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| Bruce Trail: Early Spring (2009) by M.L.Holton - SOLD |
For five years, I was the Trail Captain for the Ian Reid Side Trail, a tributary of the Bruce Trail, in southern Ontario, Canada. A 1.5 km trail, it meanders off the main trail through the woodland area beneath the Niagara Escarpment. It was my job to keep the trail clear of debris and just keep an 'eye on it'. I'd head out for a good hike at least once every two weeks. At that time of the year, the tail end of winter, the ground was still bone hard. A gentle brush of snow covered the lee-side of the escarpment, but the sun - oh that Sun! - was sending out such radiant warmth that I stopped in my tracks when ascending the trail and just marveled. ... I could sense the WHOLE marvelous planetary drama unfold ... The trees cracked, wee tiny water rivulets were forming on the trail, and that shimmering sunlight & early spring air were soooo fresh & invigorating! Ah! The Promise of Spring! - We are so very blessed to live on this amazing planet. - And I am very happy that this work has now gone on to a good home.
In other 'New Years' news, I also recently completed a great interview with David Ellis via his arts blog, about my pinhole photography. Have a gander -
Photographer Interview - Margaret Lindsay Holton.
A few choice extracts follow -
DL: Thank you for chatting to us today about the
traits of your photography, along with what motivates and influences you as a
photographer. Firstly, please tell us about your photography speciality, which is
Pinhole Photography. What type of photography is this and what are its origins?
Margaret Lindsay Holton replies:
Pinhole photography is the oldest known form of photography on the planet.
The earliest known use of this technique was in Asia
around 500 B.C, and in the West, around 500 A.D. During the Renaissance it enjoyed a brief resurgence as scientists and
philosophers explored the emerging realm of optics. Sir David Brewster, a
Scottish scientist, first coined the phrase ‘pin-hole’ in the 1850’s. Also known as a ‘camera obscura’, pinhole photography – without the use of
lens or fancy mechanical gadgetry – lets in a small pinhole of light to a
completely blacked-out cavity. This incoming pinhole of light creates a
upside-down reverse image of what the pinhole is facing.
In other words, it creates a ‘negative’.I use photo-sensitive paper to create my images. From the paper ‘negative’,
I pull a ‘positive’ print in my darkroom using conventional developing
techniques. The ‘positive’ photo image, also known as a ‘contact print’, is
what you see as the finished photograph.
Labour intensive, creating one pinhole image can easily take 8 to 10 hours,
from initial ‘loading’ of the photo-sensitive paper in the darkroom, to the end
result of the final photo image. Yet, oddly, time dissolves when pinholing. The
process forces one to be very attentive to the ‘here and now’. All becomes
vivid, more immediate. One is literally dancing with Light…
I am ever beguiled by this seemingly archaic form of ‘slow photography’. It
amazes me still, even after nearly two decades of pinholing, that I can create
photo images without a lens, or a mechanical box with shutters or digital
fittings.
Have you always been interested in Pinhole Photography or do you
have other genre types of pictures that you have focused on over the course of
your career?
I began taking photographs many years ago, like many, with a simple Box
Brownie. As I grew older, I moved into more conventional photography, with upgrades
of equipment, first using 35mm film then switching to digital, for the last
twenty years.
Now, as an award-winning, multi-disciplined and senior Canadian artist, I
see and use the discipline of photography as an alternative tool to perceive,
interpret and document the world that I inhabit.
I have always pinholed somewhat organically. I never, as example, use a
light meter. Rather, to understand exposure, I instinctively gauge the
brilliance of the Sun bouncing off objects, constantly learning by trial and
error.
All in all, I am not particularly ‘connected’ to current digital methods of
photography. Cameras are tools that can be used in a variety of different ways
to amplify WHAT we see and HOW we see it. The skill of photography – to convey
meaning – comes with the understanding of the effects of light while adroitly
framing a composition. Mechanical cameras and digital software twiddle with
these photo basics.
To that end, aside from pinhole photography, I create digital photo-montages
where I layer images on top of each other to create hybrid visual stories.
I also create what I call digital ‘white outs’. In this method, I take a
digital image and then, via now an outdated computer software program, manually
erase segments, by moving the computer mouse. The effect creates an interesting
fusion of perceived as well as created contours that, I believe, both please
and engage the mind’s eye.
Lately, I have also been using digital video to explore additional aspects
of visual storytelling.
About five years ago, I started by making short documentary profiles for
local news outlets using my Apple iPod and a simple Apple editing application,
iMovie. These video shorts allowed me to hone my shooting and editing style.
Then, in 2016, I wrote and directed my first narrative film, ‘The Frozen
Goose’. This period film, about a rural family coping in the aftermath of WW1,
with a cast of five, has exhibited at festivals over the past year, aired on
local cable stations, received good media coverage and is now globally
available
online.
As a result, it is much more likely that people will be aware of my ‘art
making’ capabilities via film, than by my pinhole photography or even my
signature painted works. That’s just the nature of the beast.
The serious fun part of filming is, in fact, the editing, not the shooting.
Why? Because editing moving pictures establishes a basic cognitive resonance
between the filmmaker and the viewer in a way that still photography seldom
can. With film, the editor intimately ‘tells the story’ from start to finish,
leading the viewers’ eye, ear and minds.
With still photography, the reality of viewer distraction is far greater.
And the viewer, through their own perceptual bias, ends up mentally
quick-editing the stationary image, in order to find their own meaning. Nothing
wrong with that, but it’s a more capricious engagement process then creating
video stories. It is much much tougher to make an arresting still photograph, let alone, a
good pinhole image.
Other than that, I continue to paint two dimensional works, as I have done
for over 40+ years. You can sample that kind of work via my art blog. ...
Whose photographic work has influenced you the most in your life?
Henri Cartier-Bresson. But I don’t know that he has particularly influenced
my work. I do very much admire his compositions and acute eye, his way of
seeing. We all see so many images now. What seems to hold attention these days is
the jarring or often visually upsetting image. But I don’t know that this is
really useful or helpful to anyone, in that, we have become somewhat
anesthetized and polluted by the vast array of digital photography flicking on
multiple screens. They are constantly demanding our attention: “Look at ME!” Think of the constant barrage of ‘attention grabbing’ headline photos of
extreme whatever. Our minds are constantly being assaulted by this
advertiser-induced stuff to – to just WATCH. My intent, by changing the means of photographic creation – be it through
pinhole, photo-montage or white-outs – is to ‘Free the Eye’.
I hope to visually
persuade viewers to make new synaptic connections that seduce through gentle
curiosity and interest, instead of through heightened uncertainty or horrific
pain. Violence doesn’t have to be a mainstay of how we SEE things. ...
Among all of your photographic works, which one is your personal
favourite and why is it your favourite?
Oh dear. Impossible to choose. I like many for very different reasons. Light
effects, composition, familiarity of subject matter or even the ‘odd ball’
shot. One of my favourite pinhole images, as example, was entirely a mistake.
The mounted photo-sensitive paper fell off inside the camera during exposure.
The result was a ‘double image’ of the window frame. Interestingly, this image
sold to an enthusiastic collector from Portland,
Oregon, about a decade ago.
When and how were you originally inspired to become a photographer?
Also do you have any formal training that you draw upon?
I became enamored with pinhole photography after taking a one-day workshop
with Di Bos, a pinholer of some acclaim here, in Canada, in 2001. I was amazed that
a photo image could emerge without using a conventional camera. Aside from that initial pinhole baptism, I have learned 100% by doing.
How do you personally educate yourself to take better pictures? What
sort of research do you partake to improve your skills?
The internet, unlike mainstream tell-a-vision, has provided an astonishing
array of options to improve HOW we see. I use various web portals to explore
HOW others SEE, like Pinterest or Instagram.
If a photograph resonates, I always STOP, and look again to understand WHY.
It could be a simple thing like the flow of highlights within a photo, or,
alternatively, the absence of light.
Do you use any specific editing software packages or written guides
to assist you with the production of your pictures?
No. Pinholing is done manually.
How do you spend your free time when you are not taking pictures?
When we open our eyes in the morning, we immediately start taking mental
pictures. This activity guides our hand to turn on the light and find our
slippers. The portals of our eyes feed our minds to constantly assess the
risks, challenges, pleasures and rewards of daily living. Equally, when we go
to bed at night, we zoom off into visual worlds of our memory and our
sub-conscious. It’s how our minds work. — What do I DO when not making
pictures? I think – and Live.
Tell us more about your upcoming projects. Are you working on
anything specific or have plans in the pipeline?
My next pinhole exhibit will be in July of 2018 at the charming Carnegie
Gallery in Dundas, Ontario, Canada. The show is intended as a compliment to my fall show that I had at Oakville’s Sovereign
House Museum
in 2017, entitled ‘SUN SHADOWS’. Some of my older hand-made pinhole cameras will be on display there too.
Drop in!
What are the things that you wish that you knew back when you first
started taking photos? Do you have any parting words for other aspiring
photographers to take to heart?
As I am a painter first, I have always approached photography as another
artist’s tool. The primary image-making device, that we all possess, is our own eye. This
is an extraordinarily powerful device when fused with the aspirations,
neuro-stumbling and imaginations of our minds.
Best advice I can give, Learn to SEE. A good primer about SEEING – clearly –
can be found in John Berger’s ‘Ways of Seeing’. (Best to READ the book instead
of watching the online documentary.) Think about what you’re reading. Penetrate
and understand the inherent stories of the beautiful, good, bad, evil and the
ugly that SEEING clearly can convey.
THEN pick up a camera to document what and
how you see what you do.
The skill is 100% in the SEEING – not in the camera itself.
And that’s a wrap!
Author of two other novels 'Economic Sex' (1985) and
the award-winning 'The Gilded Beaver' (1999), MLHolton has also crafted short
stories and poetry. 
