Portfolio

by Hattie Hambridge

 

Now That I Am Moving
2022
7 Cyanotype Prints

“Life is a train of moods like a string of beads and as we pass through them they prove to be many colored lenses which paint the world their own hue and each shows only what lies in its focus. To find oneself trapped in any one bead, no matter what it's hue, can be deadly.” 
― Maggie Nelson, Bluets

For the last two weeks I have been painting with light. Autumn light is golden and rich but limited - making it more precious and printing with it more delicate, urgent and more experimental. I combine Ferric Ammonium Citrate with Potassium Ferricyanide to create a luminous yellow. I paint this yellow solution onto papers in the dark and then expose my prints to the yellow sun which turns them blue and green. I wash off all the green in water and I am left with blue. I hang the prints on a washing line and watch them transform into a deeper blue with further exposure to the light and the passing hours. I am interested in the transformation of an image when it is drenched in blue, I am also very drawn to the negative image. As part of my process I am constantly reworking positives into negatives and then back again, engaged in what feels like a reflective dance.
In addition to the stillness of the photograph I love the action and movement of painting. These works echo a film strip and tell a story of movement. The images explore the dissecting of time in a sequence of self portraits and focus on the importance of movement in relation to mood. I am interested in the impressions and emotion of movement captured, contained and shared by the still photograph. 

I am Photographer and Filmmaker based in Sussex. I was drawn to photography at a young age, as a way of performing and exploring the self, and continued this practice expanding to film and installation. I am constantly drawn to the natural world and my subject's connection to this, to the depictions of time explored when capturing movement in the lens. A lot of my work incorporates the use of experimental photographic processes such as solarization and cyanotype printing. 

Hattie Hambridge 
@hattiehambirdge
www.hattiehambridge.com