On Parks and Photography

One of the things that I've started up this year is a photography course. A proper, whizz-bang, fancy one that takes a few years and if you finish it you can call yourself "professional". I've done a few short courses over the years - both online and 'in person' - and always felt that I wanted more. So I bit the bullet and signed up. Two nights a week I sit in a classroom full of wonderful, friendly, creative, full-time working crazies who are passionate about photography and really, really, really want to learn the craft. I'm loving it. We're about a month in and we've just started getting to the juicy bits of 'camera craft' (the technical bits) and 'design theory' (the arty bits).  I'm increasingly finding myself multi-tasking with E, taking pictures for my assignments while taking her to the park or walking her to childcare.

So here she is, absolutely loving the park and getting super dizzy on the whizzy-dizzy (is that what it's called?).   And there's me, crazy Mama, trying to perfect a technique called 'panning' while satisfying a 1 year olds need to go high (but not too high) on a swing so that she can feel the wind in her hair.

 

Wedding Shawls

I'm knitting myself a wedding shawl. It's traditional and lacy and to be perfectly honest I'm a bit over my head with the nupps and the double yarn overs and the ridiculously thin wool.  I'm a little worried that when I block it all out it's just going to look a jumbled mess of holes where there's supposed to be a pattern. But it's a nice distraction from the, you know, important bits of getting married like planning the ceremony and writing vows. I'm finding that planning a wedding has brought up all these "things" that I need to think about that I really never considered before. I say "things" because saying they're issues gives them more importance than they really ought to deserve. I'm not sure that they even matter at all and perhaps I'm just other thinking it.  You see, I'm not sure I like the idea of someone (anyone) walking me down the aisle. And I'm a little confused about what to do with my name - the great to change or not to change has reared its head and I've managed to tie myself in knots over-thinking the feminist, cultural and fashion cycles of the great name-change debate.  So rather than thinking these issues through and coming to some kind of rational answer, I knit. Slow, painstaking stitches while filling the rest of my mind with repeats of the West Wing. I think it is perhaps the best antidote to wedding over-think-ery I know.

International Women's Day

I couldn't let today go by without a saying something in this little neglected space of mine.  As much as anything, today has become the day where I take stock and do a bit of thinking about the where's and how's of my life.  I'm pretty busy at the moment and at a loss to say much except this: today is important. It's important for so many reasons - on a global stage so many women still lack the basic freedoms that most of us take for granted. Here in Australia, despite over half of university graduates being women, there is a dearth of women taking up positions of influence and power in the media, in politics, on corporate boards and in hospital departments.  Maternity (and paternity) leave entitlements are inadequate and support for childcare is, well, almost non-existant.  Yes, it might sound a little blah. blah. But it's important, and today is the day to do a bit of thinking about it. 

Happy International Women's Day everyone!