I've been playing it all afternoon. Fascinated by LP's voice, the music, the lyrics ...
Tram-Napping and Other Things ...
As I write this, the predicted snow is beginning to fall ... sigh. We were all so hopeful when the temperature cranked up to 16-18 celsius last week. So hopeful that Spring had arrived. The current prediction is for up to 10cms of snow overnight. I hope that they are so wrong and that it's less.
Meanwhile I've been holed up at my desk for weeks on end, or so it seems. I have had all the photographs from Flanders Fields to process and get back into the world as quickly as possible for any publications that might have wanted them. I had the wedding shoot too. They are in-process and almost done.
One of the more difficult things about being the photographer is that your work can go on long after the event, long after those who did their work on the day ... in the moment, are finished. It's a strange and lonely job sometimes, with 80-90% of the work happening after the event, in some lonely room somewhere.
However the adventures are grand. And I'm pleased with the results. There should be more than 200 wedding photographs by the time I'm finished. Photographs that tell the story of a beautiful wedding here in Belgium.
Flanders Fields ... well, that's always about the people I find there. Old friends, new acquaintances, and some delightful adventures.
I'm hungry to travel again but I am making myself sit still until I am organised here. I have spent these grey freezing cold winter weeks organising my working life, exploring new directions, especially writing again.
Old friends have appeared in my inbox and there was a whole lot of delight over the idea that Murray might pop over to visit. Murray from those 4 years back when I lived on the airforce base in New Zealand.
One of my oldest friends arrives later in June and that will be grand. It's been a long time since I've seen him. And there's a wedding to photograph in France in August ... the photography workshop in Italy too. The last being the pièce de résistance perhaps.
My life seems like a big old complicated tapestry. I've been been woken at 5.15am these last few weeks, as my daughter wakes to go out to work. Then I'm up and out the door, catching trams to get little Miss 8 to school on the other side of the city Tuesday till Friday. It's a 2-hour round trip and definitely hasn't helped with the winter blues.
Rinse and repeat, as I'm on pick-up duty Monday to Wednesday. I'm dragging myself around by Wednesday, dreaming of open-roads and long journeys as I try not to fall asleep on the tram home.
I have been reading when not tram-napping. Superb books ... two fictions based around actual lives: The Truth About Lou by Angela von der Lippe and Seducing Ingrid Bergman by Chris Greenhalgh.
Lou Salome seems to be a fascinating creature who first came to my attention in Irvin D. Yalom's book When Nietzsche Wept. I am now pursuing Lou via various means. The second book is about Robert Capa's affair with Bergman. I have a few books on him so this dip into a kind of fact-based fiction is delicious.
And I picked up the second book by BBC journalist, Frank Gardener. The first, Blood and Sand, was a fascinating read.
Still to come is my big book review of True Vines, written by the multi-talented Diana Strinati Baur. A delicious novel that came with me across the world when I flew home to New Zealand. The same Diana I'm putting the Your Beautiful Truth Retreat with in August in Italy.
I love books ... rereading the best again and again over the years. I've had Isabel Allende's My Invented Country tucked away in my handbag for emergencies. It's small and packed with wise words.
And that's me lately. Photography, reading, tram-riding, houseworking, winter me.
The image: a tray of champagne that floated past me at the recent wedding. Random but beautiful is my idea of it.
Photography & Story-Telling Workshop, Italy
'When we (Di and Diana) initially sat down to talk about what kind of experience we wanted to create, we were clear and in agreement on almost everything. First we wanted this to be a very small and private women’s event. It was important to us that it take place in beauty and peace. We thought it should be in a place we had to ourselves, so that we could just be ourselves. We wanted good food, wine, scenery, comfort, the potential for creativity, and relaxation.
But more than anything, we wanted to create a space that would encourage woman to tell their stories – through photos, art and words – and to use our combined experience as guides, mentors and artists to provide a mirror to each woman’s intrinsic beauty.'
You can read more about the retreat Diana Baur and I have put together over on our new website ... Your Beautiful Retreats.com
We are so deeply excited by the week we have planned. We are offering 4 places, and two are already gone. If you would like to join us in Italy, let me know.
You can wander through the location of our retreat over on Diana's B&B website ... Baur B&B and read the reviews Diana and her husband have received here.
A Powerful Truth - The Art of Asking, Amanda Palmer
And so worth a few minutes out of your day.
Don't make people pay for music, says Amanda Palmer: Let them. In a passionate talk that begins in her days as a street performer, she examines the new relationship between artist and fan.
Out on Flanders Fields ...
And the struggle to return to Belgium continues ...
Belgians are all surprised by, and talking of, the long grey sunless winter continuing on into February.
Did I mention ... no sun, tons of greyness, and loads of pollution as all of Europe passes by us on our highways?
Anyway I've been busy. I photographed the most delicious Belgian wedding on Saturday. Truly lovely people and I hope to get permission to post some of those images soon but Sunday and Monday ... Oh My!
I was back out on Flanders Fields attending the reburial of a WW1 soldier from New Zealand ... he was recently discovered and although they did all that they could, and came close, they were unable to identify him for sure.
But where to begin because it was about so much more ...
Saturday night, just after the wedding, there I was at Central Station in Antwerp waiting for the talented London-based New Zealand, soprano Carleen Ebbs. Gert and I spent a enjoyable evening with her before Martin, from the blog Messines 1917 picked us up, early Sunday morning. We were heading off to Flanders Fields, through snow, to participate in the reburial of the New Zealand world war one soldier.
The moment was captured by Belgian television (I am there at around 8 seconds, completely oblivious to the cameraman, as I planned my next shot). New Zealand television was there too. I only appear in the Belgian clip and had to laugh, as I had no idea I was being filmed but do have a photograph of the cameraman filming me ... I discovered it today. I was photographing someone near him.
But first there was Sunday, the day before the reburial. Martin OConnor and I went wandering with some New Zealanders based in London.
It felt like a time of privilege as we were introduced to a little Maori history and protocol and I was allowed to photograph this man as he made his way through the cemeteries.
Anyway, below is a random series of photographs taken over those two days ...
Tot later!
Your Beautiful Truth Retreat, Italy
Planning and developing has kept me quiet here, as well as playing tag with exhaustion and flu the rest of the time.
And so to announce, with much pleasure, the first Your Beautiful Truth Retreat, in partnership with the extremely talented and inspirational Diana Baur.
Come take a peek ...
