I’ve been deconstructing my nudes and creating landscapes out of them. It totally sounds silly but they make me smile. It’s purely for creation sake. It’s not some deep personal series. They’re either places I’ve been or daydream about. If I were a painter, I would paint them. Instead I use my camera as a tool to produce things that appease me. Not masterpieces but pieces of my memories composited together, a break from reality.
The Sea is one of the most beautiful elements in nature, something to be respected and preserved. I grew up near the Ocean and it has been a part of my earliest memories from childhood. It scares me, soothes me and sings me to sleep. It can be strong and nurturing like a mother or cold and lonely as the night. The Sea is where we got our start and it is where my obsession lies.
In this collection of digital images, I capture the movement of the sea after the sun goes down. During these magical moments, the long exposures allow the water to change into a mist. The effect of the misting water around a stable item like a cliff or pier, the viewer can see the magic and emotionally relate to the environment. As they journey through my images, the viewer can see how moods are affected by the environment and weather.
My goal is to show the power and beauty of the ocean, after hours. Most people leave after sunset and don’t get to witness the beauty after dark. The ocean and reminiscent light leftover from the day, put on a magical show that can only be captured in a camera.
These are a few from my moody waters project I’ve been working on for the past few months. I’ve been working so hard on my portfolio for graduation, I forget that there’s actual beauty to all of this. I never allow myself the pleasure of enjoying my surroundings. I stack my images in a box, shove them under my bed and keep living. One day after I’m long gone, I hope someone finds all of my archives, both digital and printed. THere’s so much in there that I have never even glanced at. Maybe I’ll go through them before the technology is obsolete and create a book of earlier works.
This lovely coastline is in California. La Jolla shores in San Diego. It’s so rare that I get the mood and emotion out of the sky, so I’m a sucker for overcast and cloudy days. I haven’t had a chance to process these too much, call me lazy.. I don’t mind. This week will be busy, so keep an eye out for some gold along these coasts.
This is off a marker comp I did today for my Illustrative Portrait class. It’s a commercial class, this is as if a client gave me a billboard sketch to shoot. It is a pretty large composite, probably 15 or so pieces of photos stitched together. The golf course is actually abandoned mostly, Sea Mountain Golf Course, grass is dry and the view was not quite the same. Amazing what a little technology can create. It was actually fun once I had all of the pieces, I like to shape up a scene and give a flat environment some life and pop!
Melody Hall 
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