Observing before shooting. Watts gallery residency

We can sometimes forget in the mayhem that everyday life can bring, that we at times need to sit still and observe before taking action.

The blog below is about learning to watch before making a decision, but also occasionally making the decision to fail.

During my first week at the Watts residency, I felt a need to deliver now.

Working in fast-paced environments can sometimes lead your artistic practice into a similar ‘output’ based space of frantic production. I was keen to ‘get started immediately but realised being away from my equipment and easy access to models would be challenging.

I had been in the middle of two weeks of almost constant movement, travelling, arranging details, finding travel routes, packing, and working. When I arrived, I was tired; there was a lot to take in and feeling the frantic pull of the london ‘move move move’ still in my head I took to wandering. That wandering however came with a structured ‘to do list’ that made me feel that I wasn’t wasting time.

I wasn’t simply ‘wandering’, I was researching, capturing and planning.

However during the first week and into the second, my wandering became more disjointed. At times I took stereoscopic photos, other times I explored places I could set up shoots but eventually I found myself just sitting, or sitting and listening.. and sometimes when I could drag myself from my phone… watching.

And I realised, ironically, I had forgotten how to look.

When I was at the classical atelier we taught the power of training the eye through the sight size method. This method is more like photography.. and less like photography… than any other artistic method.

It uses your eye, your body's continual back and forward movement combined with extensive time to recreate an object you see in front of you, esentially through the development of memory. A significant part of this process is the ‘peering’ stage, you observe what is in front of you (usually a model) and make a text based descriptive outline (the model is a tall white man in his 20s, he has an atheletic build and blonde hair.. etc)

This process allows you to ‘lock’ the image in your mind (words are a powerful way to do this) and then provide yourself a ‘map’ that prevents you from getting lost. Throughout the drawing or painting, while being excited and petrified by the details and process, you return to this ‘map’ to ask yourself if your work still resembles your observed impression, and to prevent yourself from going too far off the map.

I also taught observational quick sketching at Central Saint Martins. Although this was more of a ‘quick fire’ method for getting swift drawings of people in constant motion, i hightlighted the need to observe the ebb and flow and pattern of the cafe or space you were in. It is important to match your drawing pace to the natural timing of the area and the people in it and to ask questions such as, Do people stay for a few hours, a few minutes? How long will you have to draw?

When I started photography I began taking photographs of drag performers in a bar called ‘her upstairs’ in camden. Many of those first time artists went on to star in ru pauls drag race (and it’s become a ‘golden era’ of my life to look back on). After a large number of failures i learnt that to get a good shot of the performer I needed to ‘join’ them on their performance, understanding the beat of the music they had selected, their own personal style of storytelling. This allowed me to capture them in moments that were both flattering and impressive. It was also essential to observe the lighting pattern of the stage, to know when their act was likely to hit that spotlight and give you the ‘wow’ you were looking for.

I also spent a lot of my life sitting still. I was an artist model for a number of years, sitting up to nine hours at a time in a singular position. Being observed as an object while sitting within yourself is an amazing experience, and something I recommend everyone should try. You soon find that these long hours of stillness can either be hell or heaven, dependent on how you can control your own tidal shifting.

And now back to the watts artist village. Limnerslease, combines the Old English words ‘limner’, meaning artist, with ‘leasen’, meaning to glean. It was intended as a winter retreat allowing watts to bring a new lease of creative life to his and mary’s life. Leading politicians, musicians, writers, and artists all came to visit.

the longer I spent in the village, the more I began to realise that this energy to deliver, a super powered wish to create, combined with the want to meander, stroll, and sit and watch, were built into the very fabric of everything I was surrounded by. 

While studying landscape painting with Marc Delassio one of the most important things he told me (the list is endless but this one was my favourite) was that as landscape painters, we painted the rhythm of the land, of the trees, the light and the things we observe. We do not capture them in their exact form, for that is impossible, but we captured the movement, the ebb and flow over time. And that to do that we had to watch, and then act. We were in essence,the capturers of time, the thing that it was flowing through, to create something beautiful and truthful.

However, as everyone knows, as we spend time with this ebb and flow and silent observation, our own fluctuations, tides and tidal waves become louder and more present. So in sitting still our internal worlds instead can become louder and try to compete. In trying to not listen to these tides, burying them instead in a preference to ‘create now’, i had forgotten how to observe, sit, watch, thank, and be grateful. I knew I could produce work. I can pump out words and images at great speed and to brief, but I decided to do this at the end of the residency. I would produce after spending time getting to know the watts village, the joy of the location, and the beauty of the things that the watts had created.

While watching sex education they said that action overcomes fear, I feel I think the opposite is true.

Inner observation and calmness, combined with quick and considered action, overcomes fear.

And so before writing this I have spent the last hour watching a mother bird fly backwards and forwards to feed her chicks nestled in a large tree. I don’t know how this observation will appear in my work, if it’s needed for this current project i am working on, but I know I am thankful for her presence and the ebb and flow of her busy important work.