With this photo I wanted to make the plane look tiny, and that I succeeded in doing. I think, however, I didn’t balance this photo enough. I like how the clouds came out, but I feel I could’ve gotten them a bit brighter.
I hope you enjoy.
For this challenge I went digging for photos I could use as I haven’t been out in nature for a good while. Came across the dune photos I took around the last NYE, hadn’t thought about them for a while due to them being from the last holiday I had with my ex.
This one is nice. Feels a bit off and I like that. The starkness of the space is there, and it’s coloured through a sunset and what feels like too much brightness.
This is my submission into the three hundred-and-seventieth Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme for this one is “Ancient“.
These sand dunes are probably ancient. They’re likely ancient in terms of how people might think of things being ancient. They could be young in geological terms. They’re old and new at the same time, always changing, always the same.
The host of the Lens-Artists challenges cycles weekly between the following people:
This one is curated by Sofia. The next one is curated by Ritva.
I recommend joining the community and participating in the challenges. They’re pretty straightforward, allow room for interpretation, and provide a good way to think about photography in general. If not, however, then at the very least you should check out what others submit to the challenges.
I hope you enjoy.
I was at USYD early one day a few months ago. Saw this, took the photo. I get why the sign is there, but I still find it interesting as it almost appears to not make sense. Just a random placement by a someone being silly.
This is my submission into Leanne Cole‘s “Monochrome Madness” for this week. The next one is hosted by Elke of Pictures Imperfect Blog, and she has chosen the theme “Farm Animals”.
This challenge is open to all, and I recommend joining in. If want to, check out more information about it here, and include the tag “monochrome-madness” when you share your photo. If you’d prefer not to join in, then at the least check out Leanne’s photography, and what other people submit.
I hope you enjoy.
Alright I’m about to tear through a bunch of things. Well, one more thing, but I’m gonna tear through the day. I’m gonna tear through the day and some writing, and then I’m gonna get on with the getting on.
The sun is shining through a window, and it’s shining in a way that creates a firm line that doesn’t reach as far as perhaps it should. However, it is pleasant. It is nice. It is pleasant and nice. It contrasts with the shade around it, and the shade caused by the light in here. Probably inaccurate to say, but I think it gets across the idea.
I’m sitting here, waiting for work to begin. Waiting to start the day and get on with the getting on. Waiting for something to happen; to break the sound and silence. To cut into the stillness of the bitter music I’m listening to. Music still hurts, but it means something. It says something and it wraps around my head and whips my ears, even in its calm moments, for calm music can be just as violent and affective as violent music. This is, of course, a different kind of violence; it’s the violence of the heart, and what can be teased out in moments of softness, but this music cuts and it cuts deep, and sometimes that’s the best kind. You hope it’s the best kind, anyway. Maybe it isn’t, but right now that doesn’t matter. What does is that it’s saying something still.
A while ago I felt the desire to write about music come back to me, but the desire to write wasn’t there. I don’t know if that makes sense. I wanted to write, but I also didn’t. Actually pretty simple stuff, now that I think about it. Anyway…
But I felt it and then there was something that made me believe in music again. I’ve written a lot of words about music, and it’s mostly crap, but it was worth writing about then and it is worth writing about now. I know I said this, but I’ve that desire coming back, I think. There’s an itch, and whilst delayed, I’ve started editing again this morning. Chipping away at my pain to create something that still might hurt, but hopefully says something about music. Says something about a relationship with music. You hope you say something meaningful sometimes.
I think that I’m a bit hesitant. It hasn’t been too long since the last essay I published, but what if I don’t say anything worthwhile? What if I don’t have it in me anymore? Silly questions to ask, but questions I ask nonetheless. Concerns and anxieties are likely always going to be with me, but I still should bow to my ego and publish work I believe in. Let the uncertainties have their say, work out if they are saying anything worthwhile, and then move on. Get on with the getting on, push on through. Just keep on writing and improving.
The time it took to write five-hundred words: 06:45:06
Written before work and shared during lunch.
Some more stuff I’m happy about, but only because it was going somewhere toward the end.
Written at work.
I took this photo specifically for Leanne Cole‘s “Monochrome Madness” (Brian of Bushboy’s World is hosting with the theme of “Ceramics”). Wanted to try and get something arty. It kind of worked.
I’ve had this mug for around eleven years now. Surprised it’s lasted as long as it has. I took it from someone I worked with back in St. Leonards without realising; it was left sitting around, I started using it. One day they were in the office, noted it was theirs. I offered to give it back, they didn’t mind. After they were gone, the mug stayed and I took it with me when everyone was made redundant.
This challenge is open to all, and I recommend joining in. If want to, check out more information about it here, and include the tag “monochrome-madness” when you share your photo. If you’d prefer not to join in, then at the least check out Leanne’s photography, and what other people submit.
I hope you enjoy.
Drone metal, or drone doom (which is the term I prefer), can often make for good music whilst writing. In this case it’s a bunch of Nadja’s stuff (and at this particular moment, one song as it do be a long song), and it’s great. I have no idea what is going on as it’s a song I haven’t heard before now, but it’s nice and it’s pleasant… and I have no idea as to what I should write. And that’s okay. It’s okay to not know.
Maybe I’ve covered this before. I don’t know, and to be honest, I don’t care right now. I haven’t been able to “write” for a good while now, and I think it is finally coming back to me. I think I’ll be able to edit tonight. I hope I’ll be able to edit tonight, but I won’t know until I give it a go… so hopefully in a few days I’ll have something published. I don’t know. But I might just give it a go.
Sometimes it can be good to not know about what to write. Sometimes it can be good to not feel able to, but the times that that can be good are pretty specific. Pretty narrow times. Incredibly specific, I think, as a warning can be misunderstood as a sign to push on. But you know.
So I’m sitting here. I’m… happy. I am actually happy, and I’m in this room and I don’t care that there are people behind me. I feel okay with it. I feel relaxed. Might not later, but right now I don’t care. Right now I have a view that’s not the greatest, but it doesn’t matter because I feel happy and relaxed, and I think I will be able to write again. I think it’s coming back to me now. Maybe it isn’t; maybe I’m just gassy. But I think it is, and I hope it is because I miss it. I don’t, but I do, and I think I’m missing it more than I’m not, and there’s only one way to find out, really. Just gotta go look at my work and see where it takes me.
See this feels like the point where I should end this bit of writing, but this song has reached a climax of sorts and it urges me to continue. Still has a good chunk of time to go, so this probably isn’t the climax. This probably isn’t the peak. There’s more to come, and who knows where it will lead. Who knows where it will go. I don’t, and that should be a sign. That should be a sign to explore and look and find where it all leads. Get back on the path and follow it through the brambles and thickets, and keep going through everything until it becomes clear again, unless it doesn’t. It doesn’t matter right now.
What matters is that I get up and follow it, and hopefully start writing again.
the time it took to write five-hundred words: 07:32:55
Rough, light, surface. Honest. And so on. I do like this one a lot as it captures quite strongly how I am feeling at the moment. It’s not good writing, but I don’t care right now.
Written at work.
This one I wasn’t going to share. I very much want to retake it, but I’m very tired at the moment and feel as though I should share something.
I hope you enjoy.
For once, I can better explain as to why I took this photo.
The reason for my photo taking of this photo (fun word use, I know), is that I wanted to create this sort of vague view from my work window. I think I achieved that. There’s sort of a noise, static feel to this, and objects are more suggested in this photo than they are actualised, and I like that. I like suggestion more than clear statement sometimes, because you get this blur where the brain might try to make sense of what its seeing and complete the details in a way that changes how a work may feel or appear to someone.
This is my submission into the three hundred-and-sixty-ninth Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme for this one is “Dreamy“.
The host of the Lens-Artists challenges cycles weekly between the following people:
This one is curated by Leya. The next one is curated by Sofia.
I recommend joining the community and participating in the challenges. They’re pretty straightforward, allow room for interpretation, and provide a good way to think about photography in general. If not, however, then at the very least you should check out what others submit to the challenges.
I hope you enjoy.
Alright, this might be a long one. Partly brought on by my desire to not move much right now as I’ve somehow hurt a muscle near my pelvic bone and I really, REALLY don’t want to be moving around all that much right now. But I’m up and awake and I’m near work, so…
anyway…
About two weeks ago I was at home. Was going to head into the office, ended up not as was pretty wrecked (can’t remember why). But as I was umming and ahhing, I saw an email from a psychologist service about the couple’s therapy booking I’d made and cancelled around six months prior. It was addressed to both my ex and I (as is the way of these things); it noted that the appointment had been cancelled, and it said something about how the service hoped we were able to work through our issues. Hard stuff so far. It then went on to say something along the lines of “If you are still having issues or want to talk about something else…” and I can’t remember the rest specifically as I’d saved a screenshot and have forgotten about it a bit, which is great, but essentially it was the business offering its services. And it was just really fucked.
So naturally I started spiraling hard from there. Went through a real roller coaster, sunk down. Beat myself into submission, you know. Started writing a suicide note because it was all too much.
Once more I was looking for work, hoping to not be unemployed. Once more I was in a living situation I did not find ideal or desirable. Once more I was being reminded of something I was working on moving away from. And then I did the stupid thing of checking social media to find that my ex had gone private in some spaces, and that sunk me further, and everything was too much and I couldn’t cope anymore.
So I wrote my suicide note, or rather a draft, and I looked over it and I felt it was really guilting, and I didn’t want anyone to blame themselves for my decision because it wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was my choice, and I was certain in my choice because, after many years of struggling and occasional relief followed by more struggling, I couldn’t do it anymore. But I didn’t want my friends and family and my ex to blame themselves, so I had to edit what I’d written. I wasn’t sure how to, but I knew I had to, and the more I did the more my decision faded away.
I went for a walk. Called Ewe, spoke to him about it. Talked a bit, and by the end of it all, I was okay. Not out of the woods, necessarily, but okay. But I felt like shit and I had to go to an exhibition launch as I was exhibiting for the first time in my life. And I forced myself to.
So I went and a bunch of people I told weren’t able to make it, which was okay, but it hurt me more. I wasn’t blaming them; I just wanted some familiarity there. But the photos I submitted looked good, and I was able to spend a good deal of time looking at the other artworks. But I was lonely and sunken.
I went to the bathroom early on, and on the back of the toilet door was a photo of a monk that, as far as I’m aware, was praying. And it was odd and a bit intense. Sent it to Ewe, he said it felt intense, we joked, but it was just odd. Humorous, but odd. But not unwelcome. And I kept going to the bathroom throughout the event as I had to keep using the toilet and get breathing space. So I had some silence, but I had this monk praying at me whilst I was pissing.
Eventually I went to leave and I found out someone was asking after me. I wanted to leave, but instead I decided to hang and speak to the person. They too are a photographer and they liked one of my photos a lot, which was one of the ones I like the most, and we talked a bit about photography and photographing gigs. Did the Instagram exchange and then I left.
I had to get to Newtown to photograph a friend’s band. I told the friend I would, and at this point I wasn’t feeling too great about it. Speaking to the photographer helped a bit and I was getting a bit lighter, but not seeing people I knew at the event didn’t help, because I think at that point I just wanted to be distracted and held. But I went on.
Told my friend about stuff, got to photographing, left when the gig ended. Headed on home.
I was feeling less shit the following day, but still pretty rough. I was off my foot due to the random injury, but I was getting on with things. But I wasn’t great. Just getting through the day.
Come the afternoon I got a call from USYD HR. Told my application for a role wasn’t proceeding, but this was fine. It wasn’t proceeding as the team I applied to was withdrawing the role due to not much time before the person being covered would return. They thought I was a strong candidate, and if another role comes up with the team, I might just be able to skip the application process. I was happy with that.
About thirty seconds after the call I received another to get my reference checks for another role… which is the one I commenced yesterday. Another temporary one, but it’s more time.
Among all of this I started seeing someone. We’re interested in each other, but we’re not interested so much in being in a relationship, and that’s fine. We’re just having this casual thing going on, and talking, and it’s great. I mention this as the exhibition ended with an artist talk last weekend and they came along, and it was just nice. I gave a talk that wasn’t as succinct as I’d have liked, but went over well, and they met some of my friends and we hung out some more, and it has been a good time. It has been a nice time.
And now I’m here at work after starting this yesterday. I’m at lunch and things feel okay. Things feel like they will be okay, and I like this. So much is uncertain, but I’m relaxed. I’m kicking on. I’m not assuming that I’m out of the woods, but right now this is a good place to be.
So I was writing yesterday and distractions and now I’m writing now. Funny how that goes. Anyway.
There are so many places that are transitional or transitory in nature. Places you go to but only stop at. You pass through them, only resting momentarily. They can be anchors, of course, but the nature of a location is only temporary, even if it is permanent.
I think that makes sense. I’m not sure. Sounds a bit arrogant, but I hope I’m getting across what I want to get across.
But yeah; places are temporary in nature. They have a permanent location and we get familiar with them, but often it is that we just pass through. We see and we understand and we navigate, but we do not lay claim to places we visit, aside from the time we are there.
So many lives move through malls and service stations, and most other urbanised locations anyone would care to name, and some of them have common residents, but so many are just passing through, even if they stop. So many lives forming memories going nowhere, creating spaces within spaces, forming amorphous bodies continuously disconnected, yet linked through the trails of snapshots of history they leave behind.
Space can mean many things. It is often thought of as place, and I think in this instance that is what I am referring to. But it is so many other things, too. It is scene, it is memory. It is expressiveness and nothingness. It is a form of guide and direction, and I know I can say these things, but I cannot expand upon them. But space is, and so is location. So is location within location. And all those other things.
Stupidity Hole 