Invading Light, Bozeman Fall '21
First backfilled series, yay! For some of these, particularly the old ones, I will just be stealing the Instagram captions for the words, then adding to it. Or not. We’ll see… But here’s the first one:
Caption:
One thing I have learned is effort rarely wholly equals an excellent product, and that is extra true in art. I have wanted to do a mini project just like the one here for months and have put it off, but when I finally did, boom it worked. It was easy, inspiring, and fun. That’s what art is about, not necessarily the nine month long photo book project, but the quick night shoot at home that I can feel just as inspired and proud about. Both are equally important and meaningful. Effort doesn’t alway mean excellence, follow what fits.
(click the photo to go to next)
This is one of my favorite photo projects that I’ve done in the past 12 months. I had the idea to do it since I had moved into that space in September ‘21. I remember the first night I slept there, I lay on the floor, on my pad, and stared at the wall where the light was casting a shape ( _MG_2119) on the wall. It was definitely a feeling and image I needed to capture at some point. I ended up editing a different photo (_MG_2117 2) for the final series because it fits better in the group, and was less cluttered, compositionally, without the lines through the light. I feel like Invading Light 1 & 3 capture that the best, but I love the defocused look of Invading Light 2 as well. Most, if not all were shot on manual focus, purposely out of focus, and all were handheld at a slow shutter speed to try and introduce a slightly more unsettled piece to the images. I feel like it turned out so well, and has been an inspiring series for me in the fact that I set out with an intention to capture a feeling from a memory, and it worked.
Another reason I love this one is that it was something I put off so long, and when I finally did it, it seemed to work so easily, hence the caption. It is something I try to remember in all aspects of life. Excellence comes from ease, not effort. That doesn’t mean there isn’t hard work in good art. Just that when hard work is going into good art. It doesn’t necessarily feel like hard work.
Here is a partial contact sheet. I can’t find any of the original, out-of-camera photos, unfortunately, but I have 16 of the ones I took that night, including the five edited versions above.
