Sky Fingers and Snow Angles

I look at sky at lot and wish there was a camera in my hand and I wasn't so busy doing a million other things. It's such a hugely changing, inspiring thing to photograph and can be captured anytime anywhere by camera or phone with usually very pleasing results! I am by no means the best sky photographer but does that matter really.

Fingers, piano keys, fireworks, fish scales...what do you see? Of course our ancestors  took great heed of the skies, the stars at night, moon cycles, colours determining the weather. Where I grew up in England my village community set great stall by the sky "red sky at night, shepherds delight, red sky in the morning shepherds warning"  It was important. We got cut off from the outside world in the winter, huge snow drifts that tractors with snow ploughs on the front had to cut make shift roads through. We would walk to school through these snow tunnels breaking huge icicles of shed roofs to suck...can you imagine!! It was normal to us, we knew no different or no better. My friend still lives there and even though winters are not what they used to be in England, they still loose their water supply or electricity at some point during each winter. 

Last weekend we had enough snow to keep everyone at home giving a perfect excuse to get out with the camera. It was very foggy ensuring there were no shadows so dynamic angles were more important then ever. It was -6 with winds that made it feels twice as cold so it was a case of searching for the shot quickly and snapping even quicker!  

Black & Yellow

This year there was more yellow in the landscape than I had ever seen before and a stormy day black sky made a great contrast. I just had to pull over and snap this storm on the horizon over the fields. It looks almost tornado like!

The gloomy light dulled the vivid yellow a little but as the storm came nearer and the sky turned really black I managed a few snaps before the huge raindrops arrived and I had to dive back into the car.

I meant to go back on a sunny day and get some more shots of the fields with a blue sky but the plough beat me to it and that's probably how it should be :-) this year it should be black and yellow, next year it will be yellow and blue.

A New Location

I find myself regularly now in pastures new.. in a City! It's exciting exploring new places and I'm sure there will be much more camera wandering to come but for now the Cemetery is providing many photography opportunities. It's taking me a while to find my eye again I have to admit as it's been a long time but that joy is still there although shockingly my eyesight isn't.

WOW! seems like time is not the only thing that's moved on since I last posted. What a weird feeling it is to not be able to see the image through the viewfinder or even the image on the Live View...well that's different from before! It took a bit of getting used to but it's just a case of faffing with glasses a bit :-)

Sunset Chasers

There haven't been many days this year that I have felt like picking up the camera and venturing into the world outside, it's been a year of home and new business building. BUT there has been some tramping around in muddy fields and camera clicking. A call from a couple of friends one evening on what had been a thoroughly uninspiring day led to a sunset of splendiferous proportions and found us haring down country lanes in the car to capture it! Great fun and we each commented how much we'd missed doing it :-)

Love is all around

A little late I know but last week I wasn't really feeling the Love

Tiny Toes and Wedding Bells

Ha ha I hear you cry, you've failed miserably and not blogged for 3 weeks! Not so, I have been writing furiously on another blog that I have created and am very excited about. Its taken up a lot of my time because I had almost a year of stories to catch up on but I'm sure I can manage the two now - gulp! Anyway the image above is a celebratory image of how much I'm loving my new job and who wouldn't with gorgeous newborn babies being photographed in the studio everyday!

They're also very much a Wedding photographers so its lovely to be working in an atmosphere of happy events and positivity. I've been quite surprised how different one studio can be from another and this one is an absolute joy to work in!

Grandads Farm

 

 

Driving past I caught a glimpse of this wonderful sign!

Time keeps rolling on

I started a new job today and walking home, I walked past a significant new building for our town, the new Council Offices. Construction had ground to a halt as the developers had gone into liquidation but now a whole new sparkly investor has been found and the project is steaming ahead again. Its a time for stop and start and keeping faith that the start will start again...in all fields.
I like the little jogger in the foreground too, a new start for a new year for her too.

Rain Rain go away

 

The rain is back! Surley there cannot be any drops left in the sky and I have to walk to work in the morning because my car is in poorly car hospital-Taxi! Nipping into one of my favourite shops today, I just loved their new window display (as I usually do) and I had to take a picture, from the inside of course, it was raining!

Prince Alfred takes the spotlight

A funny one today

Poor little Alfie is blissfully unaware that mummys about to go back to work. Both the cats have got used to me being around pandering to their every need over Christmas, they have become pretty demanding to be fair and I'm quite looking forward to having a break from THEM! I've had to put a lock on the outside of the bathroom door because they jump up in the bath and the sink all the time trying to get water out of the taps and they make such a mess! Because I'm renovating my house the bathroom is a shell now, taken back to the plaster walls, bare floorboards, its very dusty and its an endless clean up job. Adding cat prints and hair, oh my word how much hair my cats shed is unbelievable, to the mix is just annoying. But saying all that Alfie is great fun and he loves to play especially with carrier bags, he does take a good picture...

Are You Watching Grandad?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not remotely proud of this picture, the composition is bad, the lighting is confusing and its out of focus. But the subject was charming!

No-one else was about in the Mead after the shops had closed as I wondered home. It was chilly, getting dark and the only sounds to be heard were the music that is piped into the bandstand and a little girl dancing and singing to her Grandad.

I sat down on one of the benches to watch.

She was running and dancing and singing 'twinkle twinkle little star' at the top of her voice all to enthusiastic encouragement.

 "are you watching Grandad?" she called out once in a while to make sure Grandad had only eyes for her. I sat there for half an hour remembering a time when the only audience you ever needed was your Grandad. Always one for rounding up local kids and putting on a show, I admired the little thing as she sang even louder when she began to draw a crowd and I just had to take a sneaky picture. Several pictures as it turned out as I just couldn't get the settings right, so this was the

best of a bad bunch.

To have moved closer and asked for a picture to get a better shot would have ruined the intimacy of the moment so I'm quite happy to have captured this snap which evokes a memory rather than being a good photograph. I'm sad that my daughter didn't have her Grandad for longer, he adored her when she was little and I wish for the millionth time that he hadn't got that damn desease. But he had many happy moments watching us all dance and sing for him during his life.

Bye Bye Christmas for another year

The Christmas decorations came down today, some friends were sad to take theirs down, others couldn't wait to get rid of the clutter. I don't really have any feelings either way. Its been a lovely Christmas, quiet but full of friends and I was a good mum this time. So a whole new year to play with and another new job to come- exciting!

Wichert Walls

Today was a good day, two good friends getting new jobs! My friend and I worked at the same photography studio for most of last year, both loosing our jobs before Christmas under not very nice circumstances and both feeling aggrieved and a little nervous for our futures. So the job hunting had begun and today we travelled down to the village that I was born in for my friends interview, a pure coincidence (or was it...) and a job that she really wanted. I had had an interview just before Christmas for another studio position but although I had been offered some hours I'd heard nothing more and was beginning to feel very twitchy! Well my friend received a phone call on our journey back to say that she had got the job and I had an e-mail waiting for me when I got home outlining start date, hours and rate. We certainly are two happy girlies today!
Now the village that I was born in (well I was actually born in a hospital but brought back to the village only hours old) is one of the most picturesque Anglo-Saxon villages in Buckinghamshire and is one of only three wychert villages nationally.Wychert describes a method of construction using a white clay mixed with straw to make walls and buildings, which are then thatched or topped with red clay tiles. It really has the most beautiful thatched cottages down its little winding lanes flanked by the areas distinctive walls and I could have taken the most gorgeous and endless photographs but it was my friends show and she is not a photographer. Sometimes you have to let the opportunities slide and I knew that throwing anything else into the mix today would stress her and I have vowed to re-visit alone with my camera another time.

The Grand Canyon

This picture is of an exhibition that I visited before Christmas by photographer Deborah Bird. I went back today for another look. She had been awarded a Bursery Grant to visit and photograph within the Grand Canyon. Deborah froze her paper sculptures in water and then photographed them as they melted with the natural light and the Canyon as a backdrop. I went to meet Deborah and she was very inspiring and very tired!

Take a look at her work on www.deborahbirdart.com

Venturing into Town

A Dismal Day

With my Christmas Chest infection beginning to ease, I decided to venture out and see what I could snap. I could tell from Facebook posts that people were going back to work and business' were re-opening today so I walked into town to see what interesting 'scenes' I could spot. Its only the second of January so the shops and the main street look very much as they did a few days ago at the height of the Christmas shopping madness with only the addition of sales posters giving a splash of red everywhere. Shoppers trudged about looking glum and drab and when I called in to say hello to my friends at the Art Cafe one of the customers commented that I wouldn't get a good picture on such a dismal day. I can usually spot a picture somewhere but I knew what he meant, no sun to cast interesting shadows, no frost or even snow on the ground to give some wintry sparkle. But when I came out of the cafe the street scene had been transformed by a gorgeous sunset. It just goes to show if you wait long enough a good picture will show up.

The town's Christmas decorations are still up and they're still switching on, even though all the merriment is over when it starts to get dark, which is nice. It had been raining non stop for about two weeks and although its stopped now the ground is soaked to bursting and the atmosphere is very damp so the pavements were glistening. Add a little interest in the foreground with a couple of A boards and hey presto!

Happy New Year!

Happy 2013 to you all! What a pretty poor job I did of photography and blogging last year then! Time to take action and FORCE myself back into it as I clearly have the creative willpower of...of...well of someone who has no creative staying power at all!
Last night I watched 'Julie & Julia' whilst sitting home alone on New Years Eve for the first time in my life, something I was dreading but that actually turned out rather well with this wonderful film. It is a story about an almost 30yr old office worker who really wants to be a writer. She decides to make herself complete a writing project by combining it with her love of cooking and she creates a blog on which she charts her progress in cooking all of her heroine Julia Child's recipes from her cookbook in one year- 365 days- a recipe and a blog a day.
She confesses that she starts things and never finishes them - sound familiar?

Really, come on me - New Years resolution - get back to blogging! My notebook, a new one for a new year, my portfolio books of photography work for sale and a game of patience all sitting on the sofa suddenly seemed a very fitting image to take to signify this resolution. I have also promised my daughter and two of my best friends so now I have put it out there that I have challenged myself, pride will not let me fail, now how the heck do I use this camera again????

Stoneleigh Abbey and the visitor that changed everything

It takes some talent, or not, to go to a house as stunning as Stoneleigh Abbey in Warwickshire and not take one single photograph to be proud of! To be fair as I have done very little photography this year, it will take a while to re-find my eye and I know to be patient. Today was the first step in getting back into the swing of it and having been invited onto the Jane Austen Tour at the Abbey I put my camera where my mouth was yesterday and took a few shots when the tour was finished.

My friends and I found the tour a little odd as it turned out that Miss Austen only set foot in the house for 10 days in her entire life but it was sold to us that these 10 days were the inspiration for Mansfield Park. It was amusing how enthusiastically the tour guide pressed the notion upon us, with rather overly hopeful links to chapters in the book, that it "must have been Stoneleigh"  Her joy that the handwritten manuscripts for Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Predudice would have been within Stoneleigh's walls during the stay was charming and we were directed to the many pieces of furniture that Jane would have seen as though the novelists gaze had turned them to pure gold. Such belief and delight held a mirror to me that I hadn't really felt that enthusiasm for anything much this year.

 Life is better, much more peaceful but I have felt numbed and dampened down, not in humour as I've laughed more in this last year than for several years previously but in the ability to be immersed in anything really deeply. I lost a lot in a year and its bound to take its toll, it'll take time but today was a huge step forward, I'll be trudging down country lanes in pursuit of that perfect shot again before we know it. The gate has been shut but its about to open again.

After the Storm

After the Storm was a Nick Butterworth story that I used to read to my children when they were little. Its a tale of Percy the Parkeeper and the animals that live in the park who are of course his friends. One day a huge storms hits the park, causing damage and disruption the the lives of the animals and good old Percy gives them support and love and rebuilds everything until all has settled again.

I have had my storm and am still in the aftermath, feeling 'very sniffy' like the fox in the story. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a mess, I have been very brave and steadfastly determined. I have committed to developing my house, worked hard at my job and spent lots of lovely time with friends and relations but I've done no photography or artwork at all.

My heart was broken at the choice that I had to make and somehow it has been unthinkable over these last 9 months to tap into 'emotional me' to be creative. Emotional me has been too broken.

A great artist, they say (whoever they are) is someone who has suffered and lets all of that pain and angst out into their work, creating pieces of much greater depth, feeling and brilliance. Well, like I told my counsellor, I haven't wanted to let it out, it can stay nicely packed away in the moving boxes that still stand in the corner of my bedroom thank you very much.

But after a conversation with the photographers and creative types at work yesterday I began to think that that was an awful shame, and a waste. I think, actually upon reflection I would like to try a little emotional creativity after all now. Slowly at first I think.....

The photograph above was of a storm that hit us a couple of months ago on what had been a lovely sunny day. The sky went very very black and all of a sudden the most enormous hailstorm and hurricane took over our world, denting all the cars in our town, smashing windows, conservatories, destroying roofs and flooding houses and shops. It was unlike anything anyone had seen before and my car still resembles a golf ball! Things have been put back to normal and now all that remains is story swapping and knowing chuckles whenever you see a fellow golf ball driver, life goes on and I feel very lucky that it does. I shouldn't waste my given talent, more is to come.

I own a home - at last!

I haven't taken any photographs since I last posted, not one. I haven't blogged, I haven't painted or done anything creative at all, unless you can call decorating creative. Today at long long last contracts have been exchanged and I own a home. Its taken so long! Ive been renting, in limbo just waiting, waiting, waiting. Its been tough a rollercoaster of lost deads and renegotiation and lost hope and refound hope and all the time dealing with heartbreak that I never expected to be so deep or last so long. But now a new beginning and a better life and a time for me to refind my love of photography and art. I work full time now at a photography studio and I am renovating a very dilapidated house but I will endeavour to squeeze in blogging time and photographs whenever I can.

a bit of photography time squeezed in

I had stopped blogging, I don't know why...

not enough hours in the day possibly but probably more that I am still living in a bit of a limbo land and am not settled into any sort of routine. Hopefully this will be the week I sign contracts on my new house and can start to move in. I am looking forward to having a desk and some 'me' time in which to set aside hours in the day to write. I have been a headless chicken for the last few weeks dividing my time between work, visiting my daughter, seeing friends and driving endlessly backwards and forwards between them and where I am living. There has been no time at all for photography. We had a whole lot of snow one day though and I made myself take some time to go out with my camera. Keep fingers crossed that this is the week my new life starts and I will be blogging away again I'm sure!