Fun in the sun

First day of the holidays - beautiful, sunny day.  A great time to spend with  Bruce Girdwood - a photographer who is running the 2 day workshop here in Nelson.  So far, I've enjoyed his approach.  He's a bit unconventional, a bit of a risk taker and whilst his images strongly reflect his love of nature and the natural world, they're not your typical landscapes or natural history images.  There's a lot of him in his representations of the world.

In order to help us gain some understanding of developing a seeing eye, he took us down to Miyazu gardens and allocated us each a very specific spot we were instructed to stay at for an hour, explore and photograph.  I was given a spot inside a large stand of bamboo.  It was interesting to see how I eased into the task, not taking any images at all for 5 or 10 minutes, just looking, seeing, feeling my way into the space.  As the time ticked by I explore leaves, shadows, canes, more leaves and more shadows then I allowed myself to wander outside the stand and look in.......then stand inside and look out.......then lie down and view the scene from ground level (I decided not to let the strange looks from members of the public put me off!)

This image is one I rather liked from just outside the stand - a wee girl running across the grass, but viewd by me from behind a mish-mash of branches.

Looking forward to tomorrow's session - bed now though, after a quick 'Happy Birthday' shout-out to little sister Fi :)  Have a great day and I'll be calling you soon.

G'night :)
xx