Stillness in Motion

60° 9’ 43.2’’ N

21° 33’ 31.6’’ E

Stillness in Motion 60° 9’ 43.2’’ N 21° 33’ 31.6’’ E

Lisa Lavery

“As I envisage it, landscape projects into us not like a jetty or peninsula, finite and bounded in its volume and reach, but instead as a kind of sunlight, flickeringly unmappable in its plays yet often quickening and illuminating. We are adept, if occasionally embarrassed, at saying what we make of places -- but we are far less good at saying what place makes of us. For some time now it has seemed to me that the two questions we should ask of any strong landscape are these: firstly, what do I know when I am in this place that I can know nowhere else? And then, vainly, what does this place know of me that I cannot know of myself?�

Robert Macfarlane, The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot

“Look at light and admire its beauty. Close your eyes, and then look again: what you saw is no longer there; and what you will see later is not yet.�

Leonardo Da Vinci

“The ancient precept, “Know thyself ”, and the modern precept, “Study nature”, become at last one maxim.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Don’t wait any longer.

Dive in the ocean, Leave and let the sea be you.”

Rumi

“If you could get rid of yourself just once, the secret of secrets would open to you. The face of the unknown, hidden beyond the universe would appear on the mirror of your perception.�

Rumi

“I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.�

John Muir

Afterword ‘Stillness in Motion’ reflects upon, and creatively engages with, the coastal landscapes of Finland, Ireland and England. The investigations centre around land, sea, light and how natural environments affect us emotionally and psychologically, drawing on what we can learn about ourselves from experiences in transient landscapes.

The images in this edition form the initial enquiry of the project, which commenced in July 2018, on the island of Korpo, in the Turku Archipelago Finland. The project is an ongoing work in progress.

The ‘Walk Series’ images were created whilst moving through the landscape, capturing images without framing in the camera viewfinder, the resulting abstract sequence portrays the landscape through time; the sense of journey not a frozen single moment. Connecting on foot in the landscape allows us to fully experience nature, engaging the whole, offering a sense of freedom from the known and of identity.

A body in motion equals stillness in mind and a calm internal awareness of being in the moment, focussing on the moment, in the ‘Flow’ paying attention to process rather than the outcome is a mind free of time.

To emphasise the verticals and sublimeness of the forest intentional camera movement techniques were used to blend colours and create distortion, distilling the forms to various levels of abstraction.

These abstract images cross the boundaries between painting and photography; where light becomes paint. Relinquishing resemblance of what we think we know, produces not only a fresh new vision, and an alternative to the convention but also an opportunity to investigate, question and draw one’s own interpretation of the work. This reflection, can reshapes our perception and heighten our awareness, transforming both viewer and creator.

‘To see we must forget the names of the things we are looking at’ Claude Monet