Tree in forest

Thank you!

2011-01-31T18:09:00.006+11:00

Happy Dutch Snowman is happy!

Just wow.

Well, I'm about to go and amend this morning's post; two people have formed an unholy alliance, and are buying my crutches. How cool is that!

I'll thank 'em publicly as soon as I find out whether or not they're willing to be called out.

In the meantime, I'm still selling prints, but the funds will be going into the general 'Pay Arwen's medical bills' pool.

If anyone has already purchased a print, and would prefer the money to go elsewhere, contact me and we can chat.

Thanks, guys!

Operation Cripple Crutches - Buy the Prints!

2011-01-29T19:37:00.013+11:00

UPDATE - Thanks to two secret squirrels, I will soon have shiny crutches!

Prints are still on sale; profits will be going into my general medical expenses pool. See this evening's post for details.

Most of you know that I use crutches. In fact, from the amount of time I spend complaining about them, I expect you're all aware of the fact. And given the complaining, you're probably also aware of just how difficult/painful/damaging it is to be using them long-term.

But, my physio called yesterday to tell me about some new ones she'd seen an ad for, which she thought I might be interested in. Take a look at the smartCRUTCH.

smartCRUTCH - they even come in pink!

Exciting, aren't they! Other than the horrible name, that is. I keep wanting to yell about intelligent crotches - but that may be just me.

I want a pair. Unfortunately, it looks like they'll cost me around $200 Australian, once I figure in shipping and so on. And while I have room on the credit card for them, with uni fees due and other incidentals, paying them back will be problematic.

So, enter Operation Cripple Crutches.

I've put together three images from my Chinese Gardens images. One of them y'all have seen before; it's the most popular image from the free desktop wallpapers I made last year, and a favourite of mine as well. The other two are new. I'm selling 8 x 10 inch prints, unframed, of each of these images for $30 (plus $5 postage if you need it sent to you, either in Australia or internationally).

If you can't afford a print (and have a thing for strangely disturbing art), stick around - I'll be posting a booklet from my latest finished project in the next few days.

In the meantime, if you're looking for some art for a wall or a workdesk, or maybe a present for someone, you know what to do!

Waterfall, Chinese Gardens

Bamboo over water

Buy Print

Quiet Pool and Sunlight

Buy Print

And thanks, y'all!

Wanted: Advice and minions

2011-01-03T14:44:00.004+11:00

I'm slowly wading through the images from the recent trip - expect a post on Dubai soon. In the meantime though, I could use some suggestions.

I've been wanting to do some more of the long-exposure night photos and pinhole photos that i love so dearly, but sadly, my pain levels are currently kicking my butt. Chocolate Mark and I went out on Saturday to spend some time in the cemetery making pinhole images. We managed about 30 minutes before my camera battery died, but even spending as much time as possible sitting down, I'm still paying for the time on my feet two days later. It's very discouraging.

I love making pinhole images, but the long exposures are proving too hard on my feet

So I've been thinking about what I can do to make excursions for long exposure photos easier on myself, with a bit of input from M. Today, we bought the latest in high tech mobility equipment - a folding camp stool. I'll carabeena clip it to my camera bag - hopefully it won't be too unwieldy.

Hopefully the shiny new camp stool makes longer exposures less painful

I'm also buying myself a wireless remote trigger for my camera. I currently have a cable release, but I still have to stand up to turn it on or off. I'm hoping that having a glorified TV remote for the camera will make things slightly easier.

Other than that, the only other idea I can come up with is to find a volunteer or two to come on night ambles and carry some of the gear for me, so I don't have to pack everything down each time I want to move locations. Is anyone interested in some slow night-time rambling around the Inner West?

And does anyone have any other suggestions for easing the strain of slow photography on my feet?

Snapping away

2010-12-30T14:38:00.007+11:00

I don't know about you, but it takes me some time to get familiar enough with something, be it a person, place, or thing, in order to photograph it well - or at least photograph it in a way that satisfies me. I'm made especially aware of this when it comes time to edit travel photos. I'm editing the images from our recent trip to Europe, and am being made especially aware of how familiarity affects the way I photograph.

The Netherlands is both lovely & photogenic - shame I couldn't make the most of it.

If I'm working somewhere I'm familiar with, I'm usually reasonably happy to take my time. To find the little details that add depth to an image, and make pictures that work as images, not quickly-hazarded copies of whatever I see in front of me.

When I'm somewhere new, however, I get snap-happy. This trip, we spent five weeks overseas, and I've brought back a little over 3,000 photos. Admittedly, because my feet issues make it next to impossible to stand without swaying, I take 3 images at once to be reasonably sure of getting at least 1 in focus. But that still means over a thousand images from those five weeks, many of which I'll most likely end up culling.

I think the problem is that when I know I'll only be somewhere a short time, or I'm unlikely to get back to, I rush. I quickly frame my images with a vague idea of a composition, and snap away, without actually checking to see if the image meets the one in my head. This usually results in a bunch of over-excited and poorly translated images that were very evocative in person, but are flat and lifeless as images.

It's the premature ejaculation of photography, and most annoying.

The problem is compounded, of course, by the disability and chronic pain issues. These days, I'm always aware, consciously or otherwise, of my increasing pain levels as I stand or move around. It makes it that much more difficult to take my peaceful time in making an image, when I'm all too aware of how little functional time I have.

So what's the solution? I was thinking of going back to film for a time, for the almost enforced slow down, but for me at least, working solely with film just isn't practical any more - or financially viable. If my digital camera and lenses were built to work comfortably on manual focus, I'd switch to that, and use the extra focusing time to also focus on the image in front of me rather than the vague idea in my head, but that's not something the non-high end digital cameras are designed for, sadly.

I think I need to carry a chair with me when wandering around places like this for photographs.

In the absence of outside props, then, I'll have to make the change for myself. I'm going to try and curate my images in-camera, before I press the shutter button, rather than on the computer. I'll also try and find ways of photographing more comfortably, even if that means carrying a chair with me! And for a little while, I'll make myself come back from an outing with no more than 5 images, not 50 or 500.

Any other ideas? Those of you who photograph, how do you deal with the digital urge to spray & pray?

It's snowing in Amsterdam

2010-12-05T21:34:00.006+11:00

Snow on bicycles, Amsterdam. iPhone photo.

Well. From the sunny summer Botanic Gardens in Sydney, to Amsterdam in the middle of a snowfall is a bit of a jump, but that's where I find myself right now. I'm currently sitting in the cafe at FOAM photography museum in Amsterdam, sipping nice warm coffee while snow falls heavily outside. There's a flight of stairs climbing past the window next to me, and I'm watching it mound up with piles of feathery white snow flakes. Walking down here from our hotel, M and I also became walking mounds of snow, and had to pause at the entrance and de-mound ourselves, lest we end up streaming with icy water the instant we walked into the warm.

I'm enjoying the snow, but I still find it deeply weird. Think about it - feathery ice drifting down from the sky - how odd is that! And even odder is the idea that people voluntarily choose to live in places where it gets cold enough for this to happen regularly. Weirdoes!

The strangeness of snow aside, I've really enjoyed Amsterdam. It's very different to Sydney, of course. You can see the strata of the city's centuries in the houses and canals, as ech generation inhabits the city and adds and remove bits to create their own landscapes. The 16th century mingles happily with the 17th and 18th, while sleek and edgy additions from the 21st try to edge out dated-looking scraps from the 20th.

Unlike London, though, this commingling of past and present doesn't seem to have mired its population in the past, nor has living in each others' pockets made them perpetually angry and withdrawn. I like it.

Of course, there are reams of photographs, but unfortunately, I can't actually upload any! My poor little netbook is too slow to manage a photo editing program, and has too little memory to store the pictures. So you're all stuck with iPhone photos until I get home. I've been making a lot of film images this trip as well, with a little camera I put together from a kit - but it will probably be even longer before those see the light of day, given my backlog of negatives that need scanning!

Foto Phriday - Botanica

2010-11-20T18:41:00.004+11:00

Digitalis purpurea - Foxglove

Traditionally used for dropsy and other heart conditions. There's a possibly apocryphal story of a doctor discovering it's uses by talking to an old woman in country England about her remedies, then extracting the isolated component digoxin, which is still in use today. It's quite poisonous, though, if you don't need it, so I don't recommend adding it to salads!

The Friday-before-yesterday was to be my last Foto Phriday for some time, so I made the most of a lovely summer's afternoon and went to the herb garden in the Sydney Botanic Gardens for some photography.

Most of you already know that I'm a herbalist, so it will come as no suprise that I love herbs and herb gardens, and will happily spend hours in one, wandering around cooing to the plants and boring people with me with excited stories about the various histories, uses and quirk of each herb.

I'm gradually building up a library of herb images; partly in the vague hope of ending up with a viable commercial resource, but mainly for myself and the sheer love of herbal medicine & its history.

Symphytum officinale - Comfrey

Comfrey is very useful for helping to heal sprains, strains and broken bones. Unfortunately its use in Australia is restricted due to its supposed content of toxic alkaloids. Don't get me started on how much of a beat up that is!

Sadly, I didn't come away with too many images that I was happy with - I do hate a pedestrian herb photo, and it's so hard to avoid cliche. But what I do have I like, so that's the main thing. Besides, it's the perfect excuse to spend more time loitering with herbs!

Rosa 'Fantin-Latour' - Rose

Roses have been used throughout Europe and the Middle East for centuries for a whole range of therapeutic benefits, as well as their obvious beauty. I think just about every virtue and beauty has been ascribed to them at one stage or another - is there any other flower with such a cluster of attributed meanings?

Reading the tea leaves

2010-10-08T21:07:00.004+11:00

I'm writing this post in a Chinese teahouse in Surry Hills, Sydney, sipping a rare and precious rock tea, with the owner's very well behaved poodle sitting on the chair beside me. Very civilised, yes?

Tea drinking is a ritual for me - sometimes a very quick ritual, but a ritual none the less. It's a touchstone of calm and gratitude, and a chance to sit with the deep, steady serenity that lives within us.

That's what serenity is, really. It's easy to feel a facile simulacrum of serenity, the easy calm of a good massage, or the hypnotic music in the local New Agey shop. True serenity, though, wells from within. It's the calmness to steadily face life as it is, unshaken by the storms. That steadfast equilibrium that lets us smile, even when things around us ostensibly suck.

How is this relevant to photography? I've been thinking about the themes in my work, lately, and it struck me at about the third cup of tea that this serenity is one of the most constant and powerful themes in my images. It's a state of being that I want to share with people; the strength to calmly face the world without the assumptions and compartments we normally impose on life around us.

I rarely say this directly, though. I'm not fond of straightforward statements in art; they're too simple and too easily discounted. This serenity, though, I think is a message straight from my subconscious to yours.

A lot of meaning for a single pot of tea, yes? It's a good thing the tea has depth enough to take it. Maybe you could have a cup with me?

The naming of dolls (and winners)

2010-09-24T17:21:00.004+10:00

... is a difficult matter*.

Well, apparently, anyway. The nameless Withered Pullip is still a nameless Withered Pullip - although I'm starting to like the sound of that as a name, anyway.

Nameless Withered Pullip it is.

With a name like 'Nameless Withered Pullip', of course she hangs around in cemeteries

We still have a winner of the name-the-doll contest, however.

The lovely Lirion suggested 'Swamp Fox' as a name. While it doesn't really fit Nameless, it's perfect for one of the other three dolls.

Meet Swamp Fox.

Swamp Fox - she looks so cranky!

Now, of course, there needs to be a prize. Lirion, you get a choice. Would you like something for you, or something for someone else? Comment and let me know!

*With apologies to TS Elliot for misquoting his poetry, of course.

Foto Phridays

2010-09-24T14:32:00.004+10:00

It's a lot to juggle; work, a master's degree, photography - and life, somewhere in between. Add in chronic pain, and Getting Things Done gets harder and harder. Of all the things I'm working on, the photography suffers the most (well, apart from me). It's hard to be creative in half-hour bursts between other things, or when pain is dragging your mind into a grey and leaden dullness.

So, about a month ago, I started started Foto Phridays. Every Friday afternoon is set aside for photography; either making images or doing all the other work that goes along with it - scanning films, maintaining the archives, doing submissions, and so on and so forth. I'd like to do some more night photography as well, now that the weather is warming up.

It's time for some more night photography

This week is my fourth Foto Phriday. It should be my fifth, but last week mostly vanished in a haze of diabetic ickness and near-hospitalisation, so I don't think it counts.

Today is the first day I've had energy and motivation since last week's blargness, and I'm celebrating by heading down to the Chinese Gardens, and possibly the Botanic Gardens as well, for some creativity-renewing photographs. I swear, that place is my photographic touchstone; I always come out feeling more grounded and serene and creative -even if y'all are sick of photos of bamboo!

So what does this mean for you guys? More regular posting here, for one thing - I'll let you decide whether or not that's a good thing.

As well, I want to start re-designing the website. The layout is a bit too scattered for my liking.

I'm still working out how exactly I want things to be arranged, and whether or not I'll be able to do it all myself, or will have to find some help, but once that's sorted, I'll be asking for input from you guys on what you'd like to see here. So start putting on the thinking caps, please.

Hopefully you aren't too sick of bamboo

And I'll see you next Phriday!

The name's the thing - help name the doll (and win something)

2010-09-18T20:15:00.005+10:00

Well, I have a new interest. Or obsession. Let's say interest, for the moment - it sounds a bit less compulsive-creepy.

Like possibly every photographer since someone invented light-sensitive paper, I've discovered... dolls.

Not just any doll, either. I've fallen for Pullips, Korean ball jointed dolls that are creepily, inhumanly human. Not quite as uncanny as some of the Japanese dolls, mind you - these are visibly disproportionate, but the resemblance, out of the corner of the eye, is still unsettling.

And that's why I like them.

(Well, that and the fun of playing with dollhouses. And the odd looks I get from people wandering around my suburb taking photos of my dolly.)

I've done some much darker work with these dolls already, but I'm not quite ready to show it. For the moment, I'm playing; with light and angle and pose, making the non-living alive.

This is Withered. She's one of the older Pullips. She doesn't have a name of her own - what should I call her? After all, if we're going to be spending this much time together, she should at least have a name.

What is her name?

Comment with name suggestions - I'll give a prize for the one I use. I'm not sure what yet, but it'll be something!

Booking Good - Motion/Stillness

2010-08-10T20:54:00.003+10:00

Well, my copy of Motion/Stillness arrived some time ago, and I've been meaning to write about it ever since.

Sadly, it arrived just in time for my mother to see it before she died. I'm glad she managed to see it, but, well, there you have the reason I haven't written about it before now.

I'm really impressed - the paper is lovely (I sprang for the premium paper, and it's well worth it), and the pictures reproduced very well. Like most of my work, it's subtle, but I think the themes come through clearly.

I recommend it, but then I'm biased. Why not check it out for yourself?

Motion/Stillness by Arwen O'Connor

Beholga Surry Hills

2010-07-24T12:02:00.003+10:00

One way street to scaffoldings

I've gone from no job to two jobs in a short space of time - oops? Means I'm now suitably busy, which is good, and suitably financially viable, which is better, but I've lost my leisurely time for creativity. So I'm having to be creative in the gaps!

One of my new jobs is in Surry Hills, in the seedier part down near Central. I'm loving the area - houses from the 1890s and the 1970s rubbing shoulders, back alleys full of tailors and garbage, little fashion wholesalers rubbing shoulders with odd little private colleges (one of which I'm working at).

Matchbox taxi house, Foveaux St

I happened to have a 'new' Holga that I bought in a flea market in Tokyo, so to test it out, I took it on a wander through the neighbourhood one grey weekday lunchtime. And I really like the results.

This particular camera is even more dubious than most Holgas. It has a flash built in, but it came with batteries installed, and the gods only know how many years they'd been there. Certainly long enough to leak, and crystallise acids all over the inside (and parts of the outside) of the camera. Oops. So the flash doesn't work. And the exposures seem permanently set on 16 per roll, rather than my preferred 12, so no square Holga photos for me. Still, the shutter opens and closes, so I popped a roll of colour film in there, and these photos are what resulted.

Surry Hills and the dreamy lack-of-focus of the Holga are a good match, I think. I'm enjoying the distancing effect of the fuzzy focus, and the softness of the lens. It suits the transitional nature of the area. I'm finding myself looking forward to working more there, if only for my lunchtime finds.

Next step is to clear the last of the acid out of the camera, and see if I can get the flash working for the next lot of images.

Skyline & broken windows

There are a few more images in the gallery for the Surry Hills Beholga series - and I certainly plan on adding to it. I may even start Beholgas for other areas - what do you think?

The Lights at the End of the Tunnel

2010-07-15T17:53:00.006+10:00

Winters are getting harder and harder. I quite like the way cold feels on my skin, and I like the aesthetics of grey skies and wet ground and stripped back branches. But...

But.

The cold is getting more painful each year, and harder to endure. Even harder to deal with is the lack of motivation. Everything is too hard - cooking, photography, creativity, you name it, I don't have the energy or the endurance to do it. Hell, I can't even keep my mood up.

The problem with living in the moment is that the moment is your experience of the world. It's all very well to tell myself that come spring, this lethargy and disgust will pass, and I'll have the will and the motivation to photograph, and to make something. At the moment, I feel blank and empty, a talentless nothing trudging through life. I can't even see in photographs, when my vision is taken up by pain, and the twitching in my fingers and toes to make an image is supplanted by the burning of outraged nerves.

It's not good.

So I pushed myself out, with camera and tripod and crutches, and went to make some pictures. Oddly enough, even intending to work out my angst in some suitably angsty and nihilistic photos, they still came out strangely serene. Ominous, yes, but the serenity is definitely there. I wonder what that says about me?

One thing I know; it's given me some ideas. I think my fingers are twitching. I just hope the cold holds up long enough for me to make the most of it.

Over in the Feedbag

2010-05-30T13:07:00.003+10:00

If you've been wondering what's become of me the last week or so, I have another blog going. It's inspired by a food co-op I'm part of - a bunch of us make fortnightly trips very early out in the morning to the produce markets out at Flemington, then divide the resulting tonne of fresh vegies, fruit, and often meat & dairy products, between the individual members.

Fresh beetroot and my favourite teapot

Because what we get each week depends on what's fresh and in season, it's hard to predict exactly what we'll get in each box. And since we're all an adventurous lot, there's usually at least one item we wouldn't usually buy, just for the fun of it. We've all become quite inspired by all this delicious food, and at least one other person has started up his own blog to talk about the things he's cooking - you can see it over on Inner City Cook.

So I've started writing about my feedbag adventures, complete with recipes, rambles about ingredients, and the occasional digression off to tea, wholefoods, and whatever else takes my fancy.

Single-clove garlic has been making a frequent appearance

And, of course, there's lots of food photography.

Now that there's more than a couple of posts there, pop over to the Feedbag have a read, if you're interested in good food, or fresh produce. And naturally, I'll still be here discussing photography as well.

And the occasional digression into tea

The View from my Cushion

2010-05-21T16:00:00.003+10:00

This is my view from the meditation cushion - what's yours?

As I think I've mentioned a few times before, I'm Buddhist. I'm not necessarily a very good one; I have a very stubborn mind that insists on wandering all over the place in all kinds of fascinating digressions whenever I sit on the cushion to meditate. Nonetheless, I persist, and hopefully some day my wild-horse mind will calm down a little and move where I want it to.

So far, though, I'm pretty much a solitary practitioner. And while I'm fine with that, there are times when I'd really like a community of fellow practitioners to be part of, to talk about the practice, argue about whether the non-existence of all things includes the physical aspects of being, how to reconcile non-duality with ordinary reality, and so on and so forth.

Since I'm very shy about things like this (yes, really), I'm going to take it gently, and go to one of the Zen nights at the Buddhist library. As well, I think I'm going to wander into town and go see the exhibition on the forest meditation tradition; if nothing else, it goes well with the name of this blog! Anyone interested in coming along, let me know.

One thing I've noticed that in Australia, at least, it's considered impolite to be obviously religious - it's even worse behaviour than political arguments! I'm not sure if that makes us a secular society, or just one uncomfortable with admitting it thinks about the nature of the reality (or realities) around it.

What about you? How do you reconcile your beliefs with the people and society around you? I'm not rude enough to ask specifically about what you believe, just how that belief fits in with the rest of your life. Are you comfortable talking about your spiritual beliefs (or lack thereof) with people, or do you think it's too personal to discuss?

Booked!

2010-05-17T22:04:00.002+10:00

Well, one thing about not having an official job, I have time to finish some of the projects I've had lurking in the back of my head. It's nice to have a bit more space in there!

This is one of them - my first photo book.

Motion/Stillness by Arwen O'Connor

What do I say about it? It's photography-based, of course, and based on my (brief) time in Japan last year. As the lovely Xole pointed out, my work there focused on the contrast between movement and stillness - hence the title. It's a pretty book, I think - but then I'm biased.

Motion/Stillness is for sale on Blurb right now; or if you prefer a signed copy, I have two extra books arriving soon - comment or email if you'd like one of those, but get in quick!

Getting my mojo back

2010-05-13T11:35:00.004+10:00

Well, I've been unemployed for a week and a half now, and I'm starting to get over the blind terror & dread that's been chasing me since I resigned. I've put in a bunch of job applications, and am now heartily sick of writing cover letters. On the plus side, though, I'm starting to get my creativity back.

It's been a while since I felt like making anything; clothes, photos, art, you name it. Even the pictures I made while I was away are mainly holiday snaps; while I started to feel the stirrings of interest while I was away, for my usual fascination with airports, and a series on coffee-shop life in Malaysia, it was nearly the end of the trip before I had an idea in my mind other than 'it will be nice to have a picture of this'.

Traditional coffee shops in Malaysia are little mini-food courts called Kopitiams, full of strong, sweet coffee and tasty foods - and people. They fascinate me!

Now I'm home, though, and not stressed and overwhelmed and curmudgeonly from a combination of work and uni, the creative juices are stirring (I almost said dripping), and I'm having ideas of images I want to make, and things I want to show. I'll be taking my gear to uni tonight, so I can make some night images on the way home - I'm thinking about pinhole photos of King St, and some pictures of those comfortably Victorian terraces made strange by night.

I'm also thinking about finishing off the latest chocolate bunny sequence - I'm partly there, but am now wanting to pull out the hairdryer to melt the bunnies into strange communions.

I'm starting to think again about melting bunnies...

I'm very glad - it's always a hit to my self-esteem when I can't create something (and my self-esteem isn't the steadiest to start with, which doesn't help). So it's nice to feel the fingers twitching and the mind tossing around ideas, and even nicer to feel like I might have something to say.

So stay tuned!

Well, I'm back

2010-05-05T17:23:00.004+10:00

Tropical idylls by sand & sea

The holiday was lovely. So much light and warmth and fun - and great food! I do love South-East Asia, and Malaysia in particular - the people are warm and friendly (except for one cab driver who grumped from Penang airport most of the way into Georgetown), the food fabulous, and there are so many interesting things to see. And I get to watch so many different cultures and lifestyles interacting in a friendly and mostly positive way, which is a perennial fascination and a joy to me.

So many different things for so many different people!

Now, of course, I'm home, away from tropical idylls and the time-out that a holiday affords. I brought back a geshtomping great big cold with me, so have spent the last few days drowning in my own flood of mucous, and only leaving bed to get more fluids or go to the bathroom. Now, though, the mucous-tide is receding, and I'm left to confront the question:

What the hell do I do now?

My last work role is officially behind me. Sadly, I'm not independently wealthy, so even though I'd really like to travel lots, take many pictures, hold exhibitions, and start up small non-profit organisations to help people have more choices in their lives, I do actually need an income to do all that.

So what do I do? I'd prefer not to have to travel 4 hours a day like the previous role, and I'd kinda like to feel like I was working in a functional environment. Ideally, I'd quite like to go back into naturopathic practice, but I really, really don't want to go back to running my own business for a near-nothing cash flow, which kinda lets that idea out, unless I can find someone willing to pay me to do it.

But where to from here?

I'm not entirely sure I'd like to go back to supplement formulation, either. It looks to me like the 'natural products' market is moving further and further away from what I'd consider 'natural', and I'm not entirely comfortable with being part of that. Maybe I could go work in Singapore or somewhere making supplements there - from what I've seen, the market is still looking for products that are what I'd consider traditional remedies. Err... does anyone have any contacts in Singapore?

Other than that, I'm sure that there are many things I could do. I've got a good, fast grasp of structure and process, and can analyse a problem well. I actually quite like working within a business environment, but I don't like hypocrisy (or marketing), which I suspect may limit my options.

I'm stuck. I know what I'd like to achieve - I'd like to help people be happier, healthier, and have more choice in their lives. But I have no ideas on how to go about it - especially how to do it in a way that provides a good income for me as well.

So, oh great and wise internet, tell me: Where should I look for work, and what should I look for? Remember, too, I'm disabled, so heavy lifting, waiting tables, and retail are all probably out.

Please, comment and let me know what you think.

Always a path onwards, in one form or another

Fruit Season

2010-04-28T01:33:00.004+10:00

It's amazing how much easier everything is from here.

I suspect I've made versions of this post before, but it never hurts to remind one's self of things.

I was sitting on a plane at KL airport earlier today, waiting to take off. Since I'm somewhat scared of flying, I was carefully thinking about things unrelated to my potential plummety death. I was reminded once again (since I've been a little grumpy the last few days) of just how lucky I am - and how deeply grateful I am for all the wonderful experiences and choices I have, and the people around me.

After all, I've just spent a relaxing, interesting week in Thailand, and three fabulous days in Kuching, Borneo - city I'm looking forward to visiting enough to love. And here I was on my way to Penang, one of my favourite places in the world, to bask in the warmth, breathe in the spices, visit favourite sights, and eat myself senseless.

Yes, I'll still be unemployed when I get home, and still unsure about what I want to do. And I'm still dealing with chronic pain, and all the limitations and difficulties that go along with that, and the usual assortment of woes and troubles. But really, to be who I am, with the amount of choices I have open to me, and the security of people I care about around me, and a society with relatively effective safety nets, the problems don't seem as large and dramatic as they do when I think about them alone. So I'm very grateful.

And I'm so grateful for the chance to travel!

PS: What does the title of the post mean? It's for my travel companion, the Chocolatier, really. When we were going out to see the orangutans at the rehabilitation last Monday, our guide person told us that they often didn't come to the centre for food when it was fruit season, as they were too busy frolicking in the jungle eating the fresh fruit to bother with the provided food and chattering tourists. So fruit season has come to mean all things fun, well-fed, and full of frolicking.

Luckily for us, fruit season has just finished up for them, but this holiday has definitely been fruit season for us.

Moving On

2010-04-15T09:37:00.002+10:00

Today is my last day in my current job. I resigned about 4 weeks ago, and have been holding on with increasing grimness as my notice period dripped away - and here I am at my last day.

There are a lot of people I'll miss, and I'll miss the excitement of bringing products to market, and the interest of finding out up close what makes businesses tick, but very little else. Dealing with a high-stress job with poorly-defined responsibilities and processes, chronic pain and disability, study, and up to 4 hours travel each day is damned hard, and the job stopped being worth the pain some time ago. So I tried to change things, and when that didn't help, I quit.

People keep asking if I'm scared, leaving one job without another lined up and waiting for me, and I am, a little. But mainly I'm relieved - that I have the chance to get my health and creativity back, and that I've chosen to walk away before I reach a point of no return. I know I'll find another job, even if it's just something to get me through uni. And I'm so, so grateful that I've finally been able to trust myself and my instincts, and make the leap of faith without needing to be shoved.

So, tomorrow I fly away for two weeks holiday - one week in Thailand to relax and recover, and a week in Borneo and Penang wandering around doing interesting things. Yes, of course, there'll be photographs.

And then I come home, and start to find out what happens next. I'm looking forward to it!

(Sour)Dough Day!

2010-01-23T22:01:00.006+11:00

A workmate and I were given some redballoon gift vouchers a while back. We found an interesting looking artisan breadmaking day course at Brasserie Bread, and since I'd just started dabbling around making sourdough (or really, getting a lot of flour all over the kitchen, and occasionally coming out with some rather dense loaves), we enrolled in the first vacant day we could find, and dragged a bunch of workmates with us.

So last Saturday we got down & doughy, and it was such fun.

Michael's 10 steps of bread making

We were lucky enough to have Michael Klausen as our tutor, and he was friendly, knowledgeable, and obviously passionate about his bread. He gave us the 10 steps of breadmaking, which I think we all forgot immediately, then we started kneading.

Kneading!

An amazing procession of different bread doughs come past, and we were shown how to mix them, how to shape them, how to knead them and how to tell when they were ready. In the middle we paused for some bread sampling, cheeses and white wine - very civilised after all our hard bready work.

And finally, we slid some cherry olive oil breads with an unpronouncable name into the oven - and out into our mouths.

Unpronounceable cherry breads - very tasty!

I learnt a hell of a lot, and we each left carrying several bundles of freshly baked bread, and our own sourdough dough to take home and proof before baking.

Some people's loaves were bigger than others. Of course, it's not the size that matters.

My sourdough went into the oven on Sunday night, and came out nice and light and (mostly) round - delicious.

My sourdough, fresh from the oven. Look at that fabulous oven spring!

The Brasserie Bread kindly set up a little table for me, since there was no earthly way I'd be able to stand up with everyone else, but even with that, and taking it as carefully as I could, I ended up pretty damned sore afterwards. Between the weather changes and the heat and the workshop strain, I've had a difficult few days, and next to no sleep last night. So as you can imagine, I'm feeling pretty crappy.

I'll be posting some pictures of the Chocolatier's new chocolates in the next few days, as he kindly brought them over to me to photograph on Monday night, but other than that, I suspect it's going to be a quiet week for me. (And if you can't wait for me, you can see a couple of the pictures over at his Aardvarque blog)

PS - fellow breadmakers, click on the images to go to the gallery with more photos from the day, or click here to go straight there.

Dogtography

2010-01-22T15:42:00.003+11:00

Zack & PJ - action heroes

Just before Christmas, Mark the Chocolatier asked me to photograph his two dogs. I hadn't done much pet photography before, but Mark wasn't bothered by that (nor by my many disclaimers about my lack of experience). So one evening, we headed down to the local dogpark to play with balls, sticks, other dogs, and my camera.

And much to my surprise, the images came out really well.

Fetch!

The light levels fell off quite quickly, and I was very glad that I brought my flash. I haven't done all that much flash photography before, but I quickly worked out how to difuse the flash to have the images looking as natural as possible. I've got a way to go before I'm satisfied with my skills, but it's definitely a good start.

PJ and bulldog

I've discovered that I like animal photography - and dogs - quite a lot. The lack of pressure helps, of course, since everyone was just having fun, while I hung around with a camera. Dog parks, at least in the Inner West, are friendly, laid back places, with indulgent owners watching their dogs sniff each others' butts and tear around like happy mad things. If I'd brought some business cards, I suspect I may have had a few more photo sessions lined up - I may still go back and do that.

Zack lifts a leg

Of course, it really helps the images that both Zack and PJ are very photogenic, and lovely dogs. I would have posted some of these earlier, but they were a Christmas present for someone who reads this blog occasionally, so I didn't want to spoil the surprise.

If you'd like to see more images of puppy fun, click on any of the photos, or click here to be taken to the gallery.

Zack, contented

And of course, if you want some Dogtography of your own, comment or email me!

Pinholing

2010-01-09T15:22:00.003+11:00

I have a new toy! I'm starting on my next project, which will actually be a collaboration with a friend, and there's a specific look I want for the images.

So last night I ask M to poke a hole in a body cap for my digital camera, and I made a pinhole out of aluminium, then made an improvised 'lens' with the body cap, the holey aluminium, and some clear plastic to stop dust sneaking in onto my sensor.

Today I wandered into the cemetery and played with it, and I think I'm in love. Such soft, mysterious images! Gentle and indistinct, but still warm, somehow. I'm going to enjoy this.

There's still a bit of work to be done. I think I may have misaligned the pinhole and the body cap, or else the aluminium isn't sitting flat, as there's a grey haze on the right hand side of the pictures. And while the pinhole won't be letting any more dust into the camera, the images sadly showed me just how much dust is already there.

So once my foot stops calling about how sore it is, I'll pull the pinhole body cap apart and re-make it, and I'll have a go at cleaning the worst of the dust off my sensor, then set a dust-delete in the camera software.

For the moment, though, I'm going to enjoy the images, and look forward to going and making new ones tomorrow.

A Manifesto of Matters

2009-12-11T13:29:00.004+11:00

Matters and Mattering

I have the flu today, and am choosing to luxuriate in my listless lack of energy rather than wallow in aggravation at my sniffles and other discomforts.

As part of that, I currently lack the energy to care about a number of things that normally get me worked up. This has crystallised for me some vagues musings I've been having recently, about the things that matter to me.

Not the Things that Matter, you understand. I'm not examining the Universal Truths of Life, if such things exist, just the things that get my heart going, that brighten my eyes and make my arms wave around wildly when I'm boring everyone else by talking on and on about them.

And when I get to the core of it, there's a simple, central theme that unites the things that matter to me. When I get right down to it (and I might have said this before), what matters to me is helping people have more choice, and the ability to make good choices.

Simple, isn't it.

Art matters to me, because it's a living demonstration of the different ways we choose to experience the world and life around us. My art matters to me - apart from the chance to show my perception of life, however subtly, I'm noticing more and more that even my snapshots play with multiple views and interpretations, implications, suggestions and stories rather than straightforward statements. My images matter to me because I can subtly show that the way one person experiences something may be very different to another - and both are interseting.

Health matters deeply to me - mine and others. You don't know how much chronic pain or illness can restrict you until you're lying on a couch doing a cost-benefit analysis of getting up to go to the toilet - and wetting yourself is winning. (No, it's never gotten quite that bad for me, but it's been damned close.)

Community matters too - both the ones I've chosen and the ones that surround me. The people around us inform our choices and shape ourselves and our experience of the world. I'd like to see the stories we construct about ourselves and the people we identify with be as compassionate, supportive and inclusive as possible.

Parts of my job matter to me as well. Being able to make things that can improve people's health & ability to function matters deeply, and I'm both proud and grateful to have the chance to do so. However, the colour of a bottle or its promotional strategy don't matter. Not to me, anyway. I'm excited by doing, not selling. Recently, I've been drawn more deeply into the aspects of work that I dislike doing, and I've destested it. I'm reminding myself, here and now, that it doesn't matter.

So, since I have one body, one consciousness and one current life, I'm going to concentrate on the things that matter to me. There are things I don't care about at all, and I'm not going to fret about that, nor apologise or feel bad. It is what it is.

Today, I'm too listless and tired to care about the things that don't matter to me. When that listlessness has gone, and my nose is no longer trying to choke my eyes in their own weight of mucous, I want to continue to not care about the things that don't matter - and glory in the things that do.

On Publication

2009-11-12T12:52:00.005+11:00

A little while ago, just after the Newtown by Night exhibition closed, I was discussing what I'd like to do with my photos. One of the things I came up with at that time was that I'd like to see them in a print publication somewhere. I set myself a deadline to work to - I wanted to see something of mine in a magazine before the end of the year.

Opening Night, Newtown by Night

And, thanks to Kay, the co-ordinator of the Contemporary Division of the Australian Photography Society, it's happened. Selected highlights from Newtown by Night are printed in this month's Image magazine, the APS journal. It's only available to APS members, sadly, but that's still almost two and a half thousand people who've been sent my printed work - hooray! Thanks again Kay for suggesting I submit the work!

The next challenge, I think, will be to start entering some photographic competitions. I don't have any great hopes of winning anything - my style is somewhat understated, and I dislike most of the currently fashionable looks for images, but I want to enter some contests regardless. I'd also like another exhibition - I have a body of work called 'Tales from the Tropics' I'd like to see somewhere, and I'm considering putting a book together some time next year. And of course I have several ongoing photographic projects I'd like to do more with.

Tales from the Tropics - Trishaw time out, Penang

And I really, really need to re-design the website so it's better organised.

Of course, I'm also planning on starting a major non-photographic commitment next year as well, so I'm not sure where I'll find time for all of this, but I'll manage somehow. Wish me luck!