I own it
photography
I see you. I’m checking you out.
Still With Iceland
Returning to Iceland
Gunnar V. Andrésson Press Photographer │Half a Century Through the Lens
The last time I was in Iceland was June 2018. I was here running a creative retreat for women. On the Thursday of the week away, I facilitated a workshop at Reykjavik Museum of Photography. Probably shared what I created during that session on here somewhere. I know it included my mum and a glacier.
It was an amazing retreat, with everything provided for the participants. Even brought in my friend Sarah as the caterer. It was a week that had great highs and achievements with the costs being me exhausted and in debt.
I’ve always wanted to return to Iceland since then but a global pandemic, divorce and financial insecure got in the way. Until, I really got sick of saying, one day, and just booked the flight back in September 2024 and making sure it happened.
Always on a shoestring, but still doing it because I’m worth it, I’m staying in Reykjavik for the week. Staying in a hostel again and watching my budget. But it’s good to be back.
Gunnar V. Andrésson Press Photographer │Half a Century Through the Lens
My first time to Iceland was 2016, the year after the shit hit the fan experience which will be 10 years ago tomorrow.
It was standing in this photography museum that I began to see myself again as a creative. Iceland helped me heal after that episode in my life and it was here that I made a promise to get my work within this space. With the women’s retreat I achieved that dream, not only working here but also sharing my words within the space.
Things don’t happen easily. There needs to be a vision and the hard work behind it. I’m not afraid of hard work. I’m more afraid of having dreams and never allowing them to come true. Because of outside barriers and obstacles I raise up within.
I came to Iceland a ruined woman. But I still had the strength of character and belief in self to grow and take risks and invest in myself.
Investing in myself is never wasted. I’m here for a week, a week that promises rain, wind and dropped temperatures. I could allow it to stop play. But I won’t. I’m here and I’m here to fill my pot by any means necessary.
Leaving the Loch
I’ve taken quite a shine to Loch Morlich. It’s a place that keeps on giving. And a place I long to return. I leave it with a renewed commitment to my self-love journey. To devoting more time, care and attention to myself. Diverting the attentions I might have been giving out willy-nilly to other people, thoughtlessly, I redirect back to the source. Me.
I entered the loch today as the sun was rising. I broke the surface of the loch, with its shards of ice and glided out. Slow expansive circles ripped upon the lochs surface as I took slow, cold strokes. It was freezing and it was painful, but I didn’t want to stop, to get out and leave the loch. But I did.
My finger tips were white for a long time after my swim. I used hot water to bring back some feeling into them. They were so painful. But this pain, along with my body submerged without the frozen loch, are all a reminder to feel again, to live my life to the fullest and give thanks in the process.
One Day, Four Walks
Yesterday, I clocked up 17 miles on my walk into Aviemore and back. So today was a talking it easy kind of day. But I still needed to move my body. To explore the camp site and be with the loch. So a morning walk it was.
Sun just up. Loch serene.
Some days, to keep the creative juices flowing and the blood pumping, I take a walk out. Stretch the legs and clear the head. All those great thinkers from time have sworn by taking a walk and a problem is solved.
Sun up. River flowing.
As the afternoon wears on, I usually get a slump in energy levels. If I was home, I’d crawl under a blanket and ride out the low energy. Picking on myself for being so lazy and not doing something to shift my energy. Today I got back out to the loch and noticed a nip in the air. A rise in the wind speed and a reluctance to get into the water.
Sun descending. Loch rippled.
The aim was to enter the loch with the sun going down. But I couldn’t be arsed. There were too many people round. I was the only Black body around for miles as well as the only body I’d seen for my stay entering the loch. I was too tired to be singled out any further. So I walked the loch. Around to the point of the sun going down and the loch taking on the colours of dusk. I was glad I walked out again.
Sun down. Loch iridescent.
I’ve found another happy place
Photowalk- Glenmore Forest
It’s been a while since I’ve taken you on a photowalk. With the nights getting lighter, and being away in Kiwi, I felt the urge to watch the sun go down over Loch Morlich.
When Kiwi and I were coming back from Glencoe in the New Year, we planned to stop off at Loch Morlich on route but it had snowed and more forecast. I’d never been to the loch before so I erred on the side of caution promising myself that we would return some other time.
That’s a practice of mine. To not run around like a blue arsed fly trying to fit everything in/ see/do everything but to leave something to come back for. A reason to return.
We were due to return to Loch Morlich in January but after my fall, I postponed it till this week.
So here we are parked up at Glenmore Campsite nestled in Glenmore Forest and kissing Loch Morlich.
Of course I’ve already been in the loch and it was fucking cold. I was tingling with renewed life afterwards though.
Enough energy therefore to take you on a photowalk as the evening draws in.
Enjoy because I know I did!
The Black Madonna(s)
I’m onto the second reading of this book. I think I heard Christena Cleveland on a podcast talking about her journey and I knew I just had to get her book. I’ve used the saying myself, “God is a Blackwoman.” But I didn’t know there was a book all about it.
The book explores Cleveland’s spiritual/ religious journey as she falls out of love with Christianity as its essentially fathetskygod/white make good and is used to uphold white supremacy, patriarchy and capitalism. Basically just looking out for white cis males.
The book also follows Cleveland’s four-hundred-mile walking pilgrimage across the Auvergne to visit eighteen Black Madonnas. The book manifests Cleveland’s transformation through the Sacred Black Feminine, healing her Black female embodied soul.
Each chapter takes the reader on a journey in the present as Cleveland walks and also into the past as she reflects on her upbringing within her family, the church and society. How she grew up feeling unloved by God, unseen and not looked after. Each chapter also introduces the reader to a Black Madonna, each one Cleveland encounters along her pilgrimage.
It was when I read Chapter 5 and Cleveland introduced us to ‘She who cherishes our hot mess’, the Black Madonna Our Lady of the Sick in Vichy, that I got it into my head I needed to go see this one for myself.
Now I’ve seen the Black Madonna in Le Seu, Barcelona. Even climbed a mountain to see the Black Madonna of Montserrat, just outside Barcelona. But this time, this need felt different. A lot has changed for me since I’ve last seen these Black Madonnas and a lot more life experiences to heal from/ through/ round/over/in.
The Black Madonna of Vichy was decapitated during the French Revolution but the people who were oppressed loved her. They tracked down her head and built her new body out of walnut and put her back together again.
I love this story and it spoke deeply to my soul because I know what it feels like to be separated from my body in an act to fit in. To be disconnected from my body, living in just my mental space and not listening to my physical pains and discomforts but soldiering on. Denying my needs and wants as these are seen as weaknesses, produce feelings of shame and are not welcome here. Squeezing myself into smaller and smaller spaces so as not to take up any room and apologising for the space I do take up.
Been there, done that. Now I intentionally practice being with/in my body. I enjoy an embodied presence in the present. My head has been reattached to my body and I’m allowing my body to lead the way with practice. I’m no lover afraid to express my needs and wants or to walk away if these are not being met.
So once I realised I was definitely coming to Paris this year, I made the arrangements to go that extra mile or two ( well 450 round trip) to see ‘She who cherishes our hot mess’ in the flesh.
It would involve a 3 hour train journey each way. An over night stay and a little hope skip and a jump up to the Notre Dame des Malades, the new church where she stands.
And for a minute there I thought the church was locked …
I’ll leave it here for now because trying to see this Black Madonna turned into a bit of a crusade to see her again and again during my time in Paris. More to follow!
Living Wild Studios 