More Adventures in The Democratic Forest

Dear Reader

It’s a chilly Saturday here, so I’ve made a little world of my own for a few: Alice Coltrane’s Journey in Satchidananda is playing my headphones - it’s long been one of my Saturday albums. And I’m just reviewing recent photos that I’ve made some exploring the ‘Democratic Forest’ style, and others where I’ve really been looking at composition that holds shadow and light. So I thought I’d share another batch of Democratic Forest shots with you. These are a mixture of X100VI and iPhone shots - you use the camera you have to hand, though I do find myself wishing I’d also packed my small Leica, which is so easy to throw in a bag I’d use it over the iPhone, so I’ve used the Leica app on the phone to make the phone shots, so that I get some of that feel.

One thing I’ve sworn to myself with my photography here is to deliberately circumvent my own internal impulse that is endlessly informed by the western gaze. We’ve seen so many photos of India in the last century from that angle, that I realised that it is just too easy to make the ‘Indian’ photograph. My question always is what actually interests the artist I am, and how to let the writing or the photography serve my deeper eye.

Writing wise - I’ve completed the first story in book one of the new strand that has arisen, and in a fit of feeling of accomplishment I entered it into an Irish short story competition whose closing date is today. Just having fun and enjoying the feeling of it all flowing. We’re looking at many years here but I’ll try to share commentary of the process.

The thing I would share about the first piece if someone is looking for a writing clue this day is to push the form as hard as you like, it is wonderful to know form and be versed in literary technique, but once you are its great to take the hammer and the anvil to it and see what you can make.

anyhoo
More Photos from The Democratic Forest

Bless you
John