THE TREE

PROOF PRINT NEW WORK - © Pauline Woolley 2016

CHASING SUNS 52 degrees # 6 - © Pauline Woolley 2014

Six pieces of the new work I will be showing at Lady Bay Arts Festival this year have been made in my garden. Cameras (one made from adapting a dark room enlarger head) track the sun from East to West.  With a joyful coincidence, the cameras face the direction of Lady Bay.

I find it challenging making work in one place.  Not only am I forever battling with the weather (and that has been a real problem for this work) the Sun's left to right movement never changes so the view point often remains the same. 

One particular tree has featured quite often in the work.  If not dominate in the images, it sits on the fringes making it's presence known.

It's shape and position act as calendar.  By mid morning in the winter the sun becomes visible well away from the tree.  And now, in early April, it touches the higher right hand edges of the tree by 8am.  

Winter and early spring are the best time for me to make the work in this one place.  I can get good foreground in as the sun arcs across the other trees beyond the back fence.

I always have to remind myself that of course it is not the Sun that is moving.  It's us at approx 1000 mph.  A scientist and some complicated maths will tell you it's less for us here at our 52° latitude.  

As I a type that photo bombing tree is undergoing a much needed lopping by a local tree specialist and I realise that it's previous tall untidy self will forever be preserved in my work.

The calendar has now been reset.  It's now time for a new location.  

SUN LINES

SKETCHBOOK SUN LINES MOCK UP  - Pauline Woolley 2016

'Sun Lines' is a follow up piece of work to last years series 'Chasing Suns'.  It's form will take shape as a small concertina book. Still in mock up mode at present, the finished editions will be ready in the next few months. 

THE LEARNED PIG

Thanks to Tom Jeffrey's from The Learned Pig for the recent article.

POLAR NIGHT

Kilpisjärvi, Finland - Pauline Woolley 2014

The dark days from the end of October to the end of March have always been hard work.  Over the past few years the use of a light-box has helped to elevate the winter symptoms that is brought on with the lack of day light during these months.  

Regardless of this, I have still always been intrigued by what the polar night would feel like within the arctic circle.  Polar night is where the sun sits between 3º and 6º below the horizon and the only light available is a twilight that hangs around only for a few hours before midday.  By 2.30pm it is dark.  My trip to Norway would be a reversal of 'Chasing Suns'.  It would become more of a 'Chasing Auroras'.

 30/12/14  09:48 - From SunSuveyorLite App

Leaving -4º temperatures in the UK and arriving to 4º above in Tromso was weird in itself.  The city was experiencing very mild weather and the snow that welcomed us on arrival faded away with the heavy rain that battered us for the next few days.  The rain made days even darker, and with cloud covered skies, a chance of seeing the aurora began to fade.  

Pre-booked on an aurora chasing tour the following night, we set off from Tromso 5.45pm whilst being told that we may have to drive to Finland to experience any clear skies.  Our tour guides were passionate and determined and not afraid of driving in severe snow blizzards and on ice roads where lorries had jacked knifed through the non-use of snow chains.  We passed the Finnish border just before 10pm and pulled up at Kilpisjärvi.  With extreme wind chill we trudged onto the frozen lake to set up our photographic gear.  Within minutes the aurora appeared.  A long green line stretched and filled the sky and we stood and watched it twist a roll for some time.  A truly awe inspiring moment that I will not forget.

Kilpisjärvi, Finland - Pauline Woolley 2014

It is now 2pm and I am now sat in my studio in the UK with my light-box on.  The sun is 11º above the horizon and is shining on a hard frost that arrived over night.  At this precise moment in Tromso the twilight will be fading and darkness will begin to descend again and visitors will be hoping to see the aurora.  It's these comparisons that I hold in my head that continually fuel my passion for the natural earth.  It fuels my need to know more about the ball of rock that we live and travel through space on and it fuels my desire to make work connected to it.

2pm Mount Storsteinen, Tromso - Pauline Woolley 2014

FLAT EARTH

 

A few months ago I came across one of my images being used as potential evidence on the Flat Earth Society website;

http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=59769.0#.VIBkEGSsXUc​

The led me to doing a bit of research to the origins of the Society which resulted in me reading the publication from Samuel Rowbotham written in 1865.  Section 4 is incredibly short and sums up the idea regards the Suns rotation around the North Pole. With my impending trip to inside the Arctic Circle coming up in the next few weeks, and the fact I will be experiencing for the first time the phenomenon of a polar night, this short piece of written work captured my imagination.

SHORTENING DAYS

DRAWING - Pauline Woolley 2014

As the year moves into darker days, it's time to work on other avenues whilst waiting for the sun to re-appear.  Drawing is another step forward for me, along with constant research into my subject matter.

INFLUENCE

THE STUDIO - Pauline Woolley 2014

With Series 1 of Chasing Suns complete, it was time to clear the decks and gather some thoughts on moving forward to the next series of this work.  With this type of work, the Winter becomes a time for preparation and reflection for the next season of intense sunlight.  However, the move into shorter days still provides opportunity to explore our nearest star and with dark skies, our moon.  It's also a time to notice and acknowledge the influences of other photographers such as Chris McCaw, Hans-Christian Schink, Michael Wesely and Carleton Watkins. All of whom who have provided great insight and conceptual reflections.

CHASING SUNS - SERIES 1

I had read a few years back that the sun rises and sets in different arcs over the planet depending on two facts; our visual relation to the equator and the seasonal time of year.  I wanted to visually experience this for myself and became impelled to embark on a technically challenging undertaking to evidence these facts.

Here begins Chasing Suns, a long-term photographic project spanning various locations in Europe and Asia who’s objective is to gain the truth of our closet star’s movement across the sky.

Exposures of one minute to 24 hours record not only the sun's movement, but also the atmospheric conditions of the event. Over exposed paper negatives record an extended glance of this daily occurrence, an occurrence unable to be observed by the human eye. On combining the images from differing equatorial points, a visual language, a language away from the complexity of scientific mathematical equations emerges.  However, the use of multiple apertures and the over layering of images brings into question the scientific validity of the images, as the aesthetic nature of the photographs starts to emerge.  The end struggle being the empirical endeavor verses the romantic notion.

CHASING SUNS 52 & 3 degrees # 1 - Pauline Woolley 2014

CHASING SUNS 52 & 3 degrees # 2 - Pauline Woolley 2014

CHASING SUNS 52 & 3 degrees # 3 - Pauline Woolley 2014

CHASING SUNS 52 & 37 degrees # 4 - Pauline Woolley 2014

CHASING SUNS 52/39 degrees # 5 - Pauline Woolley 2014

CHASING SUNS 52 degrees # 6 - Pauline Woolley 2014

CHASING SUNS 52 degrees # 7 - Pauline Woolley 2014

3 DEGREES FROM THE EQUATOR WITH MAELSTROM

Pauline Woolley 2014

Darren Almond described there being a fulcrum when he visited the Antarctic and a definite change when being on the ice of the arctic.  He said "At the arctic you are at sea level".

On the Maldives the highest point is 2.4 metres above sea level. This a country whose land mass is being slowly eroded away through climate change.  Every few days boats arrive full of sand bags that are used to bolster the beaches. Young locals have been brought up aware that their country could vanish with the turning of a wave but some say it's just a story they have been hearing since childhood.  There is every sense that you are just sat in the vastness of the Indian Ocean and that the continents of Africa, Asia and Australasia are some way off beyond the blue line of the horizon. I can feel these island's vulnerability.

Thulusdhoo provided the sun needed for my work.  Strong sun lines on the photographic paper evidenced themselves almost vertically, indicating how near I am to equator.  Today however and I am sat on an island in the south ari atoll looking out into a maelstrom.  Horizons appear and disappear in moments.  No blue breaks in the sky just rolling blackness that brings torrential rain and wind for three whole days. 

My photographic gear sits in the draw and impatiently waits.

NEW CAMERAS IN THE MAKING

                                                                                         

NEW CAMERAS IN THE MAKING - Pauline Woolley 2014

LENS OR NO LENS?

The dilemma continues...

DRAWINGS AND PROGRESS

The sun as a source of inspiration has led me to start a series of drawings related to the solar spectrum.  This gives me a focus during the overcast days when the weather prevents capturing images outside.

work in progress - Pauline Woolley 2014

Often my artistic pursuit of the sun leads to such frustration that I begin to wonder why I am actually still chasing it.  It's only when I leave the country to warmer climes that I feel I can gain some momentum, but even then with this process the results can be sporadic.  Having spent many years in a studio painting, this method of working can leave me feeling a little disheartened.  I have to remind myself that even with painting, a series of work could have taken me months.  My reality is a slow building of images that are going to, for me, translate into something substantial and a leap from previous work.  

Four Suns In One Hour - Pauline Woolley 2014

TEIDE

TEIDE FROM MASCA - Pauline Woolley 2014

I have always been interested by volcanoes. I am not really sure where it started though I remember as a child that there was a lump of rock on the windowsill of my parents dining room that I assumed for a long time was a piece of coal left from the first footings of New Year.  I remember asking my Mum about it and she told me that it was a piece of lava.  It felt cold and smooth and dustless unlike the coal that my parents used for fuel.  To this day I still don't know where that lava came from but my fascination continues.  I had known for a long time that Tenerife was home to a volcano but had never been.  Iceland is a bit of a spoiler in terms of volcanic landscape but on visiting Teide and it's national park, it's spectacular lava field did not disappoint.  

DAYLIGHT MOON RISE AT TEIDE 1 - Pauline Woolley 2014

Expanse of sky and prehistoric landscape over 2000m up contrasted with the preconceptions of the island.  The intensity of light created a crispness to my vision that seemed to match the thinning of the air at the top of Teide.  The cable car station stands over 3000m above sea level.  Casting my mind back to the Boubly mine experience I remembered there I was over 1400m underground.  I thought about these two extremes whilst gazing to the horizon and following the slight curve of it with my eyes.  The other incredible thing about Teide is as well as being over 3700m above sea level at the very top, it also sits 4000m below sea level making it one of the biggest (not in altitude) in the world.

DAYLIGHT MOON RISE AT TEIDE 2 - Pauline Woolley 2014

This place made my head race in terms of seeing it's potential for a location for creating work. This coupled with the want visit to the observatory that sits across at altitude from Teide I think a return visit may need planning.

Weird lunar landscape and constant sun...what more could I need?

CHASING SUNS

45 mins, Chasing Suns - Pauline Woolley

Now the Winter is turning to Spring, I can finally turn my attention again to pointing the camera to the sky and tracking the Sun.  Now using a 4 x 5 camera, my point of focus at present is test shooting and producing positive images rather than negs.

Technical testing is essential for this new body of work.  It's also my most challenging to date and is requiring patience as the results unfold.  Certainly a slowing down of creative output for good reason.