I sit in Edinburgh Airport, awaiting my bus back to Dundee. I return from Italy, where I saw my family and brought my boyfriend to meet my Nonna for the first time. I feel tired (I slept really badly last night due to a blocked nose) yet relaxed (I spent a lot of time in the sun). I have been to Italy a lot before, but I made it my mission this time (albeit in an relatively short timespan) to come back with some nice reference images this time. I came back with a few bangers, though the scenery (and surprisingly warm weather for this time of year) can take the credit for that.
Some pictures were more for documentary's sake, capturing my parents and boyfriend on holiday together for the first time.
Others were taken from the car, trying to capture the jaw dropping landscapes which pass us by as we drive from one place to another, but which we aren't able to stop for.
Though some of those definitely good shots, the ones taken from the ground were generally more successful as I had more control over the composition (I deserve a little credit then, I suppose).
In parallel to this, I had been looking at the work of Therese Oulton. For one, I love her abstract pieces for how raw and textural they are. But I also admire her aerial landscapes for how she captures changes in elevation even though the compositions are relatively flat.
It was particularly the latter from which I wanted to take inspiration, in regards to the subject. Though the former definitely informs how Oulton makes the landscape look so textural. I've always been enamored by the views from aeroplanes, but capturing them with a camera is always a bit underwhelming. Oulton's work does a good job at depicting the experience of flying over these landscapes.
Though I forgot to take my camera onto the plane (I took a few pictures on my iPad which were okay but not great reference images), some of the pictures I took in Italy could nearly be aerial photography so I'm pretty happy to use them as reference images for this kind of project.
This Summer or next semester, I would love to work on a really large piece based off these images as I've really wanted to work on a larger scale. I could also picture them working as diptych/triptychs.