Tag Archives: upended life

Altered Horizons 58

Altered Horizons 58 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops fabricated landscapes in dealing with depression and coping with change.

This is the hosta plant that faithfully, magnificently, takes over a good portion of my garden year after year even though I do nothing to help or encourage it. In late summer, if left on its own as it always is, the hosta will sprout tall shoots topped with pale lavender-colored flowers. This is the hosta as photographed in early June before something nibbled its leaves down to bare little stumps. I’m not at all sure what this means for its future. So I decided to memorialize the poor plant, in a fabricated landscape, making it into a golden hill. In Photoshop, I added a picture of the sun reflected in my pond, along with a negative image of tangled straw-like weeds to make an agitated sky.

 

Altered Horizons 58

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Altered Horizons 56

Altered Horizons 56 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops a fabricated landscape as part of her healing and dealing with depression.

June is my favorite month, mainly because the daylight lasts so long. Also, everything outside seems to be bursting with vibrant color: the greens of the ferns, the peony pinks, the spectacular spirea bushes.

This particular Goldflame Spirea shrub had grown over the garden bed onto the flagstone walk. It was so flamboyant that I photographed it. Later, I flipped the photo in Photoshop, and added an image of my sump pump cover to serve as the sun in a fabricated landscape.

 

Altered Horizons 56

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Altered Horizons 55

Altered Horizons 55 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops fabricated landscapes as therapeutic photography for depression and coping with loss.

My overgrown pondweed situation was almost under control the morning I noticed pollen forming over most of the pond’s surface. It was like a giant floating oil slick. To make things worse, feathery tufts falling from nearby trees were being carried by the wind and landing on the ugly oily film. Unlike the algae and pondweed I’d been pulling out the past weeks, this would be almost impossible to get rid of. But I don’t mind hard work. Sometimes, immersing myself into hard physical labor, I can forget to be miserable and depressed. And it feels pretty good afterward to have been productive, to see the fruits of my labor.

The few clear spots on the pond, where the surface tension had broken, reminded me of meandering rivers. I photographed the mess. Then, dropping one of the images into Photoshop, I added a “sun” crafted from a shot of the sump pump cover on my lawn.

 

Altered Horizons 55

 

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Altered Horizons 54

Altered Horizons 54 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops a fabricated landscape using pondweed which she regularly pulls from her pond as a calming activity for which she is grateful.

Most days now you can find me in my tiny boat on the pond, pulling out pondweed and piling it on the banks. It’s an endless chore but a calming one. And I’m grateful for it, knowing that one day I will not have the pond or the boat or the energy to do this.

If you turn this photo upside down you will see my pond so thick with weeds that the reflections of the nearby trees are nearly obliterated.

Altered Horizons 54

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Altered Horizons 52

Altered Horizons 52 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops a fabricated landscape as part of her dealing with depression and coping with change.

In this fabricated landscape, a smooth rock from my garden hovers over a shagbark hickory tree that I flipped to its side in Photoshop, to create a shaggy windswept field. For me, combining scratchy and slick textures is even more engaging than working with colors. But I wonder, if I add blues, can I change this field into an ocean? This will be a small adventure for me on some rainy afternoon when, immersed in Photoshop, I will be distracted from feeling the hollowness in my heart.

 

Altered Horizons 52

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Altered Horizons 49

Altered Horizons 49 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops a fabricated landscape as part of her healing from loss and dealing with depression.

Even with the windows shut tight, the frog-song coming off the pond these spring nights is so loud it can keep you awake. The peeping, screaming, grunting or gulping sounds of each frog can reverberate all the distress already roiling around in your head. Or, if you settle your mind and limbs into the rhythm of it, it will lull you to sleep.

On the night of an almost-full moon I photographed clouds over the pond. Then I inverted the image in Photoshop, to depict the water below that teemed with new, noisy, messy and mysterious life.

 

Altered Horizons 49

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