lucky

Summer 2016 on the Pamlico Sound at the North Carolina Outer Banks. This is our annual family vacation-- fun in the water, lots of good food, and my dear nieces model for me.

first place winner!

I am very excited that my work, Drive, won first place at the Visual Art Exchange's For the Love of Art auction.

find me on instagram

hello! if you are looking for me, I am probably on instagram as tricia.darling Here are my "best 9" (most liked) instagram photos from 2016.

brooklyn bridge

Sunset on the Brooklyn Bridge. I visited New York City for the first time in October! Vibrant, exciting, dirty, wonderful.

tell me twice

Working on prints for my upcoming portfolio review at the Click Triangle Photography Festival. This is "tell me twice."

No matter what the reviewers say, I have already gotten a lot from the process. I've reworked some images and made them better. I've drug images out of Lightroom that had not seen paper & ink previously. I've made new photographs in the last week that I love. I've reminded myself of some of my favorite work and questioned why I am not working more in that vein now. There's more. A mountain of more.

I feel like I'm falling down the rabbit hole and it just keeps getting deeper and weirder and more beautiful.

the big yes

Making test prints this weekend in preparation for my first portfolio review. Trying to be brave & vulnerable & putting in the weird stuff that speaks to me. Above is "the big yes." It is a self portrait, & there are some autobiographical qualities in the story, but mostly I use myself as a model because I'm there. And I'm cheap.

The image strikes some as a dark image. There's a jokeresque quality to her expression-- the line of the mouth, the pointy nose, the arch of the eye brow... But, to me, she is saying yes to something. She looks to the train. Is that the yes? Is someone coming? Is she leaving? Does she have dark intentions? I don't know. Once the image is made, & the whisper of the story is released to the wild, there could be a thousand possible possibilities before breakfast.

The portfolio review is part of the Click! Triangle Photography Festival slate of awesomeness for the month of October in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill area of North Carolina.

impossible things

For the love of all things instant and impossible, I bought myself the Impossible Project's newest camera.

For the not-yet-polaroid-nerds, the Impossible Project is the group that purchased Polaroid's last remaining instant film factory in Poland when Polaroid went out of the instant film business in 2008. The Impossible Project makes and sells film for old Polaroid cameras.

Now they've made a camera too. The I-1.

Fred and I spent last weekend on the Haw River just outside of Pittsboro, North Carolina. Photo above from last weekend on the Haw shows one of the photographs from the I-1, the I-1 camera, and a tease of the Haw in the background. One of the gifts of this process is the speed. Or lack thereof. After each shot, I put the photo in my camera bag to develop, and I take a seat on the rocks or the roots and listen to the river rushing by.

30 beats of my heart at the visual art exhange southern landscape exhibition

Excited that my piece, 30 beats of my heart, was accepted in the Visual Art Exchange's southern landscape exhibition, Scope!

This piece is 30 fuji instant photographs taped directly to the wall. 30 moments near and dear to my heart. All images of the South.

The opening is tomorrow, Friday, June 3, 2016. I've had a sneak peek of the exhibition and it is stunning! So happy to be included. Check out VAE's website for more info!

polaroid + eno river + stickwork

Out with my vintage polaroid camera and expired impossible film last weekend, I found magic. Exploring along the Eno River (Hillsborough, NC), we discovered this fairy castle made of sticks. I never tire of Patrick Dougherty's stickwork structures. I love this image! Soft. Irregular. Dreamy. Imperfect. Beautiful. The little white anemone-looking film spasm on the bottom right is the cherry on top.

Polaroid One 600 camera (one of their later models) and expired Impossible Project Instant B&W 600 film. If you're interested in shooting polaroids, Dan Finnen has some excellent info on his site.

afternoon in the woods

Last weekend I had the rare pleasure of spending a day with some of my favorite people in the woods along the creek with my camera. 

instant film + ocean + self portrait

Instant film photograph. Fuji instax film photographs are the modern Polaroid. Muted colors and soft focus lend to the charm. I love the intimacy of the small format and the lush low fidelity of the image.

dream

dream. photography + digital painting. weeping apricots from the arboretum. available as a print and other goodies-- throw pillows, duvet cover, laptop sleeve, ... on society6.

furnished

bull durham sunset

predictable cabbage

which

I do not know which to prefer, 

The beauty of inflections 

Or the beauty of innuendoes, 

The blackbird whistling 

Or just after. 

     - Wallace Stevens

another story

I am large. I contain multitudes.   - Walt Whitman

things as they are

They said, "You have a blue guitar, 

You do not play things as they are." 

The man replied, "Things as they are

Are changed upon the blue guitar." 

   - Wallace Stevens

bewildered

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. -- Rumi