Thanks be to Jasus for photography. Otherwise my sculptures would be lost forever. I have always had an interest in taken pictures since seeing my father with his homemade cameras pointing them at us as children. I couldn't wait to be on the other side forming images of the world.
My first camera, which I cut grass for a whole summer to be able to afford was a Ricoh KR-5. Completely manual, so I learnt so much trying to get the best results. Developing my own Black and white and Slide film was a special sort of magic. Of course these old cameras and sand didn't mix too well and one grain caught inside would scratch along the whole length of negative as I'm sure you have notices in several of the images I have post previously. I was so happy the day I could afford my first 1 megapixel Kodak DC3200. No more scratches and not having to wait to develop photos to see if I captured a sculpture that was long gone.
There was a transition period where I carried both my 35mm SLR and my digital just to be sure to be sure. Now I think digital has the upper-hand for documentation of my work. But I will always love the analogue look and feel.
If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to take a picture does it actually fall?
I made this along with my Catalonian friend Nuria Vallverdu Vilagines in Cervia, Italy. It was my second time there and working in this volley ball arena with crowds watching from the stands was a bit surreal. We wanted to make something that was a bit hard to understand from afar and only made sense when the audience was allowed invade the pitch on the day of opening.
The many layers of relief carved landscape looked quite abstact until you looked through the lens which brought the whole scene together.
As a surrounding element we had a film strip of images showing how the location could be captured from other angles.
A picture of the future
Probably not my/ our most deep and meaningful work in sand but it was a great seed idea of sculptures to come where knowing that the sculpture would only live on through a picture did I begin to think of ideas which were playing with the idea of perspective and viewpoints.
Drivethru sculpture
When the sculpture was finished and the audience was allowed enter the field a long queue formed as people waited to get a view of our creation from that one sweet spot. It always nice to see the audience interacting with your work.
Ps
Thank you for joining me on this journey as I look back and document my work as an ephemeral sculptor. There are many more to come in both sand, snow and ice.
Below you will find some of my recent posts.
Dinotourist - sand sculpture
The Kiss - sand sculpture
Skin on Skin - sand sculpture
I hope you'll join me again soon and please bring a friend.
@ammonite