Climbing back into a kind of beauty ...

Leaving facebook has taken me out of the news-loop. I know some interesting people over there.  There were the real life friends and the faraway friends, the new friends too but there were also the journalists and professors and peace activists.

I didn't want to sleep in life.  I had done that in New Zealand, where discussions about the situation in the Middle East and the history of oil and colonisation didn't really happen in my worlds.  Even later, at university, I opted to wander between literature and anthropology. Always seeking a kind of beauty as opposed to cold hard facts and sciences.

I'm going wandering next week.  Stepping out of this everyday city life and into another kind of life.  One that will involve living out in the country, eating freshly-laid eggs, and picking vegetables from the garden.

Did I tell you, I've been dabbling with becoming vegetarian.  I'm liking it so far, although still only dabbling.

And out there, in the peace of the countryside, I'm planning on writing like I haven't written since I reached 27,000 words in a novel back when I lived on that airforce base in New Zealand.

I'm thinking of early mornings, with coffee. out on the verandah.  The kind of early mornings where I get to see sunrises outside in a good way again.  And tasty coffee ... I'm packing the Nespresso machine because kidnapping a barista would just be rude, and taking their high quality coffee machine would be theft. 

And everything I have on Genova is going in too.

Meanwhile I've been playing in Photoshop, with one of my favourite Istanbul photographs.  Beginning again ...

Trust and Respect

I have just completed post-processing the 50th wedding anniversary photographs and, yet again, I realise just how much people trust me with themselves ... whether they realise it at the time or not.

I ended up with almost 220 images that told the story of a couple who have been married for 50 years, of their son, extended family, and their friends.

I was pleased with the results but there was one more job that had to be done.  One of the comments most made about my style of documentary photography is that people forget I am there ... that I disappear and, therefore, they are often stunned by the results ... by the ways I captured them or their event.

That final job is going through the results and taking out those images that reveal too much.  An emotion, a conversation, a sadness. 

It's done.  My new tally is 197. 

Now ... to show them.

Long ago, in a far-away land ...

Miss 8 and I have been gadding about lately ... ignoring the fact that we have had no weather that resembles summer weather and just getting on with the summer holiday thing.

Sunday was a big day.  I was off on a 24 hour, more or less, documentary-style family photo-shoot.  She was coming as my assistant, although she was soon distracted by her new best friend, as per the picture below.

The family were located in a big old house way out in the Belgian countryside.  It rained so hard, on Sunday, and the temperature dropped so low that ... the fire was lit.  Now tell me, is there any sweeter smell than a wood-burning fire?

No, I don't think so either.

There I was, out in the middle of nowhere, taking a gazillion photographs of a most beautiful family, absolutely delighting in all those delicious scents and events that reminded me of long ago, in a far-away land ...

Just a little busy ...

Just as I was getting used to the house being empty ... it filled up again.

Miss 8 was offered the chance to come back from Germany, with Mimi, and we all agreed it would be a grand idea.  Then Gert's children arrived too, 2 days into that visit, and we had dinner guests last night.

I had been mad-busy processing a beautiful series of yoga photographs for a friend.  Meanwhile Anna and I contine to fine-tune the itinerary plans for the 2 and 5-day photography and video workshops for women in Genova, Italy.

Suddenly life flipped again, and became all about cooking and cleaning, entertaining, expeditions, and long periods of reading Harry Potter aloud in the evenings.  Sahara and I have been retiring upstairs to read after dinner ... we're up to Book 4 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.  I had never read the books or viewed the movies and so, we're both having fun. 

Our book-reading sessions are often interspersed with long conversations about all kinds of things.  Little Miss 8 is a wise woman indeed.

There has been a juggling act going on with the laundry and getting it dry around a multitude of thunderstorms and torrential downpours ... summer in Belgium has been 'interesting' so far, although Gert's garden is thriving.

This weekend continues with busy.  Gert's kids leave but I'm photographing the 50th wedding anniversary of a friend's parents, and then there's this fabulous documentary photography experiment coming up.  The one where I move in with the family for 24 hours and create a slice of life family portrait ... capturing formal through into informal moments.  The children at play, bedtime stories and breakfast.  Dinner, with everyone staying there at the moment, and the quiet times too. 

It's exactly the kind of photography I adore and I'm so looking forward into exploring the feasibility of offering people this very intimate kind of documentation of their family life.

And then we have been gifted the use of a rather special house later in summer and it is there that I hope to finish up work on THE BOOK.  Writing is often why I disappear to Genova simply because I fall off the world and into my writing, when I write.  It's so often not an option here ...

And that's how it is here at the moment.

A Still Life ...

We realised, counting back, that it has been 7 weekends since we had no plans, nothing scheduled, no one staying over ...

This weekend it's just Gert and I, and here we are, quietly working away at projects that need completed as soon as possible, eating what we feel like when we feel like it, and enjoying the simplicity of this sunny Saturday in Belgium.

I finally had time to write over on the Beautiful Liguria blog, time to work through those May photographs taken in Genova, time to update my blog, time to wash winter blankets ... you know? All that stuff we lose in the rush of everyday life ... lose to poor planning, and into that hole recently described as The 'Busy' Trap.

Last week I took some time to work through all of my notes, research and general paperwork, then carried on, sorting through my files of everything else too.  I rediscovered my desk top.  I made time to work out how to use the drawers on this now old 'new' desk.

Gert finished creating our new photography e-course.  I worked with Anna on the itinerary for the photography workshops in Genova.  A parcel of 'stuff' has headed for Germany where Miss 8 now lives with Ms 25 and the Prince of Nintendo (as we may have taken to calling Ollie.  Miss 8 and I.) 

There have been skype sessions where I have read Harry Potter  and the Goblet of Fire to her, and skype sessions where she writes to me in English - my little Dutch-speaking, about to learn German, Kiwi-born buddy.

There have been birthdays to remember, new apartments to view with friends who are moving, and a couple of long photography sessions at a yoga studio.  The last being so interesting because, until now, the closest I came to that kind of photography where the subjects didn't complain was the photography of sculpture.

And so, in finally exploring my folders of photographs from Genova, I found this still life ...