SundayBluesEdit Sunday Selection @playtime11

I’ve followed Lynne, @playtime11, on Instagram almost for as long I can remember. Her photos of a far away land intrigued me. Tasmania seemed as exotic as a place as I could imagine. I loved seeing pictures of where she was and her family and the increasingly her edits. Experiments maybe, but beautifully conceived edits with a true artist’s eye. Last week as I looked through the tag, I felt completely jumbled. I don’t think it was the images but where I felt myself. At some point my eyes rested upon this image of Lynne’s and I was transported. Transported away from chaos and into the cool misty land where she lives. It was quiet and calm and I chose to rest there for a long time. Take some time with this image and rest. I promise you will leave it with a greater peace. Happy Sunday.

Lynne: Tasmanian aboriginal friend of mine once told me that in aboriginal ‘folklore’ Tasmania holds a similar place in the imagination of Australian Aboriginals as did ‘Avalon’ to the Celts. To this day I am not sure of the validity of this story as my friend has a mischievous glint in her eye and is a wonderful teller of stories. But I retell it, as this image was taken on a magical misty day in the Tasmanian highlands at a place called Dove Lake, a place where my friend spent much of her childhood with her grandfather, and this is her country.

I used Hipstamatic #blankofreedom13 film and #loftus lens as this combination I believe produces the closest to the ‘true’ colours of all the Hipstamatic combinations. The Loftus lens withs its blurry edge helped to accentuate the magic of the mist. All I did was point and shoot, the edit was just a matter of cropping the small colour strip from the bottom right, such was the mood of the day.
Photography has always been an interest, but I had never really spent much time ‘doing’ it until I discovered IG and Hipstamatic.
I am a biologist / ecologist by trade and prior to owning an iPhone most of my photographs were landscapes or wildlife shots taken on slide and print film, I realised getting a good shot wasn’t easy. I wanted to know how ‘good’ photographers capture light and how they produced high contrast black and white, because I definitely couldn’t do it. I didn’t ever get round to learning.
Skip forward many years till about a year ago, I was home with a baby, and I bought an iPhone. I would take it with me when walking, snap shots and was instantly addicted. For me the iPhone is a fantastic creative toy. It’s beauty is you have it with you all the time, and there are all those apps to play with. My favourite for shooting is Hipstamatic the combinations are myriad, but the trick is to choose the right one for the conditions. I think this appeals to the scientist in me. I am not a ‘photographer’ just someone having fun, I look at all the great work on IG and other platforms and am so inspired. It’s like having your own private art gallery that you can carry around. I am easily distracted by the technology, and find it difficult to stick to any artistic style.

I am a beginner and am just learning photographic and editing skills, so the content or subject of my images is secondary, whereas with many of the iPhone artists whose work I have grown to love I believe they have mastered the skills to allow the content and subject to be the most important factor and that is what makes their work so fascinating.

You can see more of Lynne’s incredible images both edited and not at @playtime11 on Instagram