The Settlers Graves-Ian Walls

I would have to say that as we pulled up on the side of a boring piece of road, having passed wonderful trees, swamps and side roads to the beach, I did feel a degree of trepidation. I don’t think I was the only one.

When we walked into the bush I thought “Wow this is a special place”. But without the 2-cigarette speech I wouldn’t have had a clue what to do next. 4 cigarettes later( Ian doesn’t smoke-see the post on BlueprintX-Ed), I walked out to get my camera with some feelings defined and a bit of an idea on how to express them.

The feelings I had were twofold. Firstly I felt a joyful feeling that just for once nature had won against man. I suppose the fact that I had walked only 10 meters from a sealed highway probably means that nature hasn’t won but I do feel that in Westland there is a better equilibrium than in most parts of the planet. My second feeling was a sort of a respectful one. The fact that, after over 100 years, Nature has left some visible remains, suggests to me that there is a respect for the struggle that the settlers put up. It felt a very spiritual place.

How was I planning to express this? I had in mind an image where the green of the natural bush was overpowering the last remains of the graves that were still recognizable as graves. The Photoshop technocrat in me pictured a desaturated gravestone with bright green leaves or bush bursting through. Multiple layered images with clever blending modes and all that stuff.

When I went back into the bush the gravesite which I had wanted to use, and did in the end, was taken. That was actually a good thing in retrospect. I have learned not to go straight for the image I have in my head but to shift around it and let it grow. As I experimented with other ideas and collected pictures of plants to “grow” out of the grave I realized that the green bush and the B&W stones were already there – I didn’t need Photoshop to combine the thoughts.

When I got to the grave I wanted to use I saw the green and B&W could be combined in the detail and by using camera position to emphasise various things. I was also still looking for an angle to Photoshop greenery from.

As I was on my hand and knees, I looked up and saw the light thru the trees that looked sort of spiritual. I tried a few streaky blurry images by moving the camera with a slow shutter speed and then using the flash came to me as an idea. I had read an article about using second curtain flash and slow shutter speed and had played with it a bit. But I was only using a technique for the sake of the technique. Here was an application. I tried a dozen or so images and saw a few on my LCD which had potential.

I walked out of the bush feeling quietly confident that Id found what I was looking for.

Back at the computer I made 3 images that I think worked. There is a moody partially desaturated one from a low angle, a detail shot of the grave with the greens of the bush popped for emphasis and my streaky flash picture. I made my original idea of the growing bush and it didn’t really work. However that idea did work as it gave me a focus while the other more successful pictures grew around it.

That night I very much enjoyed the other course members take on the place.

Karen’s picture of the beauty in the decaying ironwork with the green of the bush in the background spoke to me of the respect for the settlers which I had felt.

Russell saw a wonderful story flowing across his image ending in a stark granite face of a headstone signifying the end of the settlement. I had walked away from that particular grave after seeing nothing.

Ann’s superbly composed image of the headstone with speckles of sun giving a spiritual presence said the same thing as my streaky one but in a much more subtle way. I also really liked her fern picture. She had been distracted from telling us the story by the beauty of the place….kind-a cool

All in all I found that a really satisfying exercise.

Looking back on this ramble there is part of me that says “What a pile of arty-farty garbage!!!”

However the emerging photographer in me now knows that without all the emotional stuff involved in making those 3 images, which I am proud of, would not have been possible.

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