Development : Another photo and film session in the woods

Sadly and somehow more  recently I have been finding my depression has came back for the past couple of days and it has made everyday activities and commitments more difficult. Sometimes facing people and going into busy environments is to stressful for my anxiety to cope. I was attending therapy at the start of the semester at university but I'm just starting to adjust not having sessions. 

One of the these days however had good weather and I decided to take my camera up to the local park again to take more photographs for my project. It also gave me some time to reflect and myself some space and do something constructive instead of letting the depression take over. I also wanted to capture some single trees in better weather since they seemed to be more successful for the projection shoots. Also I shot some footage and got some good movement of the trees and leaves blowing in the wind. It's made me be able to study the movement and choreography of trees as a whole and how I may transfer that to the human form.

I also found a trail in the forest that hadn't been used much at all and it led to a little exciting adventure for myself. Finding fauna and lots of conkers and parts of the wood that hadn't been disturbed by people for some time. A tree had fallen over the on to the path as well and I guess not many people would want to walk their dogs or risk the height of the path.

The path was also covered in branches and conkers so I collected a lot of them to possible use for more media tests in the studio.

I've already started to cover some of the branches in Modroc which I'm hoping to possibly use for display for assessment if it is successful. I may try to cast some in resin as well since the branches worked more successfully.

Taking that walk in the forest on my own made me feel a lot better even if it was for a short period of time which in a way shows how positive nature must be for me. It was also constructive since I was able to get more successful images for photo manipulation as well as for the next projection photo shoot.

Development : Using Resin on materials

Since gathering more materials in the woods from the photo shoot I was wanting to experiment with them in ways of preserving them. I got a resin set and resin is something I hadn't used before so trying it out was exciting and is easing me into trying different media's for this projects theme. I decided as a test to put some flowers,conkers and bark in the resin to see how it would turn out.

Heres a little video I made of me doing that.

I also got a flower press from home that I've had for a while but not got the chance to use it till now so I'll be pressing some flowers but well see how things go for time.

I also by chance had found some tree branches that had fallen on a busy street next to the university and I had to snatch them up. I find their textures very beautiful and it's given me inspiration for the type of look I want for my photographs and media experiments. Since they also are branches their a lot more related to the type of theme for the project. I'll have to experiment with them by cutting into them and preserving them and becoming more familiar with the inner workings and design of trees.

Since it was an experiment with the resin it let me explore the process of how the media works with these kind of materials especially since their natural and still living. I coated the conker nuts in it as a type of glaze which changed their colour since no oxygen was getting to the surface. This is something that's common when trying to preserve any type of rural material such as flowers, leaves, fauna etc.

But on closer inspection their was some parts I missed during the coating and it started to grow mold. But doing this little exercise is shown me to watch out for that in the future. But overall I think the resin has worked quite well especially with the flowers and bark I was very pleased.

I felt overall using the resin was very promising and it was really positive to finally use it for a project. I feel it will be quite a reliable tool in the type of materials I'm using and I look forward to seeing where I can go with it. That also the whole relation with resin since it is a product that trees can produce makes this process relate back to the original state of the tree and it's chemical compounds which I'll be looking into further.

That the cycle of the relationship humans have with trees and their uses such as artists and how we use paper and a number of other tools to create our work. I feel this project will be a type of visual celebration of the tree and it's aura and how we realistically need trees in many ways.