Booking Good - Motion/Stillness

Well, my copy of Motion/Stillness arrived some time ago, and I've been meaning to write about it ever since.

Sadly, it arrived just in time for my mother to see it before she died. I'm glad she managed to see it, but, well, there you have the reason I haven't written about it before now.

I'm really impressed - the paper is lovely (I sprang for the premium paper, and it's well worth it), and the pictures reproduced very well. Like most of my work, it's subtle, but I think the themes come through clearly.



I recommend it, but then I'm biased. Why not check it out for yourself?

Motion/Stillness by Arwen O'Connor

Booked!

Well, one thing about not having an official job, I have time to finish some of the projects I've had lurking in the back of my head. It's nice to have a bit more space in there!

This is one of them - my first photo book.

Motion/Stillness by Arwen O'Connor

What do I say about it? It's photography-based, of course, and based on my (brief) time in Japan last year. As the lovely Xole pointed out, my work there focused on the contrast between movement and stillness - hence the title. It's a pretty book, I think - but then I'm biased.

Motion/Stillness is for sale on Blurb right now; or if you prefer a signed copy, I have two extra books arriving soon - comment or email if you'd like one of those, but get in quick!

In Progress - Japan

I don't know if I've talked about going through the editing process before. At the moment, I'm just about done editing the Japan photos, and going through them has brought to light a few interesting things - well, I found them interesting, anyway. So to sweeten the deal, here's a few early previews from Tokyo while I muse about subjectivity. Feel free to chip in at the end!

I don't often like my work when I'm editing it. Something about the process of working on the images makes me see all their faults, and none of the art. Every photo I look at suddenly seems boring, flat, and pointless, and I get tempted to dump the whole lot and take up staring at grass or some other non-creative pastime. (Much like my blog posts, really - they always sound so dull when I'm writing them!)



Tokyo - Shinjuku crowds

Even the images for Newtown by Night didn't impress me at first look. They grew on me over time - I suspect I had to let go of how I thought they should look before I could appreciate how they did look. It was a good lesson to try and see things as they are, rather than what I think they are, and something I would like to be better at.

I've learned over the years, though, to let the pictures sit for a while after I've edited them, then come back to see what I have. Another thing I learned from the very dedicated & talented Lisa Hogben is to group the images and watch them through as a slideshow a few times, to get more of a feel for how they look, and how they flow together.


Breakfast in Asakasa

So that's what I'll be doing over the next few weeks - getting comfortable with the images, and working out what to do with them, and where they'll go. I've also arranged to swap some curation with Xole - I'll be looking through a group of her recent work, and in return she's kindly agreed to sort through my Japan photos. I don't think I'm the best person to curate work, as my taste is a little individual, but since she was kind enough to agree to look at my stuff, how could I refuse?

How do you approach your creative projects? Do you like the outcomes? I think most of us are harder on ourselves than anyone else would be - how do you deal with that?


Harajuku Hip

Tokyo, Tokyo, Tokyo

My apologies for the radio silence; I'd intended to post earlier, but discovered too late that I didn't have a RAW editor on the little netbook I'd brought traveling, so I couldn't post any pictures. I carefully remembered to shoot some shots as RAW and jpg today, so I could post a couple on the run, and here we are.

I hate to boast, but... we're having an AMAZING time. We're staying in Shinjuku at the moment, and were wandering around this morning, ending up in a teahouse while we took the scenic route to the station (it turned out to be the very scenic route, and we missed the station entirely, but oh well!).



The other highlight of the day was finding a cat cafe in Shim-Tanazawa. My long suffering partner, M, let me drag him in for an hour of cat observation and iced coffee. Some of the fluffiest, most contented cats I've seen lounged around decoratively, or killed cat toys while the locals watched or chatted - to the accompaniment of much delighted squealing.



It's all so much fun! I think I now speak about 20 words of Japanese, from my original 10, so I've even doubled my vocabulary. We're definitely coming back.