documenting E - a new challenge

I have decided to set myself a huge challenge. I'm going to take a picture of E - or E's things - every day for the next year. It's going to be tough.  Actually, if my previous record with photography challenges is anything to go by, it's going to be almost impossible.  But I want to try. I'm not sure if everything I will document will end up here, but at least for the beginning expect a post a week documenting E.

 

1/365 : Even in winter all you want to do is be outside. 

 

2/365 : Mostly you're all over the place - running, hiding and pleading to be outside. Today after my shower I found you quietly doing puzzles. It must have taken you ages to line up the blocks "just so". After you'd finished you put it back on the shelf declaring your were "Fi-fished". I wondered if we'd perhaps taught you too well about the importance of being tidy.

 

3/365 : You've been so sick this winter. We've tried everything - Vicks vapour rub, humidifiers and lately - Ventolin. You hate it, riggling about all over the place and protesting madly about having the mask put over your face. Tonight I found you giving Teddy and Poupe (your doll) their Ventolin before bed.  "Teddy. Cough." you nodded at me and then "Hold. Still."

 

4/365 : I wondered what you thought of your first experience of "Australian snow". Were you disappointed?

 

5/365 : Stories are one of your favourite things at the moment. You take books everywhere - in the car, in the pram and lately you've even started taking them as 'show and tell' to childcare.  A new book everyday. You push books into the hands of anyone and everyone you meet 

"You. Read it?" Mostly they do.

 

6/365 : You were out of sorts today. I think you might be teething. You keep telling me that you've bitten your mouth and I guess you're gums must be sore. 

Growing Pains

Today I have a sick baby hanging out with me as I go about my day. Mr Hippo in hand, dummy firmly in mouth and head gently resting on her Mamma's back.  Her nose is full of snot and she sounds ever so slightly like a Pug dog as she sniffs and snuffles her way through slumber.  And while I am so happy to know that just being with me is enough to make her feel a bit better, this was not what I had planned for today. Nor this week, for that matter. Oh no! This week was about getting the car fixed, buying safety gear for our soon-to-be second vehicle (a putt-putt motorbike), storing up breastmilk in carefully labelled bottles and orientating Emilia into childcare. This week was supposed to be about getting everything ready for me to go back to work.

I do not feel great about going back to work.  It is necessary and I know once I am there I will enjoy oiling the intellectual cogs in my brain and using skills that I had previously worked so hard to acquire. Mattthias will start looking after Emilia one day a week, which I think they will both love (no pesky Mamma poking her head in wondering if everything is okay) and eventually Emilia will love childcare. Over all her toys and the games that we play at home, her most favourite thing in the world is visiting people.  No matter where we go if there's someone about she'll lean in towards them and give them a big gummy smile. She will love the opportunity of playing with other kids at childcare. And she will still hang out with Mamma or Papa four days a week. It will be okay. It might even be great. But right now it all seems too much.  Right now she's nestled on my back sleeping and there's no where else I'd rather her be.

17.01

18.01

19.01

20.01

21.01

22.01

23.01

Contemplation

I'd forgotten about these photos. Fragments of an afternoon spent exploring the Canberra Botanic Gardens.  

I've been in a bit of a creative funk of late, I pick up the camera and think "now what?"  It all seems too hard.  Perhaps I'm over thinking it.  Anyway, I feel like I need a bit of a creative kick up the backside, something to get me moving beyond the funk and back towards making and creating.  And while I've never actually managed to complete a 365, when I look back at some of the photos I took during my failed 365 challenges, I like the photos I took.  Not all of them, no definietly not, but some of them I like.  And some of the best ones (in my opinion) were taken at the 11th hour when I had nothing to give (or so I thought) and I just picked up the camera and snapped. "Hey presto. Photo done. Onto the next task of the day." So I'm contemplating doing a 365 again. 

Maybe I'll start on Monday.

Spring Light

I had such big plans for this weekend - some Spring gardening on the balcony, walks in the park, shopping and lots of photography.  Instead, I spent most of the weekend in bed, in the bathroom or mopping on the couch having eaten something a little 'iffy' on Friday. Blah!  But come Sunday afternoon I'm feeling much better and eating my favourite recovery food - dry biscuits and vegemite.   

Being sick has had one up-side in that I've had a chance to go through my photos and catch up on my 365 project.  The last two weeks or so I've begun to develop a bit of a love of capturing light and shadows.  Spring light in my living room, shadows on my baby blanket and the gentle light from a candle.  Hopefully with some longer daylight hours and a bit more sun there'll be some more in this series to come.

like love letters falling from the sky

- Flowers left on the table on Monday night - because we said we weren't celebrating, and then he did
- This restaurant
- A first kick
- Blankets searched for in the middle of the night
- Merengue
- Conversations about Focaccia and McDonalds to an Italian "from the south"
- The promise of guests in Spring
- Spaghetti with Muscles
- New clothes (that fit!)
- Blue skies
- and a successful experimentation with home felting

Just a few of the things that made my week great.

What's making you smile this week?

Three Six Five

Two weeks in one day - I've managed to get myself organised and still taking pictures after last week's little hiccup.  Also, thank you to everyone for the breakfast suggestions the other day - seems that yogurt and fruit are the way to go.  Also thank-you Kristina for suggesting this gorgeous blog for breakfast inspiration. It's gone straight into my reader.

Oh, and I would like to apologise for being slightly behind on replying to blog comments lately.  I think I'm going to have to come up with a new solution.  As much as I love Blogger for it's simplicity, I don't like that it can be hard/impossible to reply to people - especially if they don't have a blog or don't want to provide their email address.  I'm contemplating just replying in the comments box, or switching to Disqus.  I've tried Disqus before but wasn't much of a fan because of the long loading time on some computers.  What are your thoughts?

Another thing I'm struggling with is whether it is necessary to reply to every comment.  While I love the idea in principle, replying to "Lovely photos" or "Great idea" is difficult.  Sometimes I leave comments like this on other people's blogs - often it's all I want to say and I think its fine,  it's a nice acknowledgment that you've read or seen the post and felt "something", but when I leave comments like this I don't necessarily expect to receive a reply back.  I also have the loafty goal of trying to visit everyone's blogs but replying, visiting, and commenting everyday is beginning to feel like hard work and that's not really what this blog is supposed to be about.

There's been a lot of talk about blog commenting etiquette flying around recently.  Mostly I've found the discussion interesting, but not all that helpful.  Mostly it's been about the actual process of commenting and not what the etiquette is about replying to blog comments.  There seems to be some idea bandied about that once you become 'popular enough' as a blog you aren't required to respond to comments anymore.  Frankly I think this smacks of a superiority that I find distasteful, and ignores that fact that replying to comments takes time regardless of how many people read your blog and it is often time that would otherwise be spent doing and creating the things that you love.  That's not to say that I don't love replying to comments either.  I have had some lovely email discussions with people that I know only through their blogs, often prompted by a blog comment.  This has turned into a rather long winded schpeel about blog commenting and it's probably enough to say that the whole thing has me a little confused. If you've got to the end of this I'd be interested to hear what you think.  Disqus - yes or no? And what's your take on the etiquette of replying to blog comments? 

Finding Rhythm

This is by far my favourite photo of the week and was a little lesson in why I insist on lugging my DSLR around with me everywhere. Typical story really - 9pm at night and on the way home from German I still haven't taken my photo of the day - I'm half-heartedly contemplating cheating and just taking it tomorrow.  And then I see this - this dog, sitting quite happily if not somewhat ambivalently on the tram seat as if, say, he's coming home from work, or German, or whatever occasion might cause someone to be out at 9pm on a wintry night.  And so I quickly grabbed my camera and snapped a few shots. He didn't seem to notice or mind a bit and everything about this shot makes me giggle from the inside-out.

As for rhythm this week I haven't really done too much.  I'm in Vienna for the week, so no yoga practice or much grocery shopping but I am planning on getting out for a walk in the forest and I'm convinced that connecting with the rhythm of nature's seasons must count for something.  Plus I've been crossing off a few major knitting projects which have been looming over me for months.  I finally finished the long awaited vest which will get it's very own post once I can get Matthias and the vest outside to photograph and I also started some better-late-than-never baby gifts for a few babies born in December and January.

Linking up to Lisa's Creative Challenge this week too 

Week Two

Week Two, and so far I haven't missed a day although there was an "almost".

See that black and white in the middle?  Well, that was snapped on my way home at 10.30pm and there is not one single object that is even vaguely in focus.
"But it's atmospheric" I hear you murmuring.

Yes, but any bigger than 200 pixels and it looks really crummy. Not a keeper, but you live and learn.  Oh, and the Dim Sim next to it?  Also not in focus? Well, Matthias believes that photos should be spontaneous and he refused to hover the Dimmy over the soy sauce while I took my excruiatingly slow photo (Korean restaurants are not known for their studio lighting).  At the time I told myself that the movement gave it a dynamic quality. A-hem.

And because Wednesdays are turning into my 365 show-and-tell day I'm also using this post to keep myself accoutable to my pursuit of 'Rhythm'. Alongside my 365 photos I'm going to start listing the little things that I've been doing to try and find rhythm in this city of mine.

** I started yoga again. It's been quite some time since I reguarly went to classes and my first time in Germany.  The studio I went to was small and they practice a fairly pure form of Hatha Yoga with lots of chanting, breathing exercises and meditation alongside the poses.  I think I liked it, although I've never "ohmed" before and it was a little strange - I'm going back which I'm taking as a good sign
** I've also started German classes again.
** I updated my 'current city' to Berlin, Germany on Facebook

** We've made a change to shopping for groceries twice a week instead of everyday.  When to shop has been a source of great debate in our household.  I'm a planner; Matthias likes to be spontaneous. He'd prefer to shop on the way home from work and I didn't think it bothered me too much.  Turns out that it does.  So we're changing it up and doing it my way for a while.  Stupid as it sounds, my little heart beats much more calmly knowing that there are groceries in our fridge and I don't have to think of a new "thing" to cook every night on my way home from work.

Not too bad of a beginning, really.   

Days 1-7

I know I posted a few of these last week, but I decided to keep me a little more accountable I'm going to be doing a bit of a 365 review every Wednesday.  First week done and dusted and I'm pleased to be leaving white behind me, at least until the summer.  Not quite sure where the next week is going to take me - anyone have any suggestions?

365 - The first three days

I nearly didn't start again this week.  It's dark when I leave for work and dark when I get home.  Setting up my tripod and battling with no light, long exposure times, tricky white balance - well - it all seemed too much.  But I started anyway, because sometimes the anticipation of beginning something is the worst part.  I just took a picture.  I didn't think about it, I just snapped, and what started out as a blurry picture of my hiking boot and the play of textures in the snow has become a week of exploring white.  

365 seems a lot more managable when you break is down into 52 weeks each with 7 days.  And white seems the perfect antidote to me galumphing around in the dark cursing the black ice and the sun setting before five.  So here they are, my first 3 days of my 365 (take2).

Day 1 : Hiking in Berlin

Day 2: Warm Lights on a Winter Night


Day 3: Mortar and Pestle


Edit: I just realised that I've managed to think of a theme that is also part of Faith's Simplicity Challenge, so I'm linking up there today.

Dusting off the cobwebs

I kinda dropped the ball a bit on my 365 challenge. I was doing so well and then I went on holidays and my good habits came undone.  Actually, that's just what I thought had happened.  When I went back to look at all my photos from Australia I realised that I'd actually done a pretty good job while I was away, the real un-sticking (so to speak) was when I got back to Berlin. Jet-lag, bronchitis, holiday craziness and suddenly December had disappeared and I had taken only 15 photos for the challenge... Oops!

But a new year is a good time to pick myself up, dust off the cobwebs and start again because when I look back through my photos from the last three months I realise that despite sometimes grumbling about the lack of light or lack of inspiration, I like this practice of mine and the challenge of finding a story in the every day.

To motivate me and show you all a bit of what I've been doing, I thought I'd post a few photos from November (yes, we're going way back). Back in November, I decided to join Justine Gordon and her Flickr Group in a black and white challenge.  It was a wonderful exercise in learning about light and shadows and the complexities of processing a black and white so it looks "just right". These five photos are my favourites from the month.  They're not necessarily my 'best' photos, but they're my favourites.  

This last photo is my absolute, pulling on my heart-strings, favourite. The heads are unceremoniously cropped because noone is really looking the right way and it's all a little out of focus - there also might be a few scrunched up faces or eye's half closed added to the mix. But oh how I love this photo. Four of my closest university friends all due within months of each other, out celebrating at another university friend's wedding. This photo makes me sentimental and nostalgic and ridiculously clucky. I could go on and on (and have, I've just edited it all out so as not to bore you silly), but it just goes to show you that sometimes it's just capturing the moment that matters.

For a look at all my 365 photos, head over to my Flickr Stream.

365 review

Firstly, thank you to everyone who has left suggestions for what to do in New York!  Seems as if I'm going to have to make a trip to the High Line and perhaps while I'm down that way wander around Chelsea.

I'm into my second month of the 365 challenge and it's getting both easier and harder.  I'm finding it easier to remember to take the photos but with the days shortening I'm finding it increasingly difficult to find time to take a photo before or after work.  I missed four photographs in October, most of them due to light issues.  

This month I'm planning on joining Justine Gordon for a 'black and white' month.  Black and white photography is a little more forgiving when it comes to lighting and I've recently fallen in love with this medium after going to an exhibition of Marianne Breslauer's work.  If you're interested in joining Justine (or me) in the black and white challenge you can head over to her blog or visit the flickr stream.

Here's my favourite from the first five days

365 - the first month

I'm a week behind, but here's my 365 recap for the month. An odd assortment of styles, pictures and whims.  Looking back over these photos, I'm suprised to find that I mostly remember exactly what I was thinking when I took these photos - my mood, motivation and energy.  In fact, I could say that about a lot of my photos which is perhaps why I love photography so much.  Each photo I take captures more than just an image, but also locks away a memory and feeling which I am able to access when I look back on the photos.  Hmm... visual learner perhaps?  

I also realise that I'm due for another self-portait - maybe tomorrow.