I take you to August 6th 2016 when I was gardening in the beautiful sunlight.
One of my gardening tasks was to heavily cut back a honeysuckle that was taking over the garden at an alarming rate.
As I looked at the long, thin and bendy branches, I remembered a sculpture making class I did through school during the holidays one year. Year 7, I think so aged 11. We were provided with cut willow branches and we weaved them into sculptures, afterwards covering them with coloured tissue paper. I made a giant blue whale and was hella proud of it.
Anyway, once I was done cutting the honeysuckle back, I started to weave the branches together, just playing really... then I had a a bit of photography inspiration. I thought it might make for a cool druidic headdress or something. After a short while, I decided that I was going to make an 'egg' with an opening and get someone's face in there. Ceri's face, obviously. My 'go-to' face.
So - 4:24pm on August 7th I text Ceri and tell her to "swing by" on her way back from her parents... with no further warning.
So she thinks she's due a nice cup of tea... and BAM! I stick my creation over her head and she is trapped in a blissful, unending, dreaming sleep.
And then, just in my back garden, I took this photo against the low sun.
Dat sexy lens flare. She would have been so cross if she had known at the time.
On editing, I lowered the saturation right down as I wanted to give it a colder, more muted tone.
I chose the image with Ceri's eyes closed, to keep it serene and peaceful. I chose to leave the image with the plant matter still over her face, to keep it natural-looking and less posed. I like to think that this plant grew around her that way rather than was deliberately weaved.
So, there you have it, folks. My 'druid' (who I called Druantia after the tree goddess) was simply just a tired Ceri, in my back garden, dressed in fancy twigs in the late Sunday afternoon sun.
Like this in fact...
XD
