robin botie

@robinbotie

A year and a half after the death of my daughter, I desperately needed to breathe visible life into my memories of her like one huffs and puffs at the last embers of a dying campfire. Always addicted to work, I couldn’t find a job. I didn’t even know who I was anymore or what I could do. Tompkins Cortland Community College was offering a digital photography class. I enrolled. I knew nothing about photography. Computers and technology in general confounded me. But I rented a Canon G7 from the school. Right away I began to play with digital gossamers and masks, photo-shopping my daughter’s face onto everything. It was comforting. Challenging. It kept me busy. Photoshop offers intriguing “Tools” to work with for those whose lives are in turmoil or struck by loss. There is a Patch Tool and a Path Selection Tool, a Dodge Tool and an Add-Anchor Tool, a Magic Eraser, a Magic Wand, a Clone Stamp, … and a Healing Brush. The possibilities for change and control are endless. In September 2012 I dove into Photoshop. And ever since, I’ve been losing myself and finding myself in my work.

522 posts

(via Altered Horizons 84 - Finding Life After Loss)

Everywhere I look it’s a construction site. Works in progress. Building, re-building, replacing.... Improving. Concrete and wood are my terra firma these days as I fix up my current home for selling and watch the progress of renovating the new home. In both places I bask in the stark beauty of newly painted walls, the smell of fresh-cut pine trim,

Everywhere I look it’s a construction site. Works in progress. Building, re-building, replacing.... Improving. Concrete and wood are my terra firma these days as I fix up my current home for selling and watch the progress of renovating the new home. In both places I bask in the stark beauty of newly painted walls, the smell of fresh-cut pine trim,

Sometimes, when I look out over my pond, the sky above is so full of clouds it seems heavier and more solid than the water below. The scene was gloomy the other day, but lovely enough before I dropped the image into Photoshop and brightened the horizon line. I flipped the whole thing upside down. And the rock from Finger

It must have been one of my rough days, the day I photographed this huge pile of discarded building materials and then turned the image upside down in Photoshop. “The sky is falling, the sky is falling,” is what I imagined at the time. Later, I added a photo of a chipped rock ledge for the “sky” to land onto.

I hate saying goodbye. Saying, “See you again soon” feels much easier, even if I know I won’t be back—or see whoever or whatever— ever again. So when I leave, I go quietly, often without saying anything, and without leaving a trace. Sometimes my exit is all about escaping, and sometimes I’m simply moving on to some other adventure. No

Long ago my mother used to scold me, “Don’t play with your food.” But I’d keep making hills and valleys in my mashed potatoes anyway. So I guess building fake landscapes is part of my history. And this time of the year, when there’s so much going on, escaping into play-mode is one way I cope with Seasonal Affective Disorder.

There was rock all over the place at Finger Lakes Stone. Boulders. Slabs of sliced rock. Piles of stones of all sizes. Maybe it’s a gift—I don’t know— to be able to go to a rock quarry and imagine mountains from stacked pieces of rock, to see things as much bigger and grander than they are. Then, the challenge is

My kids used to accuse me of not knowing how to play, not being silly enough. And it’s true. Silliness never came naturally to me. But now, photo-shopping allows me to stretch the truth and lie. To make things up. To play. Even when I’m depressed. The bellies were plump and sagging on all the animals at the farm where I

(via Altered Horizons 76 - Finding Life After Loss)

Walking out from a construction site, I passed by something slick, tarlike and greasy, on the ground. I’d had a hard time finding interesting things to photograph at the site but suddenly I was intrigued. The reflection of lamplight and the oozy-goozy-ness of whatever it was on the floor immediately reminded me of a night sky. In Photoshop, I paired

I can remember the old library in Ithaca. It was a great place to hang out, especially in the oversized book section where I could page through endless picture books in search of inspiration. Library Place is now a construction site for a downtown senior living center, and I didn’t imagine there would be anything inspiring, that I’d feel like

On Sunday mornings when I was a kid, my father would take my sister and me out flying in his small airplane. Gazing out the window, over the noise of the airplane engine I would sing Susie Little Susie, an old folksong about a poor girl and barefooted geese that couldn’t afford to buy new shoes. All the while I

(via Altered Horizons 71 - Finding Life After Loss)

How was I going to photograph endless piles of books for two whole hours, I wondered. My photography class was visiting the building that houses The Friends of the Library Book Sale, and just seeing all the shelves and boxes crammed from floor to ceiling with books was activating some of my darkest deep-hidden emotional responses. For months I’d been de-cluttering

I don’t want to live on the moon; the light is too beautiful right here on earth. In my fabricated landscape of the week, a tarred road and its shoulder become the sky and land. In the sky I pasted an image of a Queen Anne’s lace flower that many consider to be an invasive weed. I think it makes a

(via Altered Horizons 66 - Finding Life After Loss)

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