LOVE. HOLD

In April 2011 I approached a married couple and asked if they would allow me to photograph them in an embrace. They said yes. Having just started a new relationship myself I felt drawn to them and their commitment.

This became an important image in The Letting Go. A full stop almost. A hopeful portal in to the future.

My relationship didn't last, but the couple are happier than ever and trying for a baby. I wanted to be back in the dark with them, so made this animation. While watching it I found my breathing changed with the flow of the movement.

What a wonderful way to step back in time.

This animation is made from Untitled (love/hold), The Letting Go

© Laura Hynd 2012

Lady into Hut exhibitions

While simultaneously creating the work Lady into Hut, I have exhibited twice which enables me to review, edit, show and ultimately move on to the next step of the project.

While living and working as a practicing photographer it is increasingly difficult to concentrate and dedicate time to producing work of a personal nature. Time and life goes by and it goes by and it goes by and then there is no time or life left. While it is beneficial and forever fascinating to work for clients, to be able to produce work from my insides forms the foundations of my practice. Lady into Hut allows me to remove myself from 'society' and absorb my surroundings without constraints.

Having been honoured to exhibit at Casa des Artes in Tavira, Portugal in August 2012, I then showed during Photomonth (East London) in October 2012 including new work produced a month before. Here is a photograph of the installation.

In the coming months I will travel to the hut to see what happens next.

Thoughts on the 'Artist Statement':

As I read my words from three months ago, I find it interesting how as the work progresses and I spend more time on the project, the statement also moves and changes. If I wrote it now it would be very different.

So here it is for my own reference and can be compared to what form the work embodies in the future and a new statement I am bound to write...

The hut sits quietly in the hills as the valley moves and sighs, but it sits with the effect of a monumental tomb. Defiant. Lavishing its influence, denying its love.

The hut encompasses a person. The overwhelming influence of this place and the loss of its creative patriarch are worked through and transformed into a new legacy through the experience of being and photographing a physical place.

Removed from civilisation to observe, to direct ones gaze. The act and state of looking transforms ones mental attitude or view. Reacting to and experiencing the movements, the sighs, the influence.

Lady into Hut is about transformation. Empirically being, photographing and becoming a place.

“Transformation stories are the means by which we make sense of the world, how we see the connections that, ‘the materialisation of our age’ misses, and they belong to the universe that is ordered, not by reason alone, but by imagination, a universe in which change is the only constant”

John Burnside, foreword [2008], Lady into Fox by David Garnett

Lady into Hut is a work in progress, 2012.

LIVES OF OTHERS

Huge thank you to all who came to visit Lives of Others, a group show curated by Fiona Rogers for London Festival of Photography.

Here are some installation photographs of my work, The Letting Go

Lives of Others was exhibited at William Road Gallery throughout June 2012

all photographs © Laura Hynd

LADY INTO HUT (working title)

Here is a small selection from a new body of work, Lady Into Hut.

Lady Into Hut - the transformation of a woman through the process of photographing a simple place full of family history.

It is a work-in-progress, and have just heard that some of the photographs so far will be exhibited in August so thought it was about time I shared some of them!

Lots more information and photographs to come with my statement.

UPDATE: This work will be exhibited in Tavira,, Portugal at the Casa Das Artes from 25th August to 8th September as part of a group show [E]Strange[d] and [Interior]ized Landscape, curated by Miguel Proença.

A short statement about Lady into Hut can be found here



all images © Laura Hynd 2012

THE FIELD

Polaroids from 2006...

© Laura Hynd, please do not reproduce, thank you.

OVER THE HILL - TIM ANDREWS

March 2011, I woke at 3am, borrowed a car, and made my way to West Sussex. At around 6am I arrived at the home of Anthony Andrews, greeted by Tim in the driveway.

The moon rose above the musky blue skies and the birds were singing.

Tim Andrews has been approaching photographers for some time now. He was diagnosed with Parkinsons Disease in 2005 and since then has been shot by over 100 photographers.

I photographed Tim in the gardens of his brother's house on a clear, crisp morning. As it became light we finished and drank some coffee.

When editing down to one portrait to give to Tim to raise money for Parkinsons UK, I chose the very first shot of the day. The moon shines above the garden and I asked Tim to walk several yards away from me so I could capture him in a large landscape. But it was the getting to that point that made the edit. The colours and the moon reflect the dream-like morning.

A selection of 50 portraits of Tim are being exhibited at Southport's Wayfarers Shopping Arcade from 1st May.

© Laura Hynd

A CHANDELIER

When asked by the design team at POKE if I would donate a print to their new charity initiative to nurture tomorrow's creative talent, I thought of this photograph as it is one of my all time favourites.

I took this photograph in a tiny, family chapel at Castello di Argiano in Tuscany in 2007. It was during a week long stay in a Biodynamic Vineyard, owned by the Sesti family. They produce beautifully delicious wines...! It was my first commission... My tripod broke... There were storms when the grapes should have been harvested... Then on the last day my camera broke! But the Sesti's are so full of love and warmth, it was one of the best weeks I have ever had.


You can read about The 100 Project here

£100 will put a child through a term at The Prince's Drawing School - which is nice. And you get a print to look at - which is also nice.

http://www.the100project.co.uk/


More photographs here

ANGEL - SPECIAL PRINT

I have decided to do something I have never done before, and create a small amount of limited edition prints to sell on my blog. Here is the information...

To coincide with Labyrinth's analogue exhibition, celebrating traditional methods of photographing and printing, I am producing 16 limited edition, hand framed, C-Type prints (6 1/2 inches x 6 1/2 inches / 16.5cm x 16.5cm).

The prints are simply hand framed with glass, gum paper and board. There are 5 available at £210.00 each, and 2, gild edged (22 Carat Gold) available for £285.00. Plus P&P.

They come with a certificate of authenticity, signed, stamped and numbered.

From the date of ordering, your print will be with you within four weeks. It is a small and intimate object and the artist's print can be viewed at Four Corners Gallery as part of Labyrinth Photographic Printing's exhibition, A Year In Development.

Detail of 22 carat edging.

Frame type

hand framed £210.00 GBP hand framed with 22 carat gilded edge £285.00 GBP

Untitled (Angel), from the series The Letting Go
2010

Please feel free to email me should you have any questions.

info@laurahynd.com

NAKED

Anonymity allows us to have opinions, perceptions, judgements about others with no direct or immediate outside influence.

With no facial expressions, no time, no place, no fashion, what do we see?

When I photographed these women two years ago I only saw beauty. After the shoots I felt prouder to be a woman than I have ever felt. They inspired me to look in to my criticisms of myself and others. 

I decided to celebrate women from that day on. 

Not judge.

You can see more on my website

CUCUMBER LANE

I photographed the beautiful gardens and house, Bedwell Lodge, on Cucumber Lane in 2008. As I arrived, I knew it belonged to Stephen Daldry, but wasn't expecting to be greeted by Jamie Bell and his beautiful girlfriend, Alexa Davalos.

Welcomed in to a home filled with higgledy piggledy character and warmth, dining with lovely people and waking the next day to capture dawn, was a wonderful way to spend 24 hours in June. When I showed Stephen the contacts he immediately invited me back... I want more and I want them all in a book!

So, I went back in August and then was subsequently invited back as a friend. On one of these visits, Jamie and Alexa had arrived from New York that morning. Another friend prepared the evening meal and just awoken from a snooze, Alexa came down to join us for dinner.

After food, wine and conversation I photographed Alexa with my SX70. Resting the camera on the table as I knew the dim light would force a long exposure, I warned her that this may take some time.

She was still for at least 10 seconds and looks like the most beautiful woman in the world.

May 2009

THE SWAN

Below is my contribution to the Naked Muse calendar, in response to the poem, Swan, by Polly Clark...

Swan

I thought that it was you

turning to me for an instant

from the blindness of the water,

a pure white question

with its underwater dream in tow

softening the stones at my feet.

I thought that it was you

and if not you, then love itself

tacking perfectly towards me,

rocking in its own beauty,

the circles backing out

like people not quite believing.

Wild Women Press, a poetry and literature organisation in Cumbria, asked female photographers to help raise money and awareness of Diabetes in children. Each photographer collaborated with a male poet to create an image for exhibition and calendar. 

Preview of the calendar HERE

And buy it HERE

Poem by Polly Clark

Male poet (muse) Segun Lee-French

Vik and Adam Clark, who have produced the calendar, organised two exhibitions and a silent auction, are inspired by their young son, Django, who has Diabetes Type One.

The exhibition will be moving to London in February. I will keep you informed.

Everyone who has helped with this project has done so for free so it really would be wonderful if you would support the cause by buying a calendar or donating. Thank you! x

Wild Women Press on Twitter

Wild Women Press on Facebook

Naked Muse on Twitter

Swan by Polly Clark

from Take Me With You (Bloodaxe Books, 2005)