“Connection is collaborative. For words to have meaning, they have to be read.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about all the ways I get to communicate with people and how lucky I am to have photography.
I’ve been really enjoying working on more portrait sessions over the last few weeks, it’s been great to have the conversations that come with those moments. Thank you to those who have reached out about future collaborative shoots too, lots to look forward to.
I also had my first wedding photography stress dream of the year last night which can only mean that wedding work starts up soon. Ugh, the worst, dreaming that I drove for hours to a remote wedding to open my camera bag and there was just a lens in it and nothing else. WHITEY. I think I check my bag about 20 times before I head out to any job cos I’ve got the fear so bad that I’ll forget something. Oooft. Anyways, 1 April and wedding season starts. Although this year it’s way less intense, there’s more time for life and other creative experiments to happen in between which I’m glad about.
Last year’s wedding work had me an emotional wreck. I never get over how lovely a thing it is to share those vulnerable moments with couples. I think it helped kick started me focussing on sorting out my head with crappy past experience so I can move past it all so thank you to all the couples and celebrants who I worked with for giving me food for thought for the drives home. This last wee while has been a rollercoaster. I’m so glad I spoke out on here but it’s been tough to hear so many horrific things from other women. I had a day last week where I just pure rage cried all day long. I never really know how to process anger, it probably used to come out as me being a wee radge drunken liability. But it felt good to just imagine I’m Joe Pesci with a sharp suit and a sharper blade and just weep like fuck for a day, which hopefully was coming from a place of empathy and not psychopathy.
“We are empathic beings who feel for each other. Our very success as a species is rooted in our ability to be aware of each other’s needs, to notice each other’s pain and to experience deeply felt physiological and emotional empathy.”
I guess I just needed to spit it all out and get that guy out of my face and that felt quite selfish or at least focussed on self preservation but I hadn’t really anticipated that it would also open up a safe space for so many difficult and generous conversations which has proved to be a beautiful, emotional and empowering thing.
There’s been a lot of naps too. My body has started to relax and I’ve never needed to sleep so much in all my puff.
Then last weekend I also got to be a guest at a wedding, to get my own suit oot, dance and laugh with good folks. What a treat. Didn’t even take my phone out my pocket, not a single snap taken until I went on a solo art adventure the next morning. It felt fucking great to do things I love to do to feel better and just give myself a bit of time. Thank you to my ace pals Kerri and Mark for the best piss up in a brewery a booze sober girl could hope for. And to the lovely ladies who drove me to Newcastle and didn’t even give me a hard time for booking myself into the wrong hotel.
And after finding my baws about the bad stuff it’s time to do the same for all the good.
For work, we’re making the next changes to the way I do all the stuff too. We’re bringing all the wedding photography, portraiture and the elopement and wee wedding planning with the elopement society into one space on social media so it’s a bit more like the website and so I don’t freak out that I’m spinning too many plates. It feels good to simplify all the ideas into one space. Then there’s still my other instagram page for the loose cannon stuff. Starting to get there with making time for some more creative explorations.
So please follow @solencollet and @solornothing if you don’t already (the name of the wedding photo one has changed to match the website). We’ve got a competition and store sale coming too for a bit of a spring clear out of all the stuff lying around that reminds me of how shit I am at keeping on top of shouting about it all. Well, we’ve just had all the germs and school holidays and meltdowns so maybe it’s more about me remembering that those things happen and they eat into my studio time.
“Or, more simply, creativity is any act of love. Any act of making. It is usually applied to art-making, but it can also be applied to anything you do that requires your focus, skill and ingenuity. It takes creativity to dress well, for example. To parent. To paint a windowsill. To give someone you love your full attention.”
I had an interesting chat with a photographer a few days ago who reckons that wedding work is still really undervalued by folks in other creative sectors. She believes the art world and creative directors are mostly a bit snobby about someone who does any wedding or social photography work like you can’t be good at both even though pretty much all artists need at least one other job to be able to afford to live. So here’s a wee rant about how that can be the day job. For me, it feeds my kid but also through shooting weddings for a decade I’ve learnt so much. I wouldn’t say I’m technically particularly proficient and I’m not into the kit side of things at all really unless it’s vintage film cameras but even then I don’t geek out about that stuff. But through shooting 10 hours on the bounce you learn to hyperfocus to find a composition in amongst all the moving noise like a street photographer would, to anticipate what’s going to happen in a room full of people, you learn to use shite available light, to work in all weathers, to work in awkward spaces with a heap of drunk folks with heightened emotions and family politics, to get a couple’s connection on camera in a short space of time even if they’re super camera shy or hate public displays of affection. All the while you are problem solving, travelling between places you might never have been before, being sensitive to different religious beliefs and traditions. And like studio collaborative work, there’s a team of folks with their own brief to work with - videographers footage to swerve, liaising with venue staff, caterers, makeup and hair, florists, bands, different officiants with their own ways of working all to a specific timeline with literally one break all day and it’s fucking hard work. Then you drive home…And I think that’s me giving myself a lecture about something which I’ll probably figure out in a day or two…
I don’t have any self portraits to share this month as all my work time has been taken up with portraiture sessions of other folks, I’ve lots of edits from those to share soon and I’ve a bunch of ideas to get to work on now that I feel a little less freaked the fuck out so I’ll no doubt share them too. I’ve been doing a bit of my crap writing about things that make me happy and still working away on ways to combine the two things.
I bought myself a copy of On Connection by Kae Tempest on my Sunday art adventure in Baltic Centre for Contemporary Arts in Newcastle. All the quotes I’ve used are from the book which I haven’t finished reading yet but love already. The person in the shop was delighted to see a copy leave as they said it was a beautiful thing to read. My mate Andy of 5things also sent me this link to their episode about the book. 5things is a regular online breakfast event where 3 speakers discuss 5 things each about a favourite non-fiction book.
I ONLY WORK WITH LEGENDS
Want to have some tea and a rant while I snap photos of your face for use as smoke signals over the mountains of that there internet?