Photography Project: Movement and Stillness in 2021

A photography project compiled by Elsa Pearl, Clitbait’s wonderful Creative Producer @elsapearlphotos

Phoebe Lund Newlyn @phoebekisskiss

Stillness

Taken on the most peaceful infinity bridge in Aarhus.

Movement

A photo of my sister taken on a train crossing over the bridge from Zealand to Jutland during the integral time of my movement to Denmark.

Olivia Scher @oliviascher

Stillness

A moment waiting to be picked up on my way back from Leeds. Having done something new, creative and important that day, I stood waiting. The moment could’ve been unremarkable, but I remember the stillness because of the photo. 

Movement

On the edge of Clissold Park, Stoke Newington, I was home. Coming home to myself was what I needed to finally move forward. It took all year, but being at home allowed me to put things in motion.

Talia Kander @talia_kander

Stillness

Moving to Berlin – Moment of stillness 

Movement

A river in Berlin  – Taken on my camera

Sangavi Sugumar @sangsmiles

Stillness

I took this at the beginning of 2021, during the third lockdown in London, and it was snowing for the first time in ages. Everything felt very quiet and muffled, like the moment was heaped with blankets, and the outside world had come to a still. It was that time after Christmas when you’re usually scrambling to start the new year ‘right’, but for me it was a time to rest.

Movement

This was taken last July – I’d been back in Edinburgh for a couple of months and was finally settling back in. Over the summer, I got into the habit of taking a book to Holyrood and spending hours reading in the sun. Even though it was quiet, it was never still – people were always wandering by, the wind was always blowing through the tall grass. My whole life had started moving forward again.

Izzy Hodgson @grace.isabelle.hodgkins

Stillness

I took this picture of on of Karla Black’s installations at the fruitmarket gallery. The pink colours are all reflections of the chalk dust she spread across the floor. I think I get stillness so much from this image because the exhibit really felt like ‘the dust had settled’.

Movement

This is a pink street in Lisbon that I got lost on. The pace in the photo is very real because we were trying to find and catch our tram, but I couldn’t resist taking a photo of all the beautiful colours. We missed the tram.

Rosie McFayden @rosiemcfayden

Stillness

Pentlands reservoir frozen (in time)

Movement

Escaping a cold dip!

Manvir Dobb @manvirdobb

Stillness

So the one of my dad’s funky socks is a moment of stillness which I have come to appreciate in the pandemic – when you often feel like life has come to a forced halt the moments of active and routine stillness provide my mind with a lot of calm. That photo was taken on a late Sunday morning, that’s when you’ll always find dad lying on the sofa doning a pair of cool socks reading the newspaper. 

Movement

And my other photo is one of me that I accidentally took when I was running my first 15k which felt like a great achievement for me. I like the way my head is arched forward and my face looks so energetic and happy because that’s truly how I was feeling in that moment. I remember that day the weather was also so odd – it was in February and weather was trying to come out of winter and face spring and in that in-between there was definitely this odd almost psychedelic and disorientating energy to the air which I think the blue in the sky shows quite well.

Trisha Mendiratta @trisha.mendiratta

Stillness

Bedroom Window, February, 2021 – one of the many quiet moments of early this year.

Movement

Protest for Palestine, May 2021 – marching towards BBC Scotland, witnessing solidarity all around.