Rhiannon Connelly: Through Watercolored Glasses

Meet Rhiannon Connelly of Starry Blue Sky Photography,  maker of surreal images and dream like landscape.

Rhiannon and I met via Twitter (hers:mine). When I put out a call for photographers to guest post, she politely answered. When I saw her work, I eagerly said, “Yes, please!”  I am mesmerized at the way Rhiannon draws these images out of Polaroid photos—and at how she took  a sense of lack (no more Polaroid film) and turned it in to abundance (a 12 city project.) Anyone who has tried to shoot the major cities of Europe knows how hard it can be to capture the picturesque street scenes on digital, much less on old-school film cameras. And Rhiannon does it with true expertise. I hope you enjoy these images; the beautiful song Rhiannon chose by new-to-me artist Karine Polwart; and Rhiannon’s own intriguing story. Please let her know what you find intriguing about her work, and give her thanks for contributing a little bit of beauty in to our worlds today.

Artist Statement: Rhiannon Connelly:

My name is Rhiannon and I’m a portrait and fine art photographer from Scotland.

I started out photographing a broader range of subjects, including weddings, but over the last couple of years have been narrowing my focus mostly to these two areas.

With the portrait side I hope to play my part in documenting stages in the life of a family or individual. I had a great aunt who was a keen photographer  and  she really captured my childhood on film,  so  I appreciate how valuable this can be later  on. It is also a real thrill to have someone tell me that their portrait was the first time they ever had a photograph of themselves that they really liked. I am  constantly trying  to keep evolving as a photographer and  working towards creating a more individual style

On the fine art side for the last five years or so I’ve worked with Polaroid film and an old SX70 camera in a technique that I call “Polaroid Painting”. In a nutshell, the emulsion layer of one particular type of  Polaroid film does not set straight away, so for  a short period, this can be manipulated creating a dreamlike image that is half way between a photograph and a painting.

Sadly Polaroid discontinued this film a couple of years ago ( followed by the whole Polaroid  range). Rather than use my remaining supplies in drips and drabs I decided a year ago that I would use the film I had left in a more memorable way and the “12 City Project ” was born. More a whim than a fully formed plan, I decided to photograph 12 European cities over the space of a year, roughly one a month. And now here I am, about to complete the last city, Tallinn, at the start of September. Of course now people are asking what I’ll do with all these images – between 10 – 12 of each city. In a dream world I’d love to create some kind of small touring exhibiton and let it visit all the 12 cities. A slightly more achievable goal would be to compile them into some kind of  book.

The most recent development for me has been to use some of the Polaroids as the basis for digital collage and there is one example of this here. And once there is no Polaroid film left I would perhaps be able to translate this style to images shot digitally. ( There is one glimmer of hope on the horizon with the Impossible Project who are trying to develop a Polaroid type film)

Posted in Interviews, Magpie Girl, Sideshow
Tags: Guest Posts, Interviews, on art, photography, Sideshow |