in pursuit of perpetual motion
From Wikipedia: Perpetual motion describes hypothetical machines that operate or produce useful work indefinitely and, more generally, hypothetical machines that produce more work or energy than they consume, whether they might operate indefinitely or not.
[Sister image to like spinning plates]
looking backward, moving forward
This past Tuesday I sneakily turned 35.
Well, really, it wasn't very sneaky. Celebrations leading up to the day were actually quite messy. But the day itself was quite low-key: leave from work for the day; relaxing and chatting on Skype with Kyle in the morning. The afternoon spent with Jane wandering from Victoria Station via Belgravia to South Kensington only to find the Saatchi Gallery was closed to the public for a private function; then wandering a little further to peruse the photography and Asian sections of the permanent collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum; followed by a pub dinner in Earl's Court before Jane headed to her evening's entertainment and I headed home to a long and enjoyable chat on Skype with my mum.
The original plan had been to spend the day with Jane wandering through Brompton Cemetery with our cameras, but the inclement and unpredictable weather [literally] put a dampener on that, and both of us chose to leave our cameras at home.
We did end up wandering through a graveyard at one point though, stumbling across the Royal Hospital Chelsea burial ground during our travels.
Tuesday also marked one year from the day I arrived at Hospitalfield for my one-month residency, during which the above image was taken.
paige
I met Paige for the first time at the Home of the Viking; at one of Erik & Francesca's Sunday afternoon backyard barbeques.
I'm ashamed to admit that sometimes I'm a bit judgmental. Specifically, when I meet a really pretty girl, I sometimes assume they will know exactly how pretty they are, and be full of themselves and arrogant, and vacuous and have no sense of humour.
Within minutes Paige made me ashamed for thinking that, as she is a perfect example of why that mode of thinking is stupid.
Paige sometimes seems completely oblivious of how attractive she may be to those around her, and is the first to make fun of herself. A perfect example of this I saw a mere few days after meeting her, where she was filmed eating noodles in a very ridiculous manner. Where many of us would be worried about looking silly and / or unattractive, she really didn't mind and was just enjoying herself with friends.
This may have something to do with the fact she is an actor, but for the most part, to me, this is just because she is Paige.
We became quite good friends during my brief sojourn in Brisbane, and caught up on many occasions for drinks and shennanigans; and I was lucky enough to be commissioned to take some portraits of her (of which this was one, as we hid behind the verandah wall in fear of being told to leave, as we were trespassing).
Our day spent together wandering around an abandoned hospital building in Brisbane, around the botanical gardens and such, was very enjoyable; and I have to admit I felt more than a little disappointed I would be leaving the country so soon after and would not have the chance to photograph her again for quite a while.
Far from the delicate flower she may often seem, Paige was more than happy to shimmy up the nearest tree, barefoot, for a photo. Which, for a photographer like me, is excellent (even if I hate heights so much I'd not do the same!)
Heartbreakingly, her flat in Auchenflower was about 3/4 submerged by the floods in Brisbane a little over a week after our shoot. Her life was turned upside down and inside out for a while, and even now I can't really comprehend how this would have felt for her.
But no matter what she goes through, Paige seems to just keep coming back stronger. Learning from her experiences, learning from her friends, and moving forward all the time.
Amongst other wonderful people I met in Brisbane during my time there, I am looking forward to catching up with Paige when I next visit.
green / red
Left: me
Right: the melody censor
For the latest round of Divine Diptychs, I set the theme of complimentary colours, with myself and Susan selecting green and red.
Though I did trawl my archives looking for something, due to feeling a little uninspired in terms of shooting something new, I decided that I didn't want to submit an image that was the easy 'go-to' of plants, and the most 'diverse' predominantly green image I had was of a cactus.
With the green dress seen above in mind, I originally thought about shooting self-portraits in it with my matching green tights, but then had the idea of a bouquet of green 'flower alternatives', which ended up being some tender stem broccoli and asparagus.
As I've recently found some nail polish that dries in 40 seconds, so have actually started wearing nail polish again regularly and buying colours that match to my outfits (purple being my favourite so far), I figured I'd track down some green nail polish to complete the image in my head. The nearest I found was aquamarine, so I tweaked the overall image a little to get a more pure green colour (I also gave myself a Photoshop manicure, reapplying the nail polish to my chipped fingernails, as I polished my nails last Sunday night).
I love that Susan expanded upon her original idea by including a 'pepper purse' in her image after seeing my image! I love her vibrant colours, and that we both look like we're getting ready for a prom or something, and those shoes!
untitled #20
I'm just catching up on a few publications I think I've been a bit lax in telling folk about, though two are very recent:
One of my images was included in the very first issue of 5x5 Magazine, with the theme of 'Self-images'. I highly recommend picking up a copy of the magazine in print, as the quality is beautiful. It took a bit longer to get into my sweaty palms than expected, but was well worth the wait! Not to mention that the cover story is about the stunning work of Sarah R. Bloom, and Susan J. Knight's work features in a piece entitled 'Inspired by Art', along with her interview about The Hive Hub & Arts Incubation Site in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada.
In addition to those two lovely artists, the magazine includes work by Elle Moss, Brooke Shaden, Marico Fayre, Megan Horsburgh, Michelle McRae, Sarah Ann Wright, Sarah Mercer, Emma Newson, Jennifer Leigh Evans, Jill Evans, Libby Livermore, Elle Hanley, (and that's just the artists I was previously acquainted with the work of!)
The ladies behind the magazine, Nicole Harlow and Jet Clark, are also awesome!
I also have one image in issue #52 of F-Stop Magazine. As usual there is such a feast for the eyes in the latest issue, and I still need to peruse the collection properly, but work from Julie Kozerski's series 'Half' immediately drew me in.
And I have an image in the latest Lenscratch online exhibition, Animals. Sort of relieved I wasn't the only one who submitted an image of an ex-animal...
carpet crawler
when the paint grows darker still
caution lambs
road lambs no
truck show
lune head farm [warcop ranges, warcop, cumbria, england, 2012]
lune head farm ii [warcop ranges, warcop, cumbria, england, 2012]
lune head farm iii [warcop ranges, warcop, cumbria, england, 2012]
untitled #177 [warcop ranges, warcop, cumbria, england, 2012]
untitled #186 [warcop ranges, warcop, cumbria, england, 2012]
untitled #167 [warcop ranges, warcop, cumbria, england, 2012]
untitled #164 [warcop ranges, warcop, cumbria, england, 2012]
untitled #167 [warcop ranges, warcop, cumbria, england, 2012]
untitled #150 [warcop ranges, warcop, cumbria, england, 2012]
untitled #151 [warcop ranges, warcop, cumbria, england, 2012]
welcome to teesdale [warcop ranges, warcop, cumbria, england, 2012]
county durham [warcop ranges, warcop, cumbria, england, 2012]
gateway to cumbria [warcop ranges, warcop, cumbria, england, 2012]
sheep [warcop ranges, warcop, cumbria, england, 2012]
|\| [warcop ranges, warcop, cumbria, england, 2012]
welcome to teesdale ii [warcop ranges, warcop, cumbria, england, 2012]
untitled #43 [nightingale gardens, wood green, london, england, 2012]
Almost a week after the snowfall captured in my previous post, we had another overnight snowfall allowing me to capture the portraits of Kyle cavorting in a local park the next day [also in a previous post], and to capture the snow up close and personal, rather than from the warmth and dry of my home.
Below are some of the other photos I captured.
untitled #40 [nightingale gardens, wood green, london, england, 2012]
lovers [nightingale gardens, wood green, london, england, 2012]
untitled #48 [nightingale gardens, wood green, london, england, 2012]
untitled #42 [nightingale gardens, wood green, london, england, 2012]
untitled #22 [nightingale gardens, wood green, london, england, 2012]
untitled #50 [nightingale gardens, wood green, london, england, 2012]
untitled #34 [braemar avenue baptist church, wood green, london, england, 2012]
untitled #20 [nightingale gardens, wood green, london, england, 2012]
untitled #28 [nightingale gardens, wood green, london, england, 2012]
untitled #52 [nightingale gardens, wood green, london, england, 2012]
untitled #36 [nightingale gardens, wood green, london, england, 2012]
untitled #9 [nightingale gardens, wood green, london, england, 2012]
For those who might be interested, I have work available for sale as open editions on RedBubble [unframed photographic prints, matted framed and canvas prints], as well as postcards, greeting cards, and calendars.
Calendars are available for any starting month, and I'm more than happy to create custom calendars of my work, should you like!
Most of my self-portraiture is only available as limited edition prints, so please contact me directly if you're interested in any on RedBubble that are not for sale; or if there are any other images of mine you have seen on my blog or website that you would like to purchase that aren't on RedBubble.
Additionally, if you would prefer a signed print or a limited edition print, please also feel free to contact me for details
untitled #4 [wood green, london, england, 2012]
I'm from a country where it doesn't snow in the cities.
If you're lucky it might snow in some alpine areas a couple of hours out of the city (see Victorian and New South Wales snowfields), but mostly you only see snow if you go hunting for it, and rarely do you ever see it actually falling. If need be, the holiday resorts manufacture their own snow so they can maintain a ski season in years when the snowfall isn't up to par.
I think the first time I saw snow was in about sixth grade when my parents took us away for a day to the Victorian snowfields, and my brothers and I had our first experience of throwing snowballs at each other, making a snowman, and just generally mucking about in the snow. I can't recall ever attempting to ski, but my memory may be fuzzy on this.
Apart from that, and being sleeted upon in November 2006 whilst tramping around the Tongariro Crossing area of New Zealand (I wasn't brave enough to climb the scree with my friends, Hugh and Jamie, who subsequently got properly snowed upon), my heaviest actual snowfall experienced previously was pretty piddling: a flurry in Birmingham city centre a couple of weeks after arriving in the UK in 1999, and a similarly brief 'white Christmas' in Newcastle a few weeks later.
Even in the two and a half years I lived here previously, most of the snow I experienced was already on the ground. This included when I had to work between the Christmas and New Year holidays one year, and I walked out of my front door in Reading and stopped on the doorstep, utterly perplexed at what confronted me. It took a good couple of beats before my sleep-deprived brain registered "It snowed!" Having snowed overnight whilst we slept, I had still not been snowed upon, good and proper; and since I had to work, I left my housemate and my then-boyfriend to run around in said snow in their boxer shorts throwing snowballs at each other, whilst I attempted to venture into town without falling on my arse.
So you can imagine I was pretty excited by actual snow, actually falling, at the start of February right outside my house. There were a few preliminary flurries over the weeks leading up to it, but I'd managed to blink and miss every single one. And given the windows to my bedroom are quite high up, and mostly obscured from view by the sloping ceiling when I'm sitting at my desk, it was only because I was talking with my housemates at the time and my landlady mentioned it, that I even noticed.
Suffice to say, despite the cold, I grabbed my camera and wandered out to try to catch some photos. Some at the beginning of the snowfall from the footpath outside my house; the rest from the warmth and dry of my bedroom, the landing, the kitchen and lounge.
I even woke at random points through the night to check if it was still snowing (e.g. 4:30am, and again at 8:30am), and shot off some more photos.
My landlady and housemates were not so excited by the prospect of snow, with concerns about driving and potential flight delays. And though I worried about the impact it would have on Kyle's arrival (it caused slight additional delay); and knew the novelty would pass once I had to venture out, once the snow had turned to sludge, and when the pure white snowfall was discoloured by so many neighbourhood dogs' urine, I think my inner tourist was showing.
slow [wood green, london, england, 2012]
untitled #55 [wood green, london, england, 2012]
untitled #48 [wood green, london, england, 2012]
untitled #19 [wood green, london, england, 2012]
untitled #61 [wood green, london, england, 2012]
untitled #58 [wood green, london, england, 2012]
untitled #60 [wood green, london, england, 2012]
untitled #59 [wood green, london, england, 2012]
i can't stand up for falling down
Last year was not my best year for a number of reasons. Though there were highlights like moving to London, and undertaking a one month residency at Hospitalfield, overall last year I was not at my emotional, mental or artistic best.
Maybe it's because I've been voluntarily unemployed since January 1 [though technically I'm self-employed; and even without that, when opting to temp, when not actually on an assignment you're not technically 'unemployed', you're 'between jobs'], and Kyle's recent visit has definitely played a part, but I'm currently feeling pretty optimistic about the year ahead.
Aside from my annual new year mantra which I took up a number of years ago now to 'make this one count', I've also resolved to shut out the 'noise' this year, and just get on with it.
By this I mean, think, care and worry less about what others are doing and saying (within both my personal and professional lives), and also know when to shut out my own internal 'noise'.
I let too much peripheral 'stuff' get to me and distract me from the important things last year, and I wasted a lot of time and energy being caught up with all of that. I don't want to waste any more energy on those negative elements this year.
The most important thing to me is to do what I want to do with my photography; do what I enjoy and makes me happy. Focus on what I want, and what I want to do, and block out all the rest.
paparazzi
I was almost entirely unaware of it until late in the day on our travels around the Tower of London and then Trafalgar Square on the Wednesday after Kyle arrived, but whilst I was snapping off shots of the sights around London, often Kyle was snapping off shots of me [as well as myriad shots of the sights].
Only when going through our shots on our respective computers or on the LCDs later in the day did I realise exactly how many shots of me he was taking. Mostly captured as I was taking photos, or perusing what I'd taken on my LCD, or wandering ahead of him here and there. He was actually shooting me here as I shot him, I believe.
I usually dislike being photographed by other people, especially candidly, but he managed to capture quite a few that I really like [including some very odd ones]; though there are also many of me, as I turned to find him aiming his camera at me once more, with an "Oi! Quit that!" look on my face.
Between his recent visit and his random screenshots from our Skype conversations, I think his collection of photos of me might now have exceeded that of my parents, though would still run second to my thousands of self-portraits.
He also captured some excellent images of subjects other than me during his stay, including some taken on a reconnaissance around the cottage we stayed in, that I didn't go on [I was enjoying a rare lie-in, savouring the warmth of our cosy bed as the sun rose].
Admittedly I was a bit rubbish on the exploration side, as the cold was getting to me, and my trainers really weren't appropriate footwear for clambering over fences and clomping through mud and snow. Add to that the cold I came down with [and still have!] on the Monday after we arrived in County Durham, and I was a bit reluctant to venture too far from the car if I didn't have to.
I'm ashamed to say I didn't even manage any self-portraits whilst we were away. We were so rarely at the cottage we rented as we had long days exploring the local regions, and were usually knackered by the time we finally returned in the evenings, with only enough energy for imbibing a few cans of cider and Guinness, respectively, and a few quick games of Monopoly.
But sometimes you just need a holiday, right?
park life
I've been a little absent from the online world the past few weeks, primarily because Kyle arrived for an all-too-brief visit, albeit approximately 25.5 hours later than scheduled, making it even briefer.
A technical hitch delaying his flight from Mackay in Queensland to Brisbane by two hours (originally cited as being due to bad weather) caused him to miss his connecting flight from Brisbane to Singapore; and though eventually Qantas found him a seat on corresponding flights exactly 24 hours later (after feeding him and putting him up in a hotel overnight), by the time he reached Singapore, snowfall in London had impacted on flights landing at Heathrow, causing his British Airways flight to be cancelled, and him to be placed on a Qantas flight another hour later.
Thankfully the brevity of his visit didn't take away from the excitement and enjoyment of having him here with me in London, and getting to show him the sights, as well as a trip up north for a week to explore Yorkshire, Cumbria and County Durham.
Having snowed here on the Friday night, by the time Kyle arrived in the early hours of Monday morning, a lot of it had turned to slush and ice, but having never seen actual snow before, seeing the houses, train tracks, and parks coated in the stuff, Kyle felt it was all a little surreal [not dissimilar from my own experience around Christmas 2000 when I woke to find it had snowed overnight].
He had also been led to believe it would be extremely cold here, being midwinter and coming from midsummer Queensland humidity and heat; but being still fairly mild here at that stage, he was wondering what all the fuss was about.
So after a relaxing pub lunch [the first of countless consumed by us during his time here], he insisted I photograph him barefoot and in a t-shirt at a nearby park, showing him enjoying the mild weather. The original image is below.
fucking tourist
As luck would have it, the following Thursday night it once more snowed, allowing him to wander out in it with his camera almost as excitedly as I had done the previous Friday night, and for us to take a second shot the next day of him enjoying the 'mild' weather, this time going for full effect with him donning shorts, a 'wifebeater', and armed with a can of Carlsberg.
All he was missing was a barbecue.
After 'basking' in the morning sun, he also decided to do a barefoot lap of honour:
kyle
kyle
kyle
kyle
untitled #22
I'm currently wading through myriad shots from my residency at Hospitalfield in Arbroath, Scotland, in April / May 2011, to finalise the selection of images for my self-published photo book, interior / exterior.
I want to include some unseen images in the final book, so though I've been working through a lot of images, I've not been posting many; but I thought I'd post these three outtakes, especially as the lighting and post-processing are quite different to the final image from this part of my shoot that day.
I haven't decided on the definite final from this shoot, but I have it down to about 2 - 3, so far.
This was shortly after another shoot in an overgrown section of the yard, on the other side of the studio (the stone building to the left of this image), when I managed to step repeatedly into a cluster of stinging nettles. The after-effects of that were not my favourite experience of being at Hospitalfield!
That light creating the lens flare was lovely (and it's totally in-camera). It was probably about 15 degrees at most that day. Weirdly, I spent a lot of my time in the middle of early spring there, the weather not getting above 17 degrees, wearing little more than a sundress and my slip-on One Stars.
untitled #21
nosey parker
untitled #24
hearts and flowers
And here we are. The end of 2011.
It's been a mixture of awesome and awful, so I'm channeling the awesome for 2012 in the hopes that I might discourage the awful.
This year saw me move continents; undertake a fantastic residency at Hospitalfield; participate in some inspirational workshops with Miss Aniela and Lou O'Bedlam, meet some fantastic photographers and non-photographers; and do a bit of traveling within and without the UK to catch up with friends.
There have been some massively overwhelming lows emotionally, but we'll gloss over those and pretend they didn't happen, right?
I have January and most of February 'off' from administration day jobs, so I'm planning on filling that time with trying to get somewhat up to date with editing the overwhelming number of photos I've taken in the last year and beyond.
I'm also hoping to collaborate with some other photographers and artists I admire, both within that time span and within 2012 in general; and hoping that in 2012 I can exhibit both within group and solo exhibitions here in London.
I am looking forward to meeting my parents in Budapest for a few days in May; potentially traveling to Manchester at some point to meet up with photography and authorly folk; and hopefully some day or overnight trips to catch up with friends I made when I lived here last.
In short, I'm feeling pretty inspired and positive about 2012 and what it may hold, and hope that you are too.
Should you feel the urge, please feel free to contact me about commissions, prints, image usage or whatever you think I might be able to do for you, that might be able to keep me from returning to full time admin work; but no matter what happens, I'm feeling very hopeful for the new year.
And one massive shout-out to my beautiful partner, Kyle, who despite being literally on the other side of the planet, manages to keep me sane (or something resembling sane). I'm overwhelmed at the thought of him being in London with me in February!