I am very excited that my film ‘Earth to Earth‘ is going to be shown at an outdoor event in the centre of Buenos Aires on the 17th of May. Alongside story-telling and poetry, video art will be shown on huge LED screens ordinarily used for advertising. The aim is to create a contemplative mood on the widest avenue in the world. It will be quite a juxtaposition to have my film, which is so much about nature and the wild shown in such an urban setting. The organisers and I hope that this will have be very effective. I also like the idea that the Welsh landscape is going to be shown in the capitol of Argentina with its historic and linguistic connections to Wales. For those of you who can speak Spanish have a look at this…
This is the final section of my Earth to Earth film capturing the aurora borealis.
24th October 2011.
Location: Carn Treliwyd, Pembrokeshire, Wales – 51° 54 N 5° 16 W
Aspect: Looking North East towards Strumble Head along the North Pembrokeshire coast.
Here is a preview of the time lapse film I have been making to document my Land Art project Earth to Earth. Full version coming soon…
For the past two months I have been working on the Earth to Earth project. This is part of my Arts Council of Wales research grant. This time I decided to document the weathering of the Jar using Time Lapse Photography. At first I thought this would be straight forward but the more I thought about it the more involved the project became. Firstly I needed a way to house the camera that was weather proof. I ended up modifying an electrical junction box. I knew from the experience of past attempts that the Jar would last anything from a few days to two weeks so I needed to power the camera for a long period. I used a 12v battery and a DC to DC power converter. Just getting this far took a lot of research and technical knowledge for which I am very grateful to Colin Gregory.
The Jar will be photographed day and night every 33 seconds until it has weathered away. Each shot will become a single frame in a film with 25 frames per second. The camera will take 109 pictures and hour which will translate to just over 4 seconds of film. For this I had to work out all the best camera settings, the interval between shots, the aperture, the shutter speed, the ISO and so on. More technical research and long conversations with my brother Greg. As a teenager I had a manual SLR camera and that foundation in understanding cameras really paid off.
Last week I did a trial run, at first I thought it wouldn’t be, but I soon realised despite all my research I still had a lot to get right. The results however from the trial are very encouraging and exciting. The changing weather, the stars at night, moon light, sun rise, rain all captured on camera.
This project has been a journey in its self and I have been contemplating for a long time how best to illustrate it. I am hopeful that this will be an interesting depiction. I have never exhibited this project in any capacity and just recently I have had interest in it from a number of places. Most excitingly I have been asked to be part of a major exhibition at Ruthin Craft Centre in January and they are particularly interested in exhibiting this piece. Lets hope it goes well.
This autumn, the V&A and Crafts Council will celebrate the role of making in our lives by presenting an eclectic selection of over 100 exquisitely crafted objects. As part of this major exhibition entitled ‘Power of Making’ people from around the world were invited to upload short films about making and a selection of the best entries will be continually screened in the exhibition. This film by Greg Rodland Buick, of me throwing a large Moon Jar was selected. It is so great to have such a talented photographer and now film maker as a brother.
Just over six weeks to make a kiln full of work for this years kiln opening, the main event at my annual Open Studio.
My brother, photojournalist Greg Rodland Buick, has completed the final edit of a short documentary about my work. I’m really pleased with how it’s turned out. The discipline of having to portray what my work is about in five or six minutes was a very insightful process. I hope you enjoy it.
My brother Greg Rodland Buick lives and works in Norway as a photojournalist specialising in editorial picture stories and reportage. He was visiting us in Wales last week and we made a documentary film about my work. The editing is not finished yet but this is just a little taster of what we got up to.
It is great having a brother with such photographic skills. Have a look at his website to see some striking photographs from Africa and around the world.
