Pretty sure it’s a banksia.
I really like how stark this photo feels. It’s not, but it feels that way. It feels grim, too. Very moody, not necessarily upbeat. It’s very much about the form here, and what the form depicts, and I think I did well.
I hope you enjoy.
Here’s a landscape photo of the land… or some of it in The Blue Mountains. Where I was had what I felt was a good vantage point of Mount Hay, hence the photo of Mount Hay.
This is my submission into the three hundred-and-seventy-third Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme for this one is “Looking back at LAC #31: Landscapes“. I think this photo is better than what I did for the thirty-first, but I do like what I submitted back then. I don’t think I’d take it differently now.
The host of the Lens-Artists challenges cycles weekly between the following people:
This one is curated by Egídio. The next one is curated by John.
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.
Sitting here, wondering. Thinking about what it is that I should do. I want to churn out words but I should do some editing. I should do the culling of the words. I should do that, but I’m not. Too many words to get through. Too many lives to think about, or perhaps none at all. Everything twisted and turning and I’m just sitting here, trying to think of what I can write and, like many other times, I have nothing other than lengthy sentences that live a life far beyond what is necessary.
Still, I’m getting through things. I’m getting things done. I’m getting to where the ends are and then when I find those, I can go find new beginnings. I’m trying to think of what there is that can be said at this moment. I should just let my mind be free, though maybe I have and this is all that is left and I just don’t recognise it. I don’t know.
I’ve spent so long writing about writing that perhaps that is all I have left. I’ve harvested the crops too many times and the lands are no longer fertile. What do I do about this? How do I go about going about? Is there a point? I mean, there always is, but is there now? Do I have something I can still offer?
I’m trying to think and I’ve nothing. I’m sitting here at this table in this room that is only full of me, and soon the voices that are rapidly approaching. But it is mostly me sitting at a wall, and the voices are gone and the room is just full of me once more. It’s all not happening. This is life. This is where everything sits and lies. This is the zenith.
It’s not, but it feels like it.
I feel that being happy was a bad move on my part, but I am happy. I am looking forward to life and living, and I’m feeling good. Not the best I could, but good and good is good enough for now. That’s fine by me. At least, for now.
But really, being happy or sad or whatever else didn’t change a thing about my writing. Didn’t change a thing about my drive. The only thing that changes my drive is trying to write and pushing past all the things that I need to push past. Pushing past all the errors and mistakes and finding where the truth lies; the truth of my writing.
That sounds a lot more self-indulgent than I intended. Oh well.
But I’m sitting here and there’s a drone and I’m thinking about writing. I’m thinking about the beanie that sits next to me, and I’m thinking about the lunch I just ate. I’m thinking about heading home soon and doing washing tomorrow, and I’m thinking about the loneliness of this space, and it is a lonely space. It is a space that holds no warmth, though it can feel warm. That warmth comes from the people within it when they are within it. Right now it’s just cold and not sterile, though it could certainly feel sterile, and kind of does. I think. I don’t know. Anyway.
So… what else is there to say? What else can I offer? I’ve lost a lot of the year and I’m about to get into a mad scramble to make up for time. I don’t know why I’m going to do this, but I am going to do it for some reason. See where it gets me. Maybe see nothing. We’ll see. We’ll always see.
So many more words to write before the end of the day and so many more words to write before I get to go home. I can see myself in the window. I can see myself typing, and it’s just me. It’s just my reflection. Just a projection of myself doing the things that I am doing, and that doesn’t mean much of anything, but it is interesting to see how I type from a different perspective. Very rough, very flow. That’s interesting.
Not really. Or maybe quite.
A few minutes before I need to get back to work, and I’ve plenty of time to keep on crapping on, really. Plenty of time to be bored in this space where I feel lonely. Plenty of time to find out what lies beyond the room and what lies beyond the basic series of thoughts that I am having. Not sure where to go from here.
The space is broken once more and the voices are mixed and varied, and they utter nothingness and inanity, and, quite frankly, that’s great. These are people engaging in conversation and story, and they are enjoying the company they share between themselves. They are talking about things that might matter to them in this moment and will no longer matter later on, maybe. Who is to say? It is up to them to work all of that out, and I’m sure they will if they are willing to try. But they won’t because that’s not worth their time in this present moment. There are more important things to engage with, and that is what they are doing. And it’s good.
The space is broken and it is filling with some joy. I’m sitting here, facing this wall, trying to get this bit of writing done before I return to my desk. Having little work to do, having things to get to the end of. It’s a good day and a bad day, and there are many things to learn and unlearn, and I think I just want to go home and rest. Get some sleep before tomorrow comes. Try and find whatever and try to find it wherever I can. Just sit at home and relax, and I certainly can relax a bit more than I do. But maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll just keep on charging into whatever I should do.
The time it took to write one thousand words: 11:27:71
I wrote this a few days ago and didn’t get around to sharing it until now. I don’t know why. I can’t remember what I wrote and I feel as though reading over it wouldn’t be the best thing for me to do. Don’t know why.
Written at work.
This is an odd photo and it’s mainly due to the lens I used, though it may look odd to me only due to remembering how the trees looked and them.
I hope you enjoy.
Admittedly the sunrise had already happened, and this is very much at the end of it, or just past. However, it feels like a sunrise still. A moody one; a silent one, and a still one, but still like one.
This is my submission into the three hundred-and-seventy-second Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme for this one is “Ephemeral“. Sunrises inhabit a space of being both ephemeral and not, so I feel this photo counts.
The host of the Lens-Artists challenges cycles weekly between the following people:
This one is curated by Tina. The next one is curated by Egídio.
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.
Just another reference photo. I’m not sure what I like about this one. It’s just kind of interesting. Not good; just interesting.
This is my submission into Leanne Cole‘s “Monochrome Madness” for this week. The next one is hosted by Margaret of From Pyrenees to Pennines, and she has chosen the theme “Clocks and Timepieces”.
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.
Wondering if I can churn out a bunch of words in quick succession again. Wonder this all the time (not really), and right now I am wondering again. Always wondering; never wandering.
Sometimes wandering, but you know. So anyway, that’s where I am at right now and that is what I am doing, so I’m gonna see. I’d like to get under four minutes again. It has been a long while since I had a table that made this feel more viable than it is, and I think that I can do it this time. I don’t know if I can do it, but I think I can and I hope that I can, so I’ll see if I can.
Of course, this means that I need to think of things to write and I don’t know what I can write. My brain is a bit scrambled form being tired for as long as I have. The drive is there. The drive to write things that don’t matter is there. The drive to see if I can do something that’s kind of pointless is there. The function isn’t quite. But we’ll see. We always see and today we’ll see.
Maybe I’ll make multiple attempts at this. Maybe I won’t. What I will do is yet to be determined, but what is determined is that I am writing a lot faster than I recently mostly have, and maybe that means that I am finally in a space where everything will work out the way it should work out, or rather, the way I hope it will work out. I don’t really know, but know what I really don’t is not knowing that and thus knowing that I don’t know, and that, in itself, is a form of knowing.
What is that sentence?
So I’m sitting here and I’m wasting time. I should be learning and I should be working and I’m doing neither, and that’s okay for now. Maybe I can get away with it; maybe I cannot. However, I am entitled to this time so I’m not getting away with anything. Or am I?
Anyway. Don’t think I’m gonna make it, but it was a valiant attempt.
What isn’t valiant is my continuing with this wasted mass of words, but I started and I’m gonna finish it. It is the right thing to do, or the wrong thing to do, or the selfish thing to do, or maybe none of those. I don’t know and, quite frankly, I don’t care right now. I’m itching to churn words and that is precisely what I’m doing, and I’m getting there. I’m writing things and putting them out, and they’ll be read or they won’t, and that’s okay. I still have quite a lot to write over the next few months, anyway. Gonna be a tough climb, but I’ll get there. Always do in the end, unless I don’t, in which case I was wrong and I’ll need to own that, or something.
The time it took to write five-hundred words: 04:43:08
Toward the end I realised I wasn’t going to get there and slowed down a fair bit. Happens.
Written at work.
I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it: a lot of people shouldn’t be allowed to drive.
The other day, when coming home from yoga, I got stuck behind this driver who just wasn’t really driving so much as they were dawdling in their car. There’s cars behind them, they’re going well under the speed limit until honked, then going well under again, and again… and again. And this is causing issues, because traffic is being held up for no reason. And eventually it gets to a point where, because of their dawdling, they end up getting through a green and everyone else behind them doesn’t. Sure, in the grand scheme of things, this makes for only a few extra minutes of travel, but it adds up. It adds up when you just want to get home and can’t because people decide that not going at a reasonable speed is acceptable, especially when they have the space to go at a reasonable speed.
Had someone else speed up and slow down of their own accord repeatedly, and that was pretty annoying Had a cabbie decide to dawdle, too, until honked at. Could see that they weren’t looking at where they were going, and based on how they took off after being honked, weren’t near where they were going anyway.
But those are annoyances. Those aren’t the worst accident risks.
Earlier this week I was heading to USYD late. Had to spend time looking for a space to park, started going around a roundabout. Some smart individual in what I’m fairly certain was a Porsche, based on the logo on the front decided to enter the roundabout whilst I was in it. I was to the right of their entryway.
They stopped suddenly, as did I, and they gave me this filthy look as I passed around them (there was, thankfully, space to do so). I got a good look at them and probably gave them back the same kind of stare, but I got a good look and could see it was either some teenager, or person in their early twenties.
Now I think there is a difference between someone who looks young and someone who is young, and this was – as far as I’m aware – someone who was young. Someone who looks young generally doesn’t have that kind of face that’s yet to be shaped by experience. Happy to be wrong. But anyway.
I’ve seen plenty of people who don’t know how to drive and be shitty at others despite their being in the wrong. I’ve seen plenty of people who don’t know how to drive in cars that make me wonder how they can afford them. This was, ultimately, another person who is insignificant in my life, but it really shits me when I see someone do the wrong thing and visibly not own it.
I remember a few years ago when someone took a turn in front of me when I was going straight, and they shrugged as they passed me by. I respect that person more, because they owned it… sort of. Their expression was very much a “Hey, it happens”, which I got, and whilst I was annoyed, I couldn’t hold onto the annoyance. They didn’t decide to give me a filthy look.
Last week on… Friday?
Friday.
Last week on Friday I was heading off to yoga. Things have been okay. Things have been going well. Getting better, in a way. Decided to spin “The Scientist” though. Don’t know why, but it seemed appropriate, somehow.
So I’m walking through Newtown and it’s Halloween, and people are out and enjoying themselves. People are having a good time, or at least heading to somewhere they plan on having a good time at, and I’m walking at a brisk pace as I want to get to class on time, and I’m starting to feel a bit sad. I’m starting to feel a bit lonely, and I’m letting myself feel this way. I’m still grieving, I guess. Even though I gain distance from my ex and realise how unhealthy the relationship was for me, and even though I am seeing someone new and my heart’s aflutter with the joy and romance of it all, I still felt it digging into me.
I’m walking and I’m feeling not great. I’m feeling it, but I’m also feeling neutral, but the heart is being tugged and I am not feeling able to resist, and I’m dipping my toes into that world. Not going for a full dive, mind you; just a little testing and deciding it’s not for me. But I’m getting the grieving buzz, and it’s a thin layer of fur I can’t shake.
Get to yoga, do it, good session. Tough session due to lack of sleep. But good. And I head on back to where I parked, and I think it had started raining at this point. It had rained whilst I was in the class, and it was still raining a little at this point. But I’m walking back to where I’ve parked and it’s a little rain, but not enough to have the umbrella out the whole time, and more people are out and merry and having a good time and I’m still getting that buzz, but it’s faded a little, and once again I’m thinking “Fuck you, Chris Martin” as I’m walking on back to head on home.
Eventually I’m back at USYD, heading into The Business School so I can head to the car park. As I’m entering the building I pass three students having a smoke, and I feel like asking them for one, just to get some slight satisfaction from the moment, even if I’ll regret it later. I could’ve told them to smoke a little further away from the entryway, just so there’s less risk of them getting into shit for it, but I don’t. I just walk on by.
I’m in the building and I’m still listening to “The Scientist”, and I’ve listened to it too much, but it’s still hitting. But it doesn’t matter anymore, and so I head to my car. I unlock it and start it, and I think a little about the route I’m going to take to get home. Then I drive off.
The time it took to write five-hundred words: 08:54:00
Could’ve been better. This didn’t need to be as long as it is.
Written at work.
There’s a place I know of that has llamas. I won’t say where because, in taking this photo, it became apparent that the owners are quite protective of them, but they are cute llamas.
This is my submission into Leanne Cole‘s “Monochrome Madness” for this week. This one 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.
Stupidity Hole 