I was reminded of this poem: ‘The Lady of Shalott’ On either side the river lie / Long fields of barley and of rye, / That clothe the wold and meet the sky; / And thro’ the field the road runs by / To many-tower’d Camelot; / And up and down the people go, / Gazing where the lilies blow / Round an island there below, / The island of Shalott. Alfred Lord Tennysson
“The Lady of Shalott” is a Victorian poem by the English poet Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809–1892). The poem is based on Arthurian legend. / The Lady of Shalott is under a spell never to look at ‘real life’, only its reflection in a mirror. She decides to look at real life, the mirror shatters and dire consequences follow. / This image is a high quality print of an original painting by Tasmanian artist Deborah Conroy.
The Lady of Shalott / Alfred, Lord Tennyson Who is this? And what is here? / And in the lighted palace near / Died the sound of royal cheer / And they crossed themselves for fear / All the Knights at Camelot / But Lancelot mused a little space / He said, ‘she has a lovely face; / God in his mercy lend her grace / The Lady of Shalott.’
The original image was an amalgamation of several photographs from above the Australian landscape taken over a period of 2-3 minutes (approximately 50 kilometres on the ground) ... a series of rivers fanned out over a vast area to become huge mud flats … exquisite lines and contours and textures that demanded far more than a ‘straight’ pictorial representation. Hours of playing and maneuvering and tweaking and colouring-in and a beautiful figure began to emerge from the landscape … sleeping angel is how I originally saw her… then as I pondered, imaginative rememberings of Tennyson’s poem ‘The Lady of Shalott’ came flooding in … the tower, the window, the mirror, the boat and the river, and that ill-fated lady who chose her own death in order to follow the callings of true love rather than continuing to live an empty life limited to the reflected world … such are the images I delight in discovering within this powerful image. The completed image haunts me still as I find more and more connections between the created image and the wonderful story of that mystical lady of King Arthur’s court. Others see something so different…
colour film photography, / Pre-Raphaelite inspiration / poetry influenced model: Joanne Wilkinson
colour film photography / Pre-Raphaelite inspired / poetry inspired
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