5 minute read
Journey to a Fellowship
My Journey...to a Fellowship!
By Annette Johnston FPSNZ
A very good friend of mine once said, “Don’t worry about the inspiration for a Fellowship set; one day, it will just arrive.” I did not believe him. To attain the status of Fellow of the Photographic Society of New Zealand had long felt like something near to the unattainable. Fellows are extraordinary intellects; they know lots, they are experts in their fields; they come up with astonishing concepts and then have the skill to develop these concepts in photography.
I did eventually take my friend’s advice to heart, in part I think, because the year 2020 had a way of changing our previously held perceptions of what is actually important. My journey into the realms of a potential Fellowship set began when I gave myself permission: not to do one.
The journey…
In August 2020, my husband and I exchanged 18 days in Europe for 18 days in the South Island of New Zealand. We were treated to days of quiet and beauty, simple living, and the joy of exploring our wonderful country in mid-winter. It was a time of reflection, healing, and a growing realisation of what is ‘important’ and what is enduring.
The original concept for this panel was to express, through the art of photography, a sense of the fragmentation, the disconnection, the many separations, disappointments and fears we had each experienced in a year when the (presumed) unthinkable - a worldwide pandemic, actually happened.
With this concept in mind, I began deconstructing and then reconstructing the various landscapes captured over the 18-day tour. I soon became aware of an inner compulsion to render these scenes with balance, symmetry and harmony, whilst expressing the idea that to view the essential, the noise around must be marginalised. My concept had shifted; the substance that is essentially ‘me’ won out over the original intent.
It was only after laying out the nearly completed work, however, that I fully realised I had produced an alternate, nearly complete opposite narrative to the original. I had reworked scenes as if they contained players in an orchestra. Portions that had seemed redundant became a counterpoint: a plain white canvas. The segments that inspired wonder became the soloists: the bright colours, the many visual textures. I became conscious that a memory starts with just a fragment, which then allows the rest of the story, the scene, the emotions, the many feelings to come to the fore; all the various parts eventually making a whole.
I realised: it is how I weave memories…
Weaving Memories
The fabric of life is woven by memories. Touch, feel, smell, sight. Vertical strands intersect the horizontal, their woven accents, dotted notes of delicacy and pause. A bed of white canvas becomes the spaces that are in between, a melodic counterpoint, caesura for the eye.
A misty morn, minus five and frosty. Yesterday’s landscape, so ordinary; today, transformed. I am cocooned in a diaphanous world, wrapped in gossamer threads of soft white grey. A light breeze becomes a conjurer, revealing brief apparitions of lone trees, a ruined hut, grasses festooned in sequins of ice, two swans upon a pond; their bugling a discordant note from beyond.
My world has become patterns to be discovered, gazed upon, explored. The texture upon a tree, jagged rocks, braided rivers viewed from on high. Icebergs freed from glacial flows, mirrored upon a warp of blue, a weft of green.
Other dawns break, what discoveries will each day make? Clear blue skies, winter colours of denuded willows. Golden tussock, blowing to-and-fro. Mountains kissed by light; others dusted in snow.
The fabric of my life is woven by memories. The warp and weft record a reverie, an ineffable testament to what is me.
In Summary
After being notified that I had been awarded the distinction of Fellowship of the Photographic Society of New Zealand, the initial delight was closely followed by a sense of relief that this particular journey was complete. I also came to the realisation that with photography, as with life in general, we pass milestones, markers on a journey. I now think of myself as a photographic apprentice.
I have climbed some mountains but as I look ahead there are many more to traverse. Photography is about the gaining of knowledge, about the practice of failure and success, risk and reward.
The challenge to myself is to keep on learning, to attempt new genre, to ask questions, to remain curious. To allow myself to be inspired, by nature, by art, by the contemplation of the work of others, to consider life from a new perspective, and hopefully to continue the journey of valleys and mountains that lie before me.
And, by the way, my friend was correct; the inspiration for my Fellowship did just arrive!
