zarinaholmes

[zarinaholmes]

6. #Dirt

I got into gardening more and more lately. I find it not dissimilar from taking photos, because you have to observe your subjects all the time.

The dirt has a healing effect when I hold it in my hands. It makes me feel connected to the earth literally.

I'm not a great gardener though. Half my life I grew up in a hot tropical country with only one climate. Then I spent the other half in the UK, learning a different weather system and different seasons. I only got around to recognise a few seasonal plants since a few years ago.

Fortunately London is full of parks, so I could walk around and teach myself about different plants. However eventually I started to feel that I need to spend my time around more earthy ground than tarmacs and granite to feel inspired artistically. This is how I'm built I guess.

You have a cool pair of hands, my mother used to say to me. Which means that I have talent for gardening. I was six years old and successfully grew my own watermelon from scratch. I haven't told my mother I've killed quite a few ivy plants in London. They do so well untended in the open, but failed miserably in my tidy pots. At least I'm pretty okay with roses and sweet kate.

There are a few pots of dirt and compost lying around in the balcony. I'm constantly thinking about what to grow in them.

Photo © Zarina Holmes. My ancestors' rice field at sunset.

#aftertherain #dirt #photography #zen #nature

[zarinaholmes]

#5. Songs

It takes a while to find your own voice. To be honest, I'm not sure if I have found mine yet.

Being able to tell a story is one thing, but saying it through your own voice is another challenge altogether. As professionals, we use a generic voice which is clear and useful. This is fine if you need to deliver the message on time.

It's not easy to cut through the noises and listen to our own voices. Especially the inner voices. The internet doesn't really help in this respect I'm afraid. I often find myself bombarded with too much information that doesn't help shape my own thoughts and voice in any way.

This is why at times I need to work remotely and in silence.

Photo © Zarina Holmes. Sparrow at seaside jetty.

#photography #nature #birds #sparrow #zen #aftertherain

[zarinaholmes]

#4. Harvest

My students are often surprised when I say that it takes about a minimum of three months to complete a storytelling project. I usually prefer a year or two, but between four to five years is pretty acceptable. The reason is it takes awhile to observe and understand the subject.

The other reason is that you also need time to understand and develop yourself as an artist. This doesn't stop after you've graduated, receive your degree scrolls or completed the workshops. That's only the beginning.

But don't get put off. This is an exciting a self-discovery journey. Life and Experience are the best teachers of all.

Photo © Zarina Holmes. Jambu or water apple after the rain.

#photography #nature #zen #aftertherain

[zarinaholmes]

#3. A touch of wild

I'm not sure if I should write about my mother. She's an introvert and dislike attention. She would never get the point of social media. However my mother is quite relevant to this project because she had introduced an alternative way for me to live.

Mother came from a farming family and was raised in a rural village. Together with my father, she introduced a touch of wilderness in our upbringing. They are both post-war children and grew up in poverty. So, even though their economical situations had improved later on, my mother still keep some of the rural way of life going – like cooking over open fire, or growing own vegetables around the house. Occasionally my parents would keep animals like ducks or rabbits.

I didn't used to like this wilderness way of life when I was younger, because I was excited about the city life and its promises. Now I find that I need it to stay grounded. The wilderness child inside has been suffocated long enough in the city. No matter how far I go in this world, I'll always return to familiar warmth and smokey perfume of our homemade bonfire.

Photo © Zarina Holmes. My mother boiling rice parcels inside an old large kettle, using woodfire collected from our garden.

#photography #rurallife #wilderness #bonfire #zen #aftertherain

[zarinaholmes]

#2. Low tide

Losing one's mojo is a very common thing in the creative world. No one is safe – photographers, designers, writers, painters, musicians – we all could be afflicted by this. It's a lot like losing your appetite for your favourite food. The only way around is to leave it and do something else, until that mojo returns. It could take weeks, months or years. If you are a professional, this is not too much of  a heavy issue, because you have discipline and information to shape your direction. However eventually this frustration will catch up with you. As I said before, no one is safe.

I think in this case, the best thing to do is to simply stop. Drop everything. Be still. Not easy for me to do as I used to see photography as a continuous action – snap, snap, snap! I understood the functions of f-stops, but I hardly stopped at anything myself.

Haruki Murakami famously said: “I run in order to acquire a void”. Maybe I should try to reach this void too. He did many marathons later on, so it must be working for him.

Photo © Zarina Holmes. Giam Island. Zero human occupant.

#photography #nature #island #zen #aftertherain

[zarinaholmes]

#1. After the rain

I've decided to start talking about making art again. I've always been a bit uncomfortable putting my name to an artistic project. This is because I'm a designer in my daytime job. As a designer, my work is commercial and most of the time of corporate nature. The brief is clear cut, I follow the marketing data given and I'm never in danger of emotions interfering with my work.

Making art, however, is a can of worms to me. There is no way to be an artist without having your soul laid bare. It's a scary thing to most people, because it makes them vulnerable. Especially in this digital age where total strangers would troll you on social media – and they don't even read real books about art! There is also the rational part of my brain, who keep asking how am I going to earn a living while I'm making art. Fortunately so far, I've made a decent living through my creativity. I have a sensible business acumen. But that doesn't make me an artist.

I think calling oneself an artist is a huge responsibility. Maybe I'm not even that, which is fine. What's important here is that I could tell my story, express myself creatively and explore my own limits.

So, let's publish and be damned.

After the rain is a blog to accompany my photography pieces, which is my train of thoughts in-between a hectic life in London. It's a meditation on the lesser heard inner voices, a sliver of silence in the middle of life's noises.

It also alludes to the feeling of calm and relief after a storm. This come from my own observations growing up and living around small tropical islands.

Photo © Zarina Holmes. Pangkor Island. Ancestral home.

#photography #storytelling #nature #zen #aftertherain