I was trying to frame this sign in a specific way and I was successful, but I feel I didn’t process this in a way that’s favourable to a sense of the dramatic, which is what I wanted to get across.
I hope you enjoy.
Taken a few weeks ago whilst in the city whilst it was raining.
I was trying to frame the cup dramatically. Didn’t quite work, but I like the result. You’ve this interesting surface harmed by the cup being there, both from an environmental and aesthetic perspective.
This is my submission into the three hundred-and-sixty-third Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme for this one is “Virtual Scavenger Hunt“.
I went for water.
The host of the Lens-Artists challenges cycles weekly between the following people:
This one is curated by Anne. 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’m writing this between bursts of other things. Why am I doing this? Why am I choosing to write in this way? I don’t think I can write much of anything of substance, and does writing have to have substance? The best writing often does, but what if some of it doesn’t and we don’t know?
So I’ writing between things. I’m writing words and I’m trying to find something that says something beyond “I don’t know what to say”. Stringing words together, trying to find the gaps and cracks where I can. Trying to see if something does come forward, of course. Always am, never am.
It’s a nice day outside. Don’t want to go outside, to be honest. Don’t want to leave the bedroom. Going to have to at some point. There are things to do.
I used to write a lot because I enjoyed writing, and somewhere deep down I still do, but now I write more because I don’t know what else to do.
I suspect the Covid-19 pandemic did more damage to me than I initially thought. I know getting Covid twice certainly didn’t help. The second time especially. That was at the start of last year and I still feel a bit sluggish in my brain. Getting better, but getting better slowly, and it’s rough. It’s tiring. But I have to keep going.
As I’m writing this I’m realising I used to write so much more freely, too. In doing the challenges I’ve set up for myself, my writing hasn’t become more free, and it’s not the word limit or time constraint; it’s that I keep letting myself grow increasingly linear and less free-form.
I seem to be slowing down more and more, and speeding up and something seems to be getting lost in between. Some of that is due to the brain sluggishness; some of it is due to working on winding down this blog, and some of it is due to how my desire to write isn’t here.
The day is getting old, but it’s still young. It still has many hours, and so do I, and this is all sorts of dramatic and I’d rather not be. I’d rather go back to being silly, but I don’t want it to feel forced but it just might have to be.
I should probably go outside.
This is my submission into the three hundred-and-sixty-second Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme for this one is “Sports, Sporting Events and Fun Games“.
I took this photo specifically for the challenge. I wanted to get back on the bike during the week and planned to take a photo of it somewhere. That didn’t eventuate for many reasons – it has been a pretty full-on week – so I instead took a photo of part of the bike when I got home from work one day.
I feel this photo counts. It’s perhaps a little sad in the way the what is visible feels untouched for a while, but it’s still of something used for sport.
The host of the Lens-Artists challenges cycles weekly between the following people:
This one is curated by Beth. The next one is curated by Anne.
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.
Another photo similar to one I’ve previously taken. A little different, but a little the same.
I’m looking at this and I feel I’m going to have to return to get another photo. I think I should’ve taken this form a lower angle.
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 “Pets” as the theme.
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, it’s time to start on a new day. Linkin Park is playing on the radio and things feel old and new at the same time. Misery waves wash on over but I’m alive. I’m kicking. I’ve things to do and I feel important. Well, maybe not exactly important, but I feel alright. Miserable and alright. What a mix. What a concoction.
Cars go on by outside of this interior, and the sun is out. It is cold but it will warm up, and I am here to experience it. Might not be later; might be at work, but right now I am here, and here is fine enough. Here is a good way to start. It’s better than not being here. So long as the atmosphere remains good. So long as it remains nice.
Time passes and things change, and we float on through it all, hoping to carve out our own little space. We hope to just live and stay comfortable, and we hope to get to the end in one piece. There is so much to be worried about right now and it’s all going to come visit us. Everything is going to come, and not at once and new worries will be added, but right now, in this moment of time, I feel alright. I feel okay. I feel like shit, but I feel alright.
It’s a bit of a strange space to be in, I think, but this could be worse. This could be so much worse right now. Of course I mean on a personal level because there’s plenty of great things out there, but many things are fucking awful right now and it’s not good. But today feels fine. Today feels like a small island and I am taking it easy before I need to go to wherever I go next. I can do this. I can get through it all. I can keep on going, and I’ll keep on going.
Even if I couldn’t, I still would. There’s constantly so much to still see and do, and that drives me. The eternal bucket list I’ll never complete because it keeps on growing. It’s great. But more importantly, what drives me is the fact that I’m alive, and I’m fortunate.
I’m fortunate for having people in my life who care about me, and I’m fortunate enough to be liked and respected by my work colleagues. It’s a good thing, I think. Well, it’s a good thing because I’m doing something I feel is worthwhile. If I was respected for being an asshole, I’d feel miserable. If I had ethical and moral concerns about my work, I would not find myself fortunate to be liked and respected by my colleagues.
So things are shit, but they’re also good and I’m chugging along. I’m doing okay. And today feels like it’ll be a good day. Today feels like I’ll get through it and wake up tomorrow morning, and maybe with a little more sleep too.
The time it took to write five-hundred words: 06:53:88
Decent speed, ultimately positive writing. Not bad.
Written at Dirty Red.
I was going to write about my ex but I don’t want to. I don’t want to keep writing about me. I’ve done it enough over the years. I’ve done it enough through the various forms of struggle. I’ve done it enough over the past months. I’m done with it.
A lot of writing is about the self, even when it’s not directly about. A lot of writing says something about someone, whether they intend it to or not. You get a lot of viewpoints and those kinds of things. I’m just tired of writing so blatantly about myself, however. It’s tiring. I’m tired.
There are so many things out there that are worth exploring and I’ve done enough of that when it comes to me. I’ve done enough introspection. I’ve done enough realising about where I went wrong in my relationship and realising that my ex is not going to take accountability for her actions, or actually talk about taking accountability for them, and there’s nothing I can do about that. And it hurts; it hurts like hell because there often felt like a lot of judging and resentment and guilting. A lot of lack of interest in what I was doing outside of work. And there’s nothing I can do about that at this point, and I don’t see a reason to write about it so much at the moment. But I’m compelled to, or rather, the desire to keep crapping on about it is there, but it doesn’t serve me. It doesn’t serve anyone. I’m not offering anything that is worth the time.
In front of me are a series of lines and shapes forming structure that I recognise as the interior of a building. I recognise this for what it is on a surface level, and I recognise that a structure is more than just its constituent components. A structure gains meaning that extends beyond its shape and form, and its meaning is as still as it is constantly moving. This is what it is. But right now what this is is something that is a structure that I recognise as a building, and that’s fine. That’s interesting. That still is worth talking about in some way. This is something that goes beyond me, and it goes a long way as a temporary landmark.
But right now I keep feeling the need to write about myself and my getting dumped, even though I don’t want to. And it sucks because I still love her. Despite all the hurt caused, and despite the unfortunately real possibility that she lied about loving me near the end, I still love her deeply, and I miss her. I miss someone who won’t engage with me but keeps looking at what I’m doing on social media, and it’s all sorts of confusing and fucked, and I don’t want to be involved with it anymore, and maybe I can’t force my way away from everything. Maybe I can’t write about something else.
The time it took to write five-hundred words: 08:50:90
I was meant to upload this yesterday. Fatigue reared its head. And so on, and forth so.
I don’t think I wrote anything decent here. It didn’t need to be said, but I said it.
Written at work.
In my current backyard there’s a few citrus-bearing plants, such as this one.
I hope you enjoy.
One listen.
It took a while to get started here, and it shows. I like that I was touching on things here and there, and I like what was coming forward toward the end, however.
Robert Fripp’s “Pie Jesu” is from The Wine of Silence. Or rather, I should say this version of the song as there’s a few. This one was performed by Metropole Orkest and conducted by Andrew Keeling.
I hope you enjoy.
—
Strings murmuring, waking. There’s light falling over a space. There’s a new day. The strings lap on over, come in new and meld into the body. They grow loud; they grow quiet. They paint imagery; they paint mood.
Something comes a little more forward and it’s as though a gentle breeze as the eyes look toward the horizon. Looking and wandering what lies beyond, and it could be by the sea. It could be looking across the land. It could be looking inward.
The form of it all changes and remains unchanging. These sounds spread outward and inward, and look for something. Perhaps this is something reverential, and perhaps it is not. There are a lot of emotions in this; a lot of moods and shapes and stories. A lot of everything and trying to understand it all. Perhaps the human condition condensed into minutes.
There’s an intensity coming forward; a passion, and the body grows. The body increases and so does the expression of sound. It sweeps and brushes, and wraps around. It comforts and it caresses, and it leaves emptiness and isolation. It grows weighted, heavy. It draws out and it’s almost longing. It’s almost longing and looking for something it cannot have; Trying to touch something it cannot reach.
The sounds push out, thicken like a mighty tree, growing grand and beautiful, they remain coalesced into a form. A weight and the drama surrounding it, holding attention due to the sight it presents, and a leaf breaks off and falls away, falling down slowly as everything changes in a sweep of brief violence, and that leaf keeps falling, and it falls into silence at the song’s end.
So I’m sitting in a cafe not far from work. About two minutes of walking, actually. Not far at all. I’m sitting here, I’m tired. I’m worn out. Not enough sleep. It was worth it, or rather this lack of sleep is worth it, today. I’ll probably hit the wall sometime in the afternoon, but for now I’m chugging along. I’m firing on some cylinders.
Last night went well enough, I think, but I don’t know if my heart was in it or not. I took the photos as though by a natural, reflexive and instinctual process. Didn’t feel much of anything, but I didn’t come out of it feeling less about it, and maybe that’s a good thing. Probably a neutral thing. Possibly a thing thing.
I’m sitting here and I’m thinking of the process of life, and if I’m allowing myself enough time to process photos. I’ve given a timeline for when they should be expected and I know I can do it, but I’m wondering if I actually can. Probably. Will be making small adjustments, big adjustments, and nothing I’m unfamiliar with, but I’m good at missing the goals I set and put forward, so all of this remains to be seen. For now.
When I think about going to another gig, I’m a little stressed. I’m a little worried. At the current moment there’s something in me saying I should do this again. Should I do this again? Should I keep going? I still carry a lot of that self-doubt, because of course one night isn’t going to miraculously change everything. I want to and I don’t want to try again. It’s a constant mixed bag of things and I’m constantly fighting myself on this. It’s not a good way to be. At the same time, in writing this I’m realising I’m just dealing with forms of indecision, so that’s a thing.
I’m sitting here, it’s miserable outside but that’s okay. There are worse places to be, worse things to experience. I’m okay. I’m fortunate, and I should try and do more where I can, but I also should stop trying to force myself through everything. But I know that if I rest, that’s it. I won’t do anything. I know that I won’t process these photos and I know I won’t do any work today. I won’t go to yoga and I won’t live my life, so I do have to keep going. I don’t have to know that I want to keep doing photography now, but I should do what I can where I can (so long as I have the energy) to work out what I want to do with it at this point. If that desire still exists within me.
There are so many things to work out and I’m sure I will get there. I’m sure that things will come and reveal themselves over time, and I’ll see where it all leads and so on and so forth, and that’s that.
The time it took to write five-hundred words: 08:49:48
Not great. It’s what came forward and it’s what is, but not great.
Written at Double Barrel Coffee + Food House.
Stupidity Hole 