ABOUT THE BOOK
The medium of limitless possibilities that is photography has been with us for almost 200 years.
Despite its great advancements, its early days still influence and dazzle a majority of professional photographers and artists. Such is the case of Cendrine Marrouat, Hadiya Ali, and David Ellis, three members of the PoArtMo Collective.
The result? Seizing the Bygone Light: A Tribute to Early Photography. This unique collection of artistic styles brings together different innovative concepts of both gripping writing and stunning visual imagery.
In the first part of the book, photographer and painter Ali introduces us to two of her favorite photographers by reimagining and recreating images in the nature of her photographic idols — Irving Penn and Karl Blossfeldt.
In the second part, photographer, poet, and author Marrouat shares a selection of her reminigrams, a digital style that she personally created to honor and pay homage to the early days of photography.
Author and poet Ellis rounds things off with a series of pareiku poems (the poetry form he co-created with Marrouat), offering fresh outlooks for his sincere, heartfelt adoration of photography of the past.
A fascinating and compelling book, Seizing the Bygone Light: A Tribute to Early Photography will leave you with a deep sense of appreciation and a greater understanding of photography.
PoArtMo Collective is a gathering of inspirational artists, writers, and photographers that combine their talents to produce positive, mixed media projects that stimulate the minds of the people who delve into them.
INTERVIEW WITH CENDRINE MARROUAT AND DAVID ELLIS
1. What is your book, Seizing the Bygone Light: A Tribute to Early Photography, about, and why did you decide to publish it?
Cendrine Marrouat: Seizing the Bygone Light: A Tribute to Early Photography is PoArtMo Collective’s new book. As the title indicates, this co-authored project (authors: Hadiya Ali, David Ellis and Cendrine Marrouat) pays homage to old photography, which has greatly influenced us as artists.
The book is divided into three parts. In part 1, Hadiya has “recreated” the timeless photographic styles of Irving Penn and Karl Blossfeldt. Part 2 features some of my reminigrams, a type of digital image that I created years ago. Finally, in part 3, David shares a series of pareiku poems, our own visual poetry form. Each piece is inspired by archival images.
The beginnings of photography were mostly marked with the documentation of the minutiae of everyday life. Seizing the Bygone Light: A Tribute to Early Photography looks at that triviality with a refreshed and positive outlook. That’s what makes our project unique and why we wanted to share it with the world.
2. What type of reader do you hope to appeal to with Seizing the Bygone Light: A Tribute to Early Photography?
David Ellis: We hope to capture the attention of a wide variety of readers. The ultimate goal for us when we created this project was to have an amalgamation of artistic influences, along with a blending of visual and written material. You get to appreciate the skills of the photographers of the past and we try to frame that with homage, inspiration and poetic nuance that celebrates the uniqueness of all that is around us.
These frozen-in-time capsules are magnificent in their stature, I sincerely hope that any reader will take the time to have a detailed look and find themselves bathed in magical nostalgia. Perhaps they will be motivated to take pictures in a similar fashion or write poetry themselves and that would be a really wonderful outcome for the book!
3. Tell us about PoArtMo Collective.
Cendrine Marrouat: I co-founded PoArtMo Collective in 2019 with photographer Isabel Nolasco, who left last year.
PoArtMo Collective currently has four members: Hadiya Ali (photography and paintings), David Ellis (poetry), Azelle Elric (drawings), and myself (photography, poetry and digital art).
Despite our diverse backgrounds, we believe that good art is all about memorable storytelling. Our goal is to create and release inspirational, positive and uplifting art and artistic projects, including ebooks.
4. In 2019 you founded Auroras & Blossoms. What is its purpose?
David Ellis: The purpose of Auroras & Blossoms is to provide a platform for positive, inspirational art across a variety of mediums. We are encouraged to share the wonderful gifts that people have submitted to us with people who are keen to be uplifted constantly by the art that they read, write and create. It is through our magazines, anthologies, guides, journals, poetry forms, marketing books, artistic movements, and support of the artistic community that we genuinely hope to bring joy and happiness to people when they need it the most.
Auroras & Blossoms is about everyone, about giving people a chance to express themselves and ultimately about making the world a better place through our art and our utmost respect for it.
5. How did Auroras & Blossoms come about?
Cendrine Marrouat: In early 2019, David and I were discussing the frustrating process of submitting to magazines and journals. We were getting tired of the way many publications heavily factored an artist's credentials and publishing credits into their selective processes. Further, positivity in the arts was not encouraged enough.
We wanted to change the status quo, so we decided to create a platform that would promote positive, uplifting and inspirational written and visual art; and give artists (ages 13 and over) of all levels a place where they could showcase their work and build their publishing credits.
Auroras & Blossoms officially launched in October 2019 and has grown by leaps and bounds since then. We run a magazine, regular submission calls for anthologies, a monthly show, an artistic movement (PoArtMo), PoArtMo Collective, and a series of guides for authors and artists. We have also created several poetry forms. Also, we pay ongoing royalties to artists whose work has been selected to appear in our magazine and anthologies.
6. What is Auroras & Blossoms looking for in submissions?
David Ellis: We are looking for any material that is positive, uplifting in nature and leaves the reader in a better place than when they first started admiring the art.
Our submission guidelines are extremely detailed and specific, so you will be able to find all of the different art types that we accept in our general submission FAQ.
Our anthologies sometimes have specific themes when it comes to submissions, but we will accept any regular submissions that take us on a journey (it can be sad or nostalgic) that winds up giving us a positive overall message.
Finally, I can definitely tell you what we don’t want! We are a family-friendly platform, and do not want any swear words or dirty words. We also do not want any erotica or anything to do with politics.
7. What is included in your Auroras & Blossoms Creative Literary Journal?
David Ellis: In our Auroras & Blossoms Creative Literary Journal, we accept poetry all the time, but we are giving priority to six-word stories, short stories, flash fiction, essays, drawings, paintings, and photography, which we would like to see more of in the future.
8. What is included in your guides and workbooks?
David Ellis: In our guides and workbooks, you can find a myriad of ways to market yourself as an artist, plenty of writing/art prompts to stimulate your creative juices, social media tips and how to improve your own efforts in your given craft too!
9. How did the two of you meet?
Cendrine Marrouat: We met online in the mid-2010s. At the time, I was looking for blogs to promote one of my books. David’s warm and (very) professional response impressed me.
After he had interviewed me for his blog, we stayed in touch and developed a friendship. David has great business ethics and acumen. He is also the best business partner I have ever worked with.
10. What’s next for you as a team?
David Ellis: So many things! We would love to recruit more members into our PoArtMo Collective and create artistic projects with them where they can earn royalties and be proud to be associated with fellow artists.
Cendrine & I are constantly looking at new genres for us to be able to release books into. We are both still extremely passionate about our writing and poetry but we want to continue putting our positive, inspirational philosophy out into the art/writing communities in as many different ways that we possibly can!
11. Is there anything else you’d like readers to know about you, your site, or your book?
Cendrine Marrouat: David and I have more than three decades of combined experience as authors, writers, artists, and marketers. Our goal has always been to educate and inspire people, as well as encourage artists to create meaningful work.
We believe that Auroras & Blossoms and PoArtMo Collective offer much needed alternatives to many of the online platforms focusing on the “15-minute fame” motto. And we are confident that you will agree.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Cendrine Marrouat is a French-born Canadian photographer, poet, and the multi-genre author of more than 30 books. In 2019, she co-founded the PoArtMo Collective with Isabel Nolasco, and Auroras & Blossoms with David Ellis. A year later, Ellis and she launched PoArtMo (Positive Art Month and Positive Art Moves) and created the Kindku / Pareiku, two forms of poetry. Cendrine is also the creator of another poetry form (the Sixku) and a type of digital image (the Reminigram).
Cendrine writes both in French and English and has worked in many different fields in her 17-year career, including translation, language instruction, journalism, art reviews, and social media.
David Ellis lives in Tunbridge Wells, Kent in the UK. He is an award-winning poet, author of poetry, marketing
workbooks/journals, humourous fiction and music lyrics. He is also a co-author and co-founder of Auroras & Blossoms, and the co-creator of PoArtMo (Positive Art Month and Positive Art Moves) and the Kindku / Pareiku.
David’s debut poetry collection (Life, Sex & Death) won an International Award in the Readers’ Favorite Book Awards 2016 for Inspirational Poetry Books.
David is extremely fond of tea, classic and contemporary poetry, cats, and dogs but not snakes. Indiana Jones is his spirit animal.
Hadiya Ali is a 19-year-old Pakistan-born artist who now lives in Oman. A keen observer of people, she noticed at a very young age how talented market workers were at what they did – but that they seemed unaware of their own talent. So she decided to capture their stories with her camera. Before she knew it, her project had attracted attention and she had been booked for her first professional photoshoots, suddenly realizing that she, too, had been unaware of her own talent all this time.
Hadiya works on projects that capture unique stories and themes. Some of her photography is featured in The Auroras & Blossoms PoArtMo Anthology: 2020 Edition.
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*Book to be released mid-March
