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“A brilliant mind, from politics to art, from travels in Myanmar or Cuba to the streets of Oxford - she has an eye for shape, for rhythm, for repetition. She started a fascinating series called #BWinColour.”

We’re enjoying your suggestions for blippers to approach, thank you — do keep sending us your ideas!   

Rachel began her journey as a 365 challenge, starting on the 1st of January 2012.  

With ideas for photography subjects and thoughts about her own journey, we hope her profile is the perfect inspiration to begin the New Year and welcome our newest blippers to Blipfoto. 

Unsurprisingly, the process of whittling down her now 3,000+ photos to just ten favourites for our Blipper Top 10 film, she found very hard but also very interesting — it made her realise that the pictures she really feels happy to have taken include people far more often than she’d thought, and has inspired her to now spend more time pursuing this sort of image.   Don’t miss Rachel’s choices in the film linked at the end of the profile.

Meet Arachne  (You’ll find out later how that name came about!)

BACKGROUND

Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
I seem somehow to have reached retirement without ever having decided what I wanted to be when I grow up so I have done all sort of things from making toy Matchbox cars to being Britain’s Acting Cultural Attaché to Nepal for six weeks as my then employer’s desperate stand-in when a colleague was ill. 
I had a detached retina when I was 32 which made me think a lot about how I would feel about and deal with blindness and that led me to studying graphic design in my 40s. I even got a paid job as a graphic designer for a while! But my real passion is enabling the marginalised to be less excluded – mainly through access to education that is designed around their needs and interests — so I have worked with teenagers with special needs, homeless people, ex-offenders, asylum seekers... More recently I trained to teach English as a Foreign Language which I do a couple of weeks a year on a friend’s narrow-boat language school. Probably what I have enjoyed most is helping refugees find work that matches their skills and aspirations.

Have you always been a photographer?
I started with my mum’s hand-me-down Box Brownie when I was 8. She’d asked her parents for it as a 14th birthday present so the photography instinct goes pretty far back. It had a half-used roll of film already in it so my first blurred picture, of my mum, was next on the roll to one she’d taken of my dad on their honeymoon a decade earlier.

How did you become interested in photography?
My dad also took lots of family photos so using a camera seemed a quite ordinary thing to do when I was growing up. My parents gave me one roll of film each summer holiday and told me to think carefully about how I wanted to use those precious (and expensive, back then) 24 exposures – no point taking a picture if you could buy a cheaper postcard. I realise now that even if the camera was ‘only’ an Instamatic, that was exceptional training in looking for a perspective that was my own.

What started you blipping? 
I gave a Christmas card I’d made from one of my photos to a friend who turned out to be (lapsed) blipper, Bundle. As soon as she told me about Blipfoto I was hooked. At first I wanted to find out more about photography and get critiques from other photographers. If I’m honest, I also wanted a bit of admiration. But eight-plus years on, that has completely changed.

What do you enjoy about the concept?
I like noticing how both my day’s activities and my thoughts affect the way I see; also how what I happen to see affects what I think about. I’ve learnt a lot from the rigour of choosing just one photo each day, both when I have lots of pictures I like and when I’m not happy with any of them. I also like the discipline of trying to observe at least one thing each day that I think is worth recording.

How would you describe your journal?
It has more geometry and abstraction, and fewer pets, food and flowers than the average but it’s quite varied. I like seeing changes over time and I’ve done a few series. Throughout 2015, I took a photo of the same place every Tuesday to watch the seasons and the activity here.

Do you have a photographic style?
I was quite surprised to discover that other people don’t see things the way I do and that I do have my own identifiable ‘style’. I enjoy geometry and am especially interested in using the camera to make real-life abstract images. It’s incredibly difficult to create an image where people will appreciate just the shapes and colours and not try to work out what it ‘really’ is. I haven’t succeeded yet but I hope I will one day.
(If anyone’s interested, I have six blips where I muse more on abstraction, here.)

How important is the journaling side to you?
It has become increasingly important and I’m very glad to be able to look back on some of the things I’ve thought and done. The writing alongside the image is also important to me and I especially like using it to document my travels. 

Do you use your journal to keep in touch with people?
I don’t really, although I know that a couple of people beyond Blip look at it regularly.
 
ON PHOTOGRAPHY & YOUR JOURNAL(s)

How has your photography changed over time?
I think the discipline of taking photographs every day and critiquing them every evening has improved my eye and therefore my photographs. But also, over the last year a lot has changed in my life and my photography has become more routinely representational – partly because I’ve been short of time to meander with my camera and partly because I’ve been recording some of the changes. Some of that will continue, because in 2021, I am going to have major building work done to get my house as close to PassivHaus (zero carbon) standards as is possible with an 1867 house and I’m keen to document that process.

What has been your best source of inspiration?
Any image – photography or painting – that stops me in my tracks. Artists who’ve produced lots of those include Paul Klee, Bridget Riley and Andreas Gursky. Also Georgia O’Keeffe for her pictures that straddle the boundary between representational and abstract. There’s a very small subset of blippers who are interested in geometry and abstraction and I learn from them too.

What are your favourite subjects for photography?
Anything where I can concentrate on form, line or colour. Industry and modern architecture are good starting places. I love strong light and how shadows add an extra dimension to the world. That’s obviously sunlight during the day, but each winter I enjoy relearning how to use artificial light after dark. If I can find a human shape among the angles, even better.

How did your other journal come about?
I started Alterum/Silent Geometries here  about six years ago as a semi-private space to play more with geometry and abstracts and to see whether anyone would be interested in them. I didn’t let on that it was mine for quite a while but when people started to compare Alterum to Arachne it felt a bit dishonest, so I told Arachne’s followers about it. 

Can you explain a bit about it?
I don’t post every day and I don’t write there. It’s just about the image. Quite often I post images I’m not very sure about and every now and then I go through and delete the ones I’ve lost interest in. (Apologies to fellow-blippers whose comments have been collateral damage). I leave some images that I don’t like because they contain an idea I might work up sometime.

Tell us about your #BWinColour images
‘Black and white in colour’ images are subjects that are naturally greyscale which I take and keep in colour. They are images that would use coloured ink if printed but which still look almost mono. On my first #BWinColour blip, eight months into blipping, I wrote: ‘Recently I've found myself less and less engaged by most black and white (greyscale) images... I know b&w is supposed to be better for shapes, and I enjoy shapes, but I don't want them monochrome.’ I never dreamt that I would do over 250 (some of which are Alterum’s) and that I’d still be fascinated by them eight years on. I’m immensely pleased that other blippers have joined in. You can find them here.

What do you think makes a good photograph?
It took me several years to work out my answer to that question about painting and drawing and I think it applies also to photography. For me, there are three criteria: technically good, aesthetically pleasing (that’s in the eye of the beholder, of course), and making me think or feel. I’ll stop in front of something that has two of those and I love the rare pieces, one or two in an exhibition if I’m lucky, that have all three.

With your journal name being the Greek word for spider, we can’t resist asking — do you like them?  
I’m no spider expert but they are my totem creature. When I was ten, I was sent to stay with my cousin for a week. She was 11½, very displeased to have me tagging along and she mocked me for all the things I didn’t know. It was classic bullying and I was miserable. One day, her older brother found a spider in the shed and, knowing she was afraid of them, chased her with it. As she ran screaming, I lied that I wasn’t afraid of spiders and he put it down my back. I was terrified but I stood quite still. He used my ‘bravery’ to taunt his sister and spiders have been my symbol of resilience ever since.

ABOUT BLIPFOTO

Why Blipfoto?
It does what I want to do with photos and words, it’s kind and it’s ad-free. I still want the dark grey background back though!

How has daily blipping impacted on your life generally?
At first, I was very aware that it was making me see more acutely. I’m not so aware of that now – looking has become a habit.

What’s the biggest challenge with daily blipping?
Oh, it sucks up so much of my time! I don’t read anything like as much as I used to and I am years behind on films!

What does the Blipfoto community mean to you?
The kindness and support is extraordinary. I’ve found nowhere else like it online but it’s not saccharine. I’ve been challenged and made to think but I’ve found lots of my tribe. I’ve met Blippers from all over the UK, from Ireland, France, Spain, Germany, the USA, New Zealand and Australia. I’ve stayed in other Blippers’ homes without ever before having met them and other Blippers have stayed with me.

What motivates you to keep blipping?
It took me five years to dare to miss a day and I’m glad I finally did because it removed any sense of ‘obligation’. I blip because I want to ‘save my life’ or because I’ve seen something I want to share.

What would you say to other blippers or people who are considering signing up.
Congratulations – you’ve just found the kindest corner of the internet. Do come in, make new friends and, if you want, find out more about photography.

Arachne’s Top 11 
Rachel has shared her favourite eleven blips with us. (Arachne says Alterum sneaked one in!) Enjoy them here in this short film.