Five Fridays have passed since I first told you about The Centre of Contemporary Photography's instagram competition. Five weeks of wondering and exploring the one word prompt given to us, five weeks of taking lots of maybe shots, and five weeks of considering the way I use instagram, the way the other contestants use instagram and what that all means in the scheme of things.
And of course it means five Fridays of uploading the final photo, five Fridays of refreshing my feed constantly to see what the other participants have posted and five Fridays of second guessing myself, of feeling happy, of feeling unprofessional, cliche, inadequate, proud and pleased.
So let me take you on a journey back through those last five Fridays and tell you a bit about the story behind each of my photos.
WEEK 4 | STRANGER
I had spent the few days before the fourth Friday at The Slow Living Workshop and even though I'd had my phone out taking pics the entire time, and even though I had an idea that I'd like to submit something with flowers, I drove out of there thinking that I would have to post my entry a day after. That a Saturday photo would have to be better than no photo at all.
But late that night, sitting in my car waiting for Indi to finish her school production, I found this one amongst the millions I'd taken that week. It felt perfect. Like it represented the theme and my few days exactly. The stranger in black, the contrasting yellow of the wattle and the incredibly beautifully styled table.
I captioned it - I find these internet friendships we form so interesting. We are strangers yet we know intimate details about each other's lives.
WEEK 5 | TIME
My caption - These two and their sister. Their wobbly teeth, their birthdays, their new centimetres, their new tricks, their insights, their favourite songs, their squabbles, their seasons, their accomplishments, the books they finish, the year levels they complete, each day, each hour, each minute.
I woke them up at 5.30am that Friday. Jazzy wouldn't get up. Thankfully these two did. And thankfully the greys turned to blues, turned to golden orange and became awesome. Hand holding children and sunrises are totally cliche, but for a good reason I think. There are not many more humbling experiences than watching night become day, then watching it through their eyes, and then watching them become who they are to be.
WEEK 6 | UP CLOSE
No caption this week. No close up of beach washed up pebbles, no close ups of tropical flowers or leaves or fruit.
Our Indi. On the walk through the jungle from the beach back to the house. Sandy hair, holiday face, content.
WEEK 7 | MIRROR IMAGE
It took me a week to get this shot. Each morning for a week I'd run past the Port Douglas marina at 6.30 and hope for the best, but each day it was too windy and the ripples in the water disturbed the shot I hoped to take.
Until the seventh Friday. On that day I ran, I photographed just in case and not until I got home and flicked through my photo stream did I realise I'd gotten it. I flipped it for fun, didn't caption it and posted it before 8am, record!!
WEEK 8 | CONTRAST
Last Friday morning I walked through our forest with a bucket of watered down clay we had taken from our dam and a paint brush. I chose three blackened trees, loaded some podcasts on my phone and got to work painting stripes.
I borrowed this idea from our wonderful friend and local artist Petrus Spronk. A few months ago he came over to our house and shared a DVD of his own works using clay to paint the trees near his home. He is fascinated with the horizontal stripes in the vertical forest. And we all loved hearing the stories of his beautiful images as much as we loved looking at the photos of them.
Totally and completely inspired, I asked his permission to paint some of our own blackened forest and to my delight he agreed.
So on the eighth Friday I painted, and while it wasn't exactly easy to make even stripes on the charred bark, it was meditative. And when I finally stood back, I liked what I saw. And I photographed it and then I came down the hill to the house and posted it. I love that I can see the stripy trees from my kitchen window when I am doing the dishes.
My caption reads - Horizontal lines in an otherwise vertical forest. White dam clay against the 2009 bushfire burnt trees. With love and gratitude for the concept to my artist friend Petrus Spronk.
And that's it! Until this Friday of course. Better get my thinking cap on.
If you are following this on instagram I'm sorry for the repetition.
If you'd like to see my first three pics you can check them out here.
You can click on the #ccpsalonig hashtag on instagram to see what the other nine grammers are posting.
And if you feel like it you can even join in too by posting your own responses to the prompts using the #diyccpsalon hashtag.
Phew, did you get all that? I hope so.
I also hope you are well and happy.
Until next time, may your light be just right.
Big love! xx
