"Morning Light" by Karen Ollis, Karen Ollis Photo
Creative Marketing Photographer, Fine Art Photographer
June 14, 2023
Often I'm asked what do I see when creating photographs. Here's alittle about my artistic process and what inspires me. Hope you enjoy glimpses into my bliss so it helps you engage your inspiration for creative living.
Getting up at 5 in the morning for me is about watching the sunrise. Greeting the day with gratitude feels more like engaging opportunity of the present moment. With coffee in hand, it’s become my spiritual practice to see the light, weather and time of year of each new day.
Last week the morning light was incredible. Soft golden hue gracing everything dimensionally. The haze from the Canadian fires filling the air may have been unfortunate however, it filtered the light beautifully. This is how a traditional photographer interacts with the world and all subject matter. It’s about the quality of light and how to create photographs of an instance never to happen again in the same manner. Being alert, creative and inspired.
There is hunger for most photographers to always keep a camera ready within reach. Eyes hunting for the moment and the situation to any given subject matter. There are the breaths taken in between the immediacy for creating, an enlivening awareness. I’ve grown accustom to creating camera journals, pictorial dairies I keep while on my morning walks. It's part of my creative process which ultimately goes in my client work as well.
For me photography has been a medium through which I can create fast paintings. My painter friends are geared to more methodical painting processes where they might work on a painting for up to eight months. My path was photographic, more immediate and of modern times although I do still paint in a more amateur way. Clay sculptures is another medium I gravitate towards. My love for these art forms does transcend into my photographs.
Morning light sets the intention of the day for me. It’s my meditation, my stepping off point for the day. I have always been in tune with Nature. It helps me understand life and being a human. The laws of nature shape my perceptions of all people I encounter so I find it useful in navigating life, relationships of all types including those professional. Truth for me, is in Nature.
To find more fluidity in life, water is my go to natural element and woodlands my preferred landscape. Morning light on water reveals much to me becoming paintings of the moment never to happen again in the same way. It reveals truths about living and who we are much as a mirror. Water is a living entity. Its energy and while water is usually in motion, it also has times of stagnation. Water is most revealing in the of simplest terms.
For the past few weeks our region of the Country has been in need of rain, waterways running low. Scarcity reveals a great deal both in the previously hidden foundations of waterway bedrock formations. It does the same in human foundational components. How do humans react or exist during times of scarcity or intense stress? What is revealed about the personality underpinnings?
These are the musing of a curious mind, one who is grateful for the beauty that surrounds us in Nature and one who loves being creative. I’m captivated by woodland waterways. Here are a few new additions to FLOW which is an ongoing meditative study of water in tributaries in Northeast Ohio. CVNP and Cleveland and Summit County Metro Parks. We are blessed with these parkland protected areas in our region and I am hopeful we will continue protecting clean water and public lands.
FLOW imagery is offered as fine art prints and for stock photography licensing. Contact the studio for more info~I’m usually in at 9am after morning walks. Here’s to Greeting your new day!
Currently included in the May Show 2023 exhibition at Lakeland Community College, “August” 40x20 framed metallic print. www.ollisphoto.net