An article originally written for Lighthouse Now by freelance writer, Peter Barss, before I gave an artist talk at Bridgewater Photographic Society, January 28th, 2020.
Krista McCuish is a landscape photographer, but you won’t find any wide vistas of orange sunsets slipping below snow covered mountain peaks and you won’t find expanses of ocean waves exploding on seaside rocks in her portfolio.
McCuish, guest speaker at the Bridgewater Photographic Society on January 28, photographs landscapes that most of us rarely notice. Her images include close shots of intertwining swirls in ice formed by the water moving beneath it. There are reeds encased in ice and fallen leaves outlined by tiny spikes of frost.
Some of her titles have double meanings like “Still Life” and “Paths of Light and Darkness”. Many of her images are accompanied by a few lines of her own thoughts or a short excerpt from a work of literature she loves. The titles and quotations that accompany her images direct the viewer to specific sentiments, to what she sees and feels. McCuish’s photography is personal, an inquiring exploration and open expression of her own emotions.
McCuish says that she has no interest in “making easy images” but prefers the challenge of finding and thinking about compositions that are surprising and unexpected.
“I spend my time exploring my world, using my knowledge and life experiences to create and articulate meanings I feel the need to express.”
McCuish refers to the body of her work as “intimate landscapes”. They are landscapes, but not in the usual sense. McCuish brings her camera close to ferns, to peeling birch bark, to the single bloom of a flower. Her subjects are thoughtfully chosen and carefully photographed. We sense that creating an image for McCuish is, in itself, an intimate act. Her images are also intimate because what we see in them are landscapes of her emotions, emotions that are hers, but at the same time universal in human experience.
Some landscapes are “constructed” in her studio. Others she discovers on long walks.
The studio images begin with an idea or feeling that McCuish wants to express visually.
“My life in the last few years has been deeply affected by grief and loss. I have been seeing connections in the gestures of decaying vegetation and how I feel about loss, gratitude, and perseverance.”
Her black and white images of single wilted, dried flowers shot against a simple black background mirror her emotions while at the same time reflecting emotions we have all felt.
bow often
The images she creates while exploring nature come about more spontaneously than the studio shots.
“If something catches my eye, words and emotions instantly come to my mind.” In a recent work, “Last Stand”, three delicate nearly white ferns are silhouetted against a dark forest floor covered with dead leaves.
“Walking along the edge of a wood, I came across this little scene in late autumn. To the casual observer, it might not have been worthy of a second glance, let alone a photograph, but to me, knowing they are called ‘sensitive ferns,’ (Onoclea sensibilis) it had something to say. Ordinarily, they would be the first to fall after a hard frost.”
sensitive ferns in an autumn wood
The Hammonds Plains photographer grew up as a “free range kid” surrounded by woodland and lakes, free to wander wherever her imagination took her. Her sensitivity to Nature as a child led her to a “restless curiosity” in adulthood.
That curiosity inspired McCuish to pursue science in university.
She obtained a nursing degree in health sciences specializing in critical care and aeromedical evacuation and later earned an Honours degree in geology at Dalhousie where she studied “fluid dynamics in granitic magmas”. She worked for nine years as a nurse in the Canadian Forces and she has worked in critical care, air evacuation, post-operative recovery, emergency and as a forensic nurse for the medical examiner of NS.
Her formal education did not satisfy her curiosity. She continues to pursue her interests in Nature and science.
“I’m well versed in the natural history of Nova Scotia, its geology, botany, marine biology, and mycology. I have a good knowledge of edible plants and fungi as well as a decent working knowledge and skill in tracking wildlife.”
McCuish became interested in photography in high school. The initial excitement of discovering photography moved her to take pictures of “just about everything”. But her continued interest slowly grew into a more profound and thoughtful approach.
“As I’ve evolved as an artist and taken time off from chasing my career to be a caregiver to aging parents and my own family, I’ve developed visual literacy and brought creative intent into my compositions and the way I work. Photography has become an outlet for creative expression and the way I see the world and my place in it.”
McCuish’s work is clearly not a collection of “easy images.” Each image is a summation of a wealth of knowledge of the natural world that grew out of her “restless curiosity” and each image is a summation of emotions that asks the viewer to see far beyond the two dimensions of her prints.
“It still never ceases to amaze me how many people walk in the outdoors willfully blind to the world around them. If they take the time to learn more about the natural world they’ll sense their own passions, joys, and sadnesses reflected in the leaves, the grasses, the streams and the fields and reach a harmonious way of being in nature.”
McCuish has exhibited widely and her photographs are held in private collections in Canada, the U.S., Norway, Italy, and the U.K.