My Plans are Afoot: The Adventures of Viola Stewart
Originally published at karen j carlisle / off the artboard. You can comment here or there.
I blame high school. And sport.
I was never really a sport person, though I wasn’t bad at short distance running or swimming. I even played first base or catcher for primary school softball. I used to watch the Australian cricket team in the practice nets that abutted our school oval. I toyed with renaissance fencing as an adult. But it never really tugged at my heart, as much as art or writing.
I was given a choice in highschool; sport or photography for the high school magazine. I chose photography (and got out of sport). In those days we played with negatives, enlargers, chemicals baths and photographic paper - learning to take, develop and print black and white photographs. Then I was introduced to super 8 movie film. By the end of grade twelve, I was itching to become a cinematographer. But there were bugga all jobs for women in the industry back then. I went to university and got a profession; the sensible choice.
I never did lose the photographic bug. I have always wanted to set up a room dedicated to the craft. Set up and developing costs were always the issue. (Portable video cameras made filming easier.) Now I have my digital SLR camera, it is a much cheaper (and less messy) option. No chemicals and cumbersome equipment.
A few weekends ago I put my creative passion to use - my first photo shoot for the first instalments in my series, The Adventures of Viola Stewart and Doctor Jack. My models were fellow costumers - Zena (Viola), James (Man in Grey) and David (Jack and Henry). A thank you to Terry, from Dragonsblood Creations (you saw her workshop in a previous post) who supplied costumes for Viola.
I shot some portraits in studio and on location at Port Adelaide where there is a smorgasbord of 19th century buildings and pubs. Fortunately the weather behaved. The previous weekend had been a scorcher of almost 40 degrees Celsius - not conducive to layered clothing and standing around in the sun.
Here are a few hints of my plans.
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All characters and images (c)Karen Carlisle 2015.