Not Quite Morning
Posted on October 28, 2016
I walked into the kitchen this morning and saw the yard was covered in fog. The sun streamed itself through tree limbs and mist. I immediately rushed outside and stayed out so long it almost make me late for work. This image is from one of the photos I took.
I called this piece “Not Quite Morning.” I think it’s a great title for the feel and look of this image, but I also think that it resonates with how I feel in my own life right now. After constant illness for over two years (rarely well for more than 2-3 weeks at a time), I finally found out at the end of the summer that I have an immune deficiency called selective IGg deficiency. It means I don’t produce enough IgG antibodies and therefore can’t fight off illness as well as I should. It was a relief to find out why I was always ill, but now I’m in the midst of trying to figure out how to treat it. Supposedly I will struggle with it for the rest of my life. The first course of treatment is to take prophylactic antibiotics, which I started. But between that and two other rounds of antibiotics for a nasty sinus infection, I developed something called c. diff (c. difficile) which is a nasty bacterial infection in the colon caused by antibiotics killing off all the good bacteria and leaving these c. diff troublemakers to wreak havoc. I’m just getting over that and I’m finally beginning to feel well. But there are many unknowns still about how I will move forward and create a life under newly-learned constraints. It’s not quite morning yet–I’m still finding my way through the last dregs of the night. But I can see the light.
This photo was taken in black and white with the MPro app with an iPhone 6 Plus and then edited with with an IPad Pro using Snapseed, Stackables app, Distressed FX, and PhotoToaster. The little boy is from a photo taken in September. I used Image Blender for the layers and Pixelmator to do a tiny bit of shadow painting.
Photos and Edits from North Myrtle Beach June 2016
Posted on June 21, 2016
Every year my family gets together for a vacation in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I’ve been going there–missing a year here and there–since I was thirteen years old. Now all of us kids are grown and we bring our own kids. It’s always a laid back time. We soak up the sun and sound of the surf, swim in the saltwater waves, and catch up on our sleep with afternoon naps safe from the sun in our cavelike blackout-curtained rooms (well, I nap at least 😉 ). These are some photos and edits I made last week.
Ghost and Shadows: “the being of time” and “nite lite”
Posted on June 5, 2016
This past week’s additions to the “Ghost and Shadows” series.
ghosts and shadows xvii: the being of time
ghost and shadows xvi: nite lite
Ghosts and Shadows series: “summers gone” and “hide and seek”
Posted on May 28, 2016
Recent additions to the “Ghosts and Shadows” mobile series…
ghosts and shadows xiv: summers gone
ghosts and shadows xv: hide and seek
Two more from the Ghosts and Shadows series
Posted on May 18, 2016
Here are recent additions to the Ghosts and Shadows series.
ghosts and shadows xii: collecting
ghosts and shadows xiii: visit
The whole series is on Instagram, although it’s interspersed with other mobile photography/artistry work.
Ghosts and Shadows Mobile Photography Series
Posted on May 5, 2016
I’ve always done a lot of photography at my Uncle’s farm–it’s simply too beautiful not to take advantage of the opportunity to capture this part of North Carolina’s spectacular rural beauty. But recently I’ve been taking a lot more photographs with the past in mind. I grew up coming to the farm on a regular basis and spent a lot of time there during my summers. My grandmother, who still lives here, was my champion when I was a little kid. She made me feel loved completely–unconditionally–and made me feel special (as I’m sure she made my sister and brother feel as well). Her love (and my grandfather’s) was the balm that helped me cope with the effects of child abuse, yet the trauma of that abuse haunted the sunny fields and cold creek water I ran through during the summer. No matter how joyful my time at the farm, a darker undercurrent always made itself felt.
The farm is full of amazing memories–memories of love and healing but also an underlying fear that the love couldn’t quite touch–yet. I created a mobile series called “ghosts and shadows” to represent and work through my conflicting feelings in relation to the farm. I’m nostalgic and I’m wary. And I’m full of love for that little girl who was so lost and yet so at home on the farm.
Here are four images from the series.
ghost and shadows i
ghosts and shadows ii: farm, sea, and sun
ghost and shadows iii: the three
ghost and shadows xi: the past as friend
A Drop, a World
Posted on December 12, 2015
Woke up to a beautiful fog with rain drops slowly swelling worlds and falling from trees.
Iphone 5s, Camera+ app (macro setting)
Caught
Posted on May 24, 2015
This piece originally began with what I thought would be a series (and it may still be). I was working on two different pieces dealing with our relationship as humans with the “natural world.” I was unhappy with where I had gotten with both of them and on a whim I decided to try them together. Violà !
This piece, called “Caught,” looks at the vicious circle that develops with our treatment of the “natural world.” Our ignorance of our interconnectedness with it (and our actions originating from that lack of knowledge) creates a scenario that teaches us how interconnected we really are (think climate change’s effects) in a way that feels less like being part of a whole or in a relationship and more like being at the mercy of an angry, powerful Other–one we helped to create. As nature gets sicker, we get sicker. As we pollute nature, we pollute ourselves.
These were the two pieces that went into “Caught”:
The first was created originally from a photo I took at a rest stop on Mother’s Day and another that I’d taken a couple months back. The idea was to intertwine the human with the tree, including its roots.
The second was taken from a photo I took last weekend at Jones Bridge Park in Norcross, GA. A cement block was lodged in the Chattahoochee river along with other debris. It was combined with another photo I took a few months ago. Here, it’s the idea of being “caught” (cement block around the head, and his appearing to rest in it and smile) in our own trash and being completely oblivious.
We’ll see if it develops into a series….
Light Present and Past
Posted on May 18, 2015
Last week my uncle was baling hay and I couldn’t resist taking my phone and getting a few shots of the farm and bales one evening.
I grew up going to his and my grandparents’ farm, staying weekends and weeks at a time over the years. Those were hot halcyon days filled with hazy, diffused sunlight and (barely) cool breezes blowing through the windows in the evening.
I was playing around with the Retrolux filter in the Snapseed app and came up with something that gets a little closer to what the farm means to me. The landscape shot through with memory, filled with light both present and past.
Melissa D. Johnston Art 