Myriad Me

26 in 2011 - Sky

One thing I will say about Australia is that it is a land underneath vast blue skies on an epic scale. I think it might be time to finally invest in that wide angle lense, after I have the shattered LCD screen on my camera repaired (or upgraded, I still haven't decided!).

Unless you are in the CBD, most buildings across the city are single or double storey so there is nothing between you and the cloud-dotted blue above.

And being the third windiest city on the planet the skies above Perth are perfect for flying kites (does that cloud above look a little bit like the UK?) ~ and kite surfing ~

The seabreeze, or, as the Tourism Commission likes to call it - the Fremantle Doctor - is brisk by late afternoon and stretches the pretty cottonwool puffed clouds into streaks drifting at pace across the sky ~

When it rains here, and yes it does happen occasionally, it usually rains hard in a monsoonal, torrential downpour. But the brisk winds clear the cloud cover quickly, revealing blue, blue, and more sweeping stunningly beautiful blue. It is the perfect canvas.

(Thank you Fiona for the above pic).

Being flooded with light and blue sky daily is something I notice, and appreciate. For however brief a moment I turn my face skywards, inhale and let the vastness wash over me.

26 in 2011 - Water

I've realised that I might not get through the remaining topics for my 26 in 2011 photo assignments. And that's ok.

There won't be the time to devise and shoot all of the pictures that I had in mind for each one. And that, too, is ok.

I will do what I can, and love what I do.

In this coastal town there is water in abundance. In lakes and rivers, streams and oceans. It is integral to the lives of the thousands of people who choose to live nearby and play in, on or under it.

We are drawn to the water. To the lakes near our home, and to the coastline, the picture perfect beaches, to the 180 degrees of blue ocean which reflects, foams, churns, rests, swirls, froths, ebbs and flows in and around some of the happiest moments of our lives here so far.

London was a city lived largely in the interior - in all of those wonderful museums and galleries and churches and restaurants and built up urban areas; in Perth we live our life more outside and near to water so that we can be on, in and under it.

As lifestyle choices go, this one is turning out to be pretty darn good.

26 in 2011 - Open invitation to join the shoot

Now where were we...

Ah yes, the list of photographs I was going to take every, ahem, fortnight throughout 2011...so far I've completed:

1 ~ Feathers

2 ~ Reflections

3 ~ Ancient

4 ~ Flag

5 ~ Spirit

6 ~ Self-portrait

Which only leaves another 20 topics to get through. Damn you trans-hemispheric move with all of your complexities and emotional trauma.

What's the date today? Are there even 20 weeks left in the year?

<checks calender>.

Nope. 15 weeks til the end of the year. Curses.

What to do? Double up? Lose a few topics? Outsource?

The remaining topics are:

7 ~ Hands
8 ~ Wonder
9 ~ Sky
10 ~ Family
11 ~ Granular
12 ~Marriage
13 ~ Love
14 ~ Satisfaction
15 ~ Happiness
16 ~ Luck
17 ~ Water
18 ~ Calm
19 ~ Innocence
20 ~ Gratitude
21 ~ Jewels
22 ~ Furry
23 ~ Motherhood
24 ~ Worn
25 ~ Sustenance
26 ~ Joy

If you want to claim one or more of these, or contribute one or more photos to a topic fully credited to your good self/blog/website please comment below or send me a mail. If you are not in WA I will say thank you with a tacky very classy stuffed toy koala and chocolate macadamias, if you are on the west coast I will subject you to coffee & cake et moi. Unless you really want the koala. Camera phone pictures accepted (especially if they're hipstamatic!).

I'd best charge the camera battery and get shooting. And hopefully you will too?

Here's one to start off the 'Sky' collection...

 

26 in 2011/6 - Self Portrait

Given how much I love (note the dripping sarcasm) my photo being taken, I'm not quite sure why I thought it would be a good idea to include a self-portrait fortnight in my photo challenge for 2011. I remember at the time vaguely thinking something about it being good to challenge beliefs etc, but the practice has co-incided with the busiest fortnight I've had in quite some time, where 4 hours of consecutive sleep a night has been a good night and my precious small one has been struggling to adjust to the changes around her and on the horizon.

On the positive side I thought I couldn't possibly take a self-portrait without a tripod :) . One sweet little half-sized tripod later I figured I was all set to try to squeeze in a few photo sessions. I decided black and white was the way to go, that it might somehow be more flattering. Or something. So with sunlight streaming in the window, I set the timer, set aside my rising panic at being in front of the lense, and became the subject. For approximately 23 seconds. And then Sophia wanted in on the action. One small jumping giggling child who managed to somehow tilt the camera or shift the tripod later and I bring you...

Self Portrait #1:

Fabulous, no?(!)

On Red Nose Day for Comic Relief (you can still donate via the website) I suggested that Stu and Sophia draw some pictures all over her so I could shower in peace for more than 3 minutes. I'm not sure either has a career as a tattoo artist awaiting them, but Stu and Sophia decorated most of her body and limbs with a multitude of drawings, finishing with a red nose for Red Nose Day. I hadn't showered, put make-up on or brushed my hair, but caught up in the moment I still pointed the camera towards my sunny little girl and me at the end of our unplanned photoshoot celebrating her ink. 

Self Portrait #2:

Being comfortable in your own skin is hard some days. It helps having a vibrant giggling person close by.

In the madness of trying to get our flat ready to be advertised for rental from today, from stripping wallpaper, patching, painting, moving furniture, sewing curtains (and through fingers) sorting through boxes and bags, decluttering and reducing the accumulation of stuff, and trying to remember everything that needs to be done, I managed to take these two photos.

It's been a long, tiring, stressful sleep-deprived two weeks. Huge thanks and love to the two beautiful women (with husbands and kids) who helped with looking after Sophia and gave us the time to focus on finishing the flat - she had way more fun with you than she would have had with grumpy me!

We somehow managed to do enough to get the flat looking nicer than it's been in quite some time. If I can move my aching muscles later in the week I'll try and get some pics up. There's still a lot to do, but it feels like we've passed the half-way point now. It feels do-able instead of impossible.

This is not a self-portrait (my tripod is sadly not that high), but I'm including it because it's about the nicest photo I've seen of myself in a very long time. Sophia managed a sneaky cuddle with her tired grumpy Mummy. Thank you Stu for managing to take a photo that I <gulp> actually quite like.

  It's one of the last photos of Sophia still with long hair (more on that later), and the first photo of me with my new glasses. Self-portrait fortnight, I am glad you are over. I'm going to look at my list of topics and choose something that will make me happier over the next fortnight!

26 in 2011/5 - Spirit

I was tempted to photograph bottles of gin for this fortnight's theme of 'spirit'.

I had had some ideas around capturing the spirit of people, but neither the time or energy to make them happen. Ce la vie.

And so in two places I found spirit, soul, of the religious and mysterious kind.

Firstly, Stone Henge. There is something about Stone Henge, something ancient blows on the wind across the plains on which it is built. The mystery around how stones were lifted and placed atop the others; how the stones were transported from hundreds of miles away; what the site was used for. It has a stilled, almost eerie feeling about it, even with the hoards of people and cars driving by. You can feel its past.

Secondly, the jaw-droppingly vast Winchester Cathedral. The crypt underneath the cathedral, built in Norman times (11th-12th century) also has an eerieness to it, a quiet stillness and weight that made me not want to stay for very long. The crypt now lies beneath the water table, and is usually flooded for most of the year. I can imagine that the reflection of this Antony Gormley statue in the crypt would be exquisite, but the water was either just rising or draining away. The broken cracks only added to the depths underneath the old arches. 

26 in 2011/4 - Flags

I had wanted to get some photos of the flags in China town to celebrate the new year, or the flags along the Mall, but with time and energy in short supply, I had to make do with the Union Jack in its various incarnations. In front of Big Ben below...

 Atop the Houses of Parliament below...

And a little tattered and worn - something I can quite associate with these past few weeks.

But still flying defiantly in the strong cross winds. Also, a little like me.

26 in 2011/3 - Ancient

There was only one place I was going to head to for this fortnight's theme of 'Ancient': The British Museum (I will confess that I skewed the list of themes so that this one was while I was still in London). So on Sophia's last day at nursery I gave myself the afternoon off from organising, sorting, packing, paperwork, housework, paid work and everything else in between and headed into town.

With the word 'ancient' circling around in my mind, I stepped back several thousand years through the myriad galleries and was transported into cultures, rituals, beliefs, lives and loves from ages gone. I gave each piece which caught my eye my complete attention in a way I've never really done before, distracted as I usually am by my speedy little girl. So many artefacts were utterly exquisite in their craftsmanship; the curation of the galleries was magnificent, and the objects on display the finest possible examples available in the collection. It took me by surprise but I found myself deeply moved by many of the artefacts I photographed as I imagined the people who once conceived, created, held and loved each of them. Humankind has advanced in so many ways, but the similarities across the millennia were still striking: in many ways we've not changed at all.

The age of these beautiful objects was almost beyond comprehension. This glass and gold bowl was from the Eastern Mediterranean (possibly Alexandria) circa 250 BC. Utility with beauty, an adage that holds true today.

We adorned ourselves then, as we adorn ourselves now with gold and jewels: Greece, 300-200 BC.

Who wore these, I wonder? And this Etruscan necklace, 480-460 BC?

Once adorned, we admired ourselves: this bronze mirror was also Etruscan, 300-200 BC.

We devised written languages and communicated, the Egyptians being wondrous with their illustrated symbols.

We worshipped - this Assyrian Eagle Protective Spirit is from 865-860 BC:

And celebrated...

We developed currency so that we could buy and sell...(I especially loved the 'Athenian owls', silver tetradrachms from the 5th century BC):

We also ritualised death - these two caskets contain a mummified cat and kitten (there were also mummified falcons and fish, each with their own decorated caskets):

There were also many, many artefacts recording mankind's lust for battle, fighting, killing, and violence that I didn't care to absorb myself in.

I found ancient beauty, compassion, spirit and joy. And that was enough.

If you would like to delve into the wonders of the British Museum, I highly recommend 'A History of the World in 100 Objects' - download the podcasts!

26 in 2011/2 - Reflections

How apt to have had reflection as the theme for this fortnight, knee-deep in packing boxes and surrounded by our accoutrements as we try to find the balance between retaining and shedding possessions. There has been much reflection these past few months, from conversations late into the night with a small person anxious as to how, exactly, her bed will move from London to Australia, to the dense silence of 3am surrounding my thoughts and hopes for the our future.

Given that we are each reflecting in our own ways on our upcoming move, it seems apt that this fortnight we have each contributed to the theme of reflections. A meandering afternoon at the V&A (oh how I will miss thee) was bounteous - here is my self-portrait on the 6th floor, the little visited but magnificent ceramics rooms, a treasure trove of craftsmanship and beauty from across the centuries:

And from Stu, a reflection in the oasis of tranquility that is the Member's Room where I always find a (blissfully comfortable suede or leather) seat, the light cascades through the enormous windows and the coffee is fresh:

And finally, from Sophia, whose little hands can't actually hold the weight of my camera up, but if I put it on auto and hold the body, she can line up the perfect reflecting shot:

And one more, for good measure, from the onsite studio of Artist in Residence, Phoebe Cummings, who works predominantly with unfired clay and has 'an interest in the way landscapes transferred onto ceramics present idealised visions of nature and respond to the desire for the picturesque, exotic and somewhere other'.

Somewhere other

Is that where we are going?

 

26/1 - Feathers

A luminescent peacock...

a curious fish...

and a purple feather ruffling in the breeze.

I realised that I hadn't set a limit on the number of photos for each fortnight, and found I couldn't narrow down these three to just one so here they all are!

I've also set up a group of Flickr to put all of the photos I like for that fortnight into which didn't *quite* make the grade - if you feel so inspired it's a public group so you can upload and join in there.

More 26 in 2011 will be on your screens January 24 with 'Reflections'...

The List - 26 in 2011

Thank you to everyone who suggested words. I have now compiled The List! The plan is that every second Monday I will upload my photo/s for that fortnight's word, as well as photos from anyone else who would like to join in (go on, you know you want to!), starting on the 10th January.

1.     Feathers

2.     Reflections

3.     Ancient

4.     Flag

5.     Spirit

6.     Self-portrait

7.     Hands

8.     Wonder

9.     Sky

10.  Family

11.  Granular

12.  Marriage

13.  Love

14.  Satisfaction

15.  Happiness

16.  Luck

17.  Water

18.  Calm

19.  Innocence

20.  Gratitude

21. Jewels

22. Furry

23. Motherhood

24. Worn

25. Sustenance

26. Joy

Et voila!