Late in

It's past 11.15pm and I'm still awake. I should be in bed, warm under the quilt and doona (yes, I layer them) and giving myself to the sweet oblivion of sleep. Instead, I was on phlow for longer than usual and am now rather alert and typing away at this blog. Even the cats have gone to sleep.

There is a slight delay in my going part-time at work; initially planned to kick off in August, it has now been delayed until mid-Aug as a colleague is away on 2 months leave. What this means is that I will need to be more organised with Chaos and Drama as I will have even less time in the lead up to prepare and organise the show. It is a bit disappointing, but I guess it means a bit more money in the bank as I will be full time for a couple of extra weeks.

I've been running through selections (editing) for Chaos and Drama and feeling very flat about a number of the images. I'm starting to wonder if I need to revisit the earlier sets of images to find a body of photographs for the book.

The nights have been very cold. 4C tonight. Brrr... even the house is cold.

Alright, off to bed now...

The rains

After a hectic Saturday, the rains came on Sunday, effectively restricting me to the house so I could do little more than watch DVDs, drink cups of tea, coffee, wine and port, and enjoy some much-needed relaxation. Ahhh... if only weekends were more like this instead of the usual rigmarole of chores, meetings and other commitments.

I installed "Oarsome" at the Wild Fig Cafe today - and it looks pretty good if I say so myself. I was disappointed that the framers had made a mistake and allowed only a 5 cm mat per edge instead of 10 cm per edge as I asked... but little I could do about it as I needed it for today. Grrrr...

Oarsome (2008) - Digital print on fine art cotton rag

Notice the fairly upbeat tone of this blog post. Amazing what having a day of doing absolutely nothing can do to life one's spirits! I rather miss those days.

Lost willingness

I feel as if I am at the tail end of my career.. whatever that might be. I dropped in to Jac and Dave's this evening with a copy of the SoB book for Jac, and we had a chat about not being motivated or stimulated by our work. She coined the phrase: "Lost our willingness to work," which I think is true - but to qualify this, I would say that I have lost my willingness to work on things which do not interest or stimulate me.

I think this is the reason why I have been in this strangely detached frame of mind of late - a fairly depressed feeling of biding time until something grand happens. Or waiting for the opportunity for this grand thing to happen. I feel as if I am unable to progress with my plans for this thing whilst working full time and having 9 hours a day committed to the job. And I'm starting to resent this... even if my 8-4.30pm job does pay the bills and provide me with a disposable income.

I had thought before that if I did not think about it - if I stopped reflecting and obsessing about it - that it would go away. That I could think myself out of this feeling. It usually works - when I follow the principles which I have learned and taught myself - but this one feels different. It won't go away - this need to want time to be creative. So it must be bigger than I thought, and if it's this big, I should acknowledge and act on it.

Which I have, with the plan to move to part time work. I will just have to wait until August.

Playing catch up

I've decided to kick start this blog, simply because I find myself with a need to document my thoughts. Funny that I ran a Livejournal blog for the better part of two years, made the shift to Blogger for the easier-to-use interface, and then let it lie untouched for so long.

On Saturday, I booked The Cracked Gallery for three weeks in September-October -- for a showing of Chaos and Drama. Last night, I began selecting and processing images: at the moment, only happy with a handful of images but I'm hopeful that this will grow as I progress with the editing process. One image surprised me - a photograph of a visitor to the Archaeological Museum in Iraklio (Crete). I'd selected it because I thought there was merit in the moment captured, but it wasn't until it had been processed that I saw the power in that moment. It does bring to bear the old photography adage which Ansel Adams is purported to have coined about film negatives vs the finished product.

On Friday, I spoke with work about going part time and will commence at 50% in August. Actual work days have yet to be confirmed but I made it clear that I would need whole days off -- as they had initially wanted me to do 5 x 1/2 days in the week. Not an option if I am to devote time to my photography. But it's a tremendous relief to know that soon I will have time of my own, and the trick is to teach myself that this 50% time does not have to be applied 100% to my photography - that it's ok to take time to breathe, unwind, relax, observe, experience, to live. The other trick is to be able to manage my spending and to budget for 50% of my usual salary. :-)

The PCP AGM will soon be on again. I sent in my membership renewal yesterday and marked myself down as interested in volunteering. I think that with more time, I should get more involved in the community - via FotoFreo and the PCP as a volunteer. Perhaps a day a month to do gallery sitting for starters.

On Friday morning, the skies clear and filled with the shimmering blue light of the sun just risen, I went to Port Beach to catch up with Sal. We took some photographs - I caught a trio of swimmers coming out of the ocean and chatted with one of them. I had thought he was one of the winter swimming Polar Bears, but he's just regular morning swimmer. He mentioned that the light changes daily across the view towards the pines at Cottesloe - a local version of what the Roeuen Cathedral was to Monet. It is sweet sweet country and how strange that, in photographing it, I tend to reduce it to an equation of quality of light, angle of view and framing; if only I could see without the limitations these have now brought to the way I see.


A couple of days ago, I received contact via Flickr from a fella by the name of Max Armstrong offering to pose for my fallen luchadore Dare to Bare II idea. It turned out that Dale H had referred him to me as he had contacted Dale first but Dale wasn't looking for a male model. Being of naturally suspicious nature, especially about th Internet, I had to suss Armstrong out first but he seems authentic, so we've teed up a meet on Saturday morning to discuss the shoot and to address any questions he has.

Finally, I have signed up with Plurk. For now, it seems to be Twitter on a Timeline. I'm not blown away, nor can I see any value in its use. Things may change but I'm not hopeful that they will for me... I just don't seem to connect with connectivity. :-)