Halcyon Days

Halcyon Days by Jo Bradford

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It has been a fun week for the Poppytalk Gang as we celebrate summer colours week.  I have had a great time making new work especially for the occasion and including a few recent pictures from my back catalogue too.  Halcyon Days was a quick something I knocked up for Mondays Pink theme.  It has turned out to be something of an unexpected hit as it was selected to be an Utata Front Page this week.  What a lovely surprise :)  

Halcyon Days in now for sale in my Etsy shop

And my DaWanda Shop

xoxo

Revisiting my past

Hello there.

I have been a stranger to this blog over the last fortnight 'tis true, but with good reason....

I have been very busy making new work!! Yes, I have shot over 2000 pictures over the last two weeks, and as if that wasn't enough I have just completed a fascinating course in high end fashion & beauty retouching too.

I had the opportunity to take the course free of charge and decided it would be an interesting feather in my cap to have the skill. One interesting side effect of taking the course has been my renewed interest in portrait photography. Way back when, at the beginning of my career, I dabbled for a while in portraits of musicians and artists who were in my work and social circle (back then I worked part time as a music talent scout).

I was always more drawn to the free expression of art photography though, and in the end that is where I have focused my career and studies. It has been a wonderfully refreshing experience to revisit this early interest of mine recently. I will post some of the results of this revisitation here sometime soon.

In the meantime, I have also been showing some tlc to a lot of my old cameras in the collection too, and I have been out and about again with my trusty, and newly refurbished Polaroid 240 Land Camera. Today's picture is a shot I tool a few weeks ago after a sunset surf with my husband, after getting out of our wetsuits we sat together with a hot chocolate and watched the sea as it calmed itself, and I took this shot of the peaceful scene.

Adventures with Pinhole

I'm feeling pretty chilled today, listening to the wonderful sounds of Grizzly Bear, Devendra Banhart, the Notwist and Andrew Bird, a wonderful soundtrack as I busy myself scanning some work made over the past few years in good old analogue styleee It has been heart-warming and satisfactory in so many ways to come across lots of work I had forgotten I had made as I continue to unpack boxes of work into my new studio after my recent move.

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Back in 2007 I was running workshops out of Green Island Studios where my students would make their own pinhole in my darkroom in the morning and then in the afternoon we would go to the local woods to make use of them. Day two would involve processing and printing their creations. A great time was had by all!!!© Jo Bradford 2007

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Here is a taste in the form of a fun bit of colour chemistry paper and a homemade pinhole camera made from a shortbread biscuit tin with a hole in the lid. The hole is covered with a small cutout section of a coke (soda) can that has a pinhole punched in it, which is taped to the biscuit tin.

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I taped this biscuit tin to an old tripod using a ton of gaffer tape and used it demonstrate how to make an exposure to the assembled group in a nearby woodland beauty spot. I stood on the bridge over a fast running stream that meanders through the woods to make this exposure. You can see the stream has a small waterfall in it and the exposure was just long enough to achieve a smoothed over blur as the water rushed over the rocks on it's way to the sea

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Crepuscular Rays

Spotlight by Jo Bradford

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It is interesting that the Ancient Greeks believed that sunbeams drew water into the sky (an early description of evaporation) and so they called this phenomena sun drawing water. Looking at this picture I took recently, you can see why they might have thought that!

These sunbeams are technically called Crepuscular rays. Rays of sunlight that appear to radiate from a single point in the sky. These rays stream through gaps in clouds the columns of sunlit air are separated by darker cloud-shadowed regions. The name comes from their frequent occurrences during crepuscular hours (those around dawn and dusk), when the contrasts between light and dark are the most obvious.

The thrill of the new

Blue Breeze by Jo Bradford

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I have been absorbed with creative energy recently, resulting in much time spent on location and in the darkroom. I always find it a thrilling and pleasurable experience reviewing the results of my many outings with new kit and toys galore from dawn to dusk, and any time inbetween when the light is just right or shows promise. I am now at the happy phase of selecting which of my new works will be included in several upcoming shows over the next few months, my chance to see my time and hard work come to fruition.

So here is a little something to whet your appetite, a little taster for you...

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A World Where Dreams Are Real

A World Where Dreams Are Real by Jo Bradford

On my way home on Friday, I pulled over my car to make this picture, thinking all the while that it was the embodiment of those song lyrics from lod faves of mine, The Cure...

Enjoy.

"I lift my lips from kissing you

To touch the wind that whispers through

This twilight garden turns into

A world where dreams are real"

~This Twilight Garden - The Cure~

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Inside

Inside by Jo Bradford

I have been cramming a lot into my days the last few weeks. There has not been much time to blog between the activites. I have been delivering alternative process workshops, teaching people how to take photographs and develop and print them and also making and listing and selling new work on all of my galleries. There have been a lot of late nights recently and as I type my eyelids are feeling heavy and ready to close for the night.

Rainy Days Mixed Tape

Blue Butterflies by Jo Bradford

My work has been selected for Poppytalk Handmade this month. The theme is Mixed Tape! ~ A compilation of those wonderful Poppytalk Handmade peeps, Jan & Earl's, favorite things from emerging design talent from around the world. The market will feature papergoods, affordable art, ceramics, housewares, gifts and jewelry and will be running Sep 08 - Oct 10, 2008.

This is my third Poppytalk market this year. This time I was inspired by the rain (kind of).

Although it has been an unbelievably wet summer this year, I am not letting it get me down. I have been making the most of what is around me for inspiration, and recently it's been big seas, storm clouds and raindrops. The best thing about lots of rain during the warm months, is that Cornwall has never looked so verdant, the rich greens in the landscape are gorgeous and inspirational... it's a jungle out there!!

Le Paon

"What is riches to him

That has made a great peacock....

.....Adding feather to feather

For the pride of his eye"~ WB Yeats

Title: Le Paon (The Peacock)

Size: 8 x 8 inches

Media: Photography

The Diaphanous Blue

The Diaphanous Blue by Jo Bradford

I have been so tied up with making new work recently, that I have not blogged anything for some time. Watch this space for sneak previews of my new work, but in the meantime, this is Diaphanous Blue, a personal favourite.

Every time I see an adult on a bicycle.....

by Jo Bradford

"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle,

I no longer despair for the future of mankind"

H.G. Wells