharp f14-f22, the burning flash revealed each flora in a bold and “flashy” way, like it is a spring catwalk for all the natures goods.
And you know that classic 1990s moms urge to photograph her and her best friend Karen at a beautiful blossoming shrub, well it is kind of an inside joke with my sister, but for real I think I just turned that funny joke into some nice imagery.
Blend of inside jokes and my often-bad taste, my love for Martin Parr and his life’s work, the loud arrival of spring and the impact on me, the time to brew the idea and execute, the freedom to do it and be happy with work. Good blend, I’d say.
I have worked in a different order that usual. I wrote this when the images where and awaiting a polish. Half way through the “brewing” process I thought to actually find out what all these beautiful floras are called. When was the last time you took a biology class?
To celebrate in full have decided to give you everything I learned, worked on and loved.
Note.
Late last year Martin Parr passed away, and it lingers on my mind that this iconic photographer that partially shaped my thinking is gone, so this is an ode to Martin Parr and spring.
ANETE SOODA PHOTO 