Underneath an Imaginary Sea

December 17, 2009

When I came up with the idea to do a portrait with goldfish swimming around my friend Kay, I realized the only way I could pull it off was to get real fish. I needed to be able to photograph them under the same lighting conditions I would be shooting Kay in order to make the fish shots and person shot match. So I went out and bought a pair of goldfish with the long term plan they’d be a permanent fixture in my home. Luckily Boris was okay with the acquisition of more pets and took it upon himself to name the orange fish “Buri“, while I named the speckled brown fish “Astrid“. (Not that either of them get called anything other than fish or fishes most of the time…)

The above image is the result of many hours of work in photoshop, cutting out multiple shots of individual fish to bring together and playing around with colour. I asked Kay during the shoot to pretend the fish were swimming around her and this was one of the expressions she came up with. It was very cute and perfectly suited to holding her breath under an imaginary sea.

This shot of Kay with the goldfish and bowl was early on in the shoot as we were just getting warmed up. It’s cute but I definitely don’t love it as much as the top shot.

Kay and Betsey Johnson

December 16, 2009

When Kay came over to be photographed for the series a few weeks ago she brought a selection of Betsey Johnson dresses and crinolines with her to wear. They were all pretty specular but I loved this one the best because of the bright mix of colours. I usually ask my portrait subjects to bring a few different items to choose from and wear during the shoot. Part of the fun of inviting women friends over for these photo shoots has been getting to see their clothes.

The funny thing about the shoot with Kay, that I didn’t really think about beforehand, was that it didn’t really matter what she was wearing. I was shooting with a specific idea in mind and her clothing was mostly hidden from view. Towards the end of the shoot I decided the fantastic outfit just couldn’t go to waste and did these shots with Kay seated on the floor to showcase the dress. I love how this gave me the opportunity to try a different perspective from my usual style of portraiture.

Altered Book: Looking for Signs of a Safe Return Home

December 9, 20094 Comments

Things have been busy the last few weeks so I was starting to worry I wouldn’t be able to meet my goal of completing ten altered books by the end of the year. I’ve made eight and this is number nine.

The altered books always take me a large amount of uninterrupted time and quiet space to create. I have to sit and play with lots of different materials and objects in order to figure out the composition, and that kind of time and opportunity has been hard to come by.

After the butterfly book I knew I had to make one with birds, and now this book will eventually lead me to an altered book with fish. It makes sense if you start looking through my art supplies, as going through my materials is often the source for further ideas. The birds are glued onto the same resistors I used in the centre of the butterfly book, and all three of them are different types of Swallows. The title is inspired by information I found when I googled, “symbolism of swallows“. Apparently swallow tattoos are rich in symbolism if you’re a sailor…

Materials used in this book: book, metallic paper flowers, resistors, paper birds, rubber stamp and ink, and glue dots.

Green Balloons

December 7, 2009

It’s been a few weeks since I shot this portrait with Siobhan so I can no longer remember where the idea came from to use balloons as a prop. There is a store around the corner from my apartment that sells about a million different things including balloons that you can get filled with helium, which was lucky. I really enjoyed buying the balloons for the shoot. Walking home with them looped tightly in my hand I felt like an excited little kid and I wanted to run and skip along the sidewalk while laughing out loud. I’m glad balloons can still feel so joyful even though I’m a grown up.

Siobhan was an excellent model and working with balloons made us both laugh a lot. I decided to scrap the original idea I had in mind for this shoot – Sio standing on the chair and floating with the balloons – because I didn’t want to go all crazy and photoshoppy. Also, despite the fact that the ceilings in our apartment are about 12 feet high, I STILL didn’t have enough room to compose things in camera that way I wanted.

I’m having a lot of fun inviting lovely female friends over to my home studio to pose for me. Everyone has taken to my invitation with enthusiasm so far, despite any misgivings about feeling unphotogenic. For this shoot I put together a flickr gallery of balloon images take by other photographers. You can check it out here. I really like using the new gallery feature for inspiration.

Burn for no reason, like a lantern in daylight

December 2, 20092 Comments

From the Free Will Astrology Newsletter:

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “I burn for no reason, like a lantern in daylight,” writes poet Joseph Lease. I think that’s a succinct formulation of one of your central issues, Leo. Burning for no reason, like a lantern in the daylight, can be the cause of either failure or success for you, depending on subtle differences of emphasis. This is how it can be failure: When you’re mindlessly and wastefully burning through your prodigious reserves of fuel without any concern for the benefits it may provide you and others. This is how it can be success: When you are exuberant and self- disciplined in shining your light and radiating your warmth just because it feels so good and so right and so healthy, and without any thought about whether it’s “useful” to anyone.

How’s that for a kick-ass weekly horoscope…?

Altered Book: Bears Never Dream of Running Away to Join the Circus

November 27, 20094 Comments

It’s really frustrating when I spend a lot of time working on something and when I’m done I don’t feel happy with it. That’s how I felt about this altered book Wednesday afternoon after spending most of the day on it. I felt the composition was too busy and I’d managed to completely de-emphasize the book part of this altered book because pages and bookish elements are mostly hidden. I stepped away for awhile and was able to look at it with fresh eyes later. Now I like it. It’s very different from the other altered books I’ve created so far.

I’d been trying to come up with ideas to make further use of the bag of wooden animals I picked up at a garage sale. I used a tiger and rabbit in a previous work, and chose the bear this time with the thought that it’s posture resembled that of a performing bear. I went looking for a rubber ball for the bear to balance upon and then remembered I had a set of circus-themed paper dolls from the specialty doll review site I order from, in my stash of ephemera. And with that, a circus book was born!

Materials used in this book: book, tissue paper, recycle paper bag, wooden bear, rubber ball, stars, circus-themed paper dolls, thread and needles.

Last Colours of Autumn

November 22, 2009

My friend Kai was the second out of town guest in Vancouver during the month of October, and of course I made sure to take her portrait for the series. Kai has a red winter coat just like I do and I wanted to include it in the shot. I hadn’t intended to fill the whole scene with red, but with coat, umbrella and Japanese Maple tree all in gorgeous shades of my favorite colour, red ruled the day. (As it should.)

The Japanese Maple I had in mind for this shot wasn’t fully turned at the time, so after I took a few shots and wasn’t satisfied with the results, Kai suggested another spot with red trees. She’d just happened to be in the Queen Elizabeth Park area a few days before and noticed a whole street with them. This turned out to be the perfect spot to shoot what I had in mind and it was wonderful to see so many Japanese Maple trees covered in red leaves all in a row.

Altered Book: The Butterfly Effect

November 19, 20094 Comments

This is my seventh altered book, which kind of amazes me because I only started making these in mid-September. I’ve been wanting to make more before deciding what to do next in regards to showing and selling them. I want to have a group of them all together and get an overview of where I’m going with this before I can let any of them go or make decisions about a show. I’ve set the goal to have ten altered books completed by the end of the year. I began working on number eight today so it could happen.

I started this butterfly book on the same day as the previous altered book with folded pages. I decided to retain the 3D accordion affect by leaving the folded pages loose and gluing one corner of each to the proceeding page to retain the shape and structure. This altered book was definitely one of the trickier ones to create. The wire I used in the centre of the book bent out of shape easily and the middle butterflies were not very cooperative about gluing onto them. The pages were also quite brittle and would tear easily. All factors that make this the most delicate and fragile altered book art I’ve made so far.

Materials used in this altered book: book, Japanese paper, resistor wire, acetate (?) butterflies, gel medium and glue dots.

Threads & Needles

November 18, 2009

In September I kicked off my new portrait series with a bang by shooting four of them in one month. In October I decided shooting two a month would be a more reasonable pace, and both subjects ended up being people from out of town. My sister Kathryn was in Vancouver visiting for eight days over the thanksgiving weekend so I took advantage of the timing to include her in my series.

The idea behind these shots was based on a suggestion by my friend Susie. She liked the idea of emphasizing my sister’s very thick and curly hair by making it crazy and nesty with birds and bugs in it. Since the only way I could pull of that idea was with a huge amount of photoshop work, I opted for something less elaborate but that still made use of her hair. My sister is a knitter so I went with knitting needles and yarn. I ended up having to string the yarn into different corners of the room for the shoot and then Kathryn had to sit VERY still while I took photographs. It was hilarious and we finished with the moustachio’d shot below.

The yarn draped over Kathryn’s shoulders is made by a local Vancouver yarn company called SweetGeorgia Yarns. Felicia Lo is the owner and she makes beautiful yarns in rich colours that even a non-knitter such as myself can covet.

Ten Wonderful Things From the Weekend

November 16, 20091 Comment

1. Taking the train to Seattle and enjoying the beautiful view from the window. I saw about a million different bird species flying, gliding, or bobbing in the water as we went past.
2. A relaxing Friday afternoon spent in the Turkish Baths at the Banya 5 Spa in Seattle.
3. A long long afternoon nap in our hotel room with a beautiful view of the city and a giant king-sized bed. (Thanks for the amazing dealio Priceline.)
4. Visiting the Elliot Bay Book Company and managing to keep the book buying under control.
5. Trader Joe’s candied ginger and lemon verbena soap.
6. Amazing inspiring art at Patricia Rozvar Gallery and Gallery I|M|A in Seattle.
7. The lovely and funny wedding of Dave and Lauren.
8. Dancing the night away with Boris, and in high heels no less.
9. Ending the wedding evening with a huge Near-Death Ray gun battle between Boris, Mark and me. (We had to test out the wedding favors somehow!)
10. Hanging out with Mark and Andrea in Seattle for some quality eating and shopping.

Canvas to the Imagination

Rachael Ashe – Art | Craft | Life

Author: Rachael Ashe