Leonie Wise, Where the Road Ends

we wonder if there is a place here for us,
if we will tell our stories to island visitors some years down the line,
this island gets under our skin, into our blood
little remnants of it coming home in our memories.

Leonie Wise, extract from where the road ends.

Beautiful people, beautiful photographs, beautiful words.

Here is just one of Leonie's exquisite  images from that particular post.

She has opened a conversation for me ...  we wonder if there is a place here for us.

I know that curiousity.  I have been looking for 'home' since forever.  I'll know it when I find it and in the meanwhile I'll enjoy where I am, like always.  I've spent the last 30 years moving towns, moving countries. 

Perhaps it will always be like this for me but perhaps one day I'll arrive ... and somehow I'll know that I'm home.

Tram 11, a poem by Herman de Coninck

TRAM 11

Tram comes. Tram goes. Going: a young Zairean
humming huskily with baby, plenty of time,
intimate with each other, in public
yet still alone. The tram looks on.

Tram comes: a Moroccan woman tries to quiet
her whining little tatty boy. The more she shakes him,
the more syllables fall from him.
Until an Antwerp woman's ta-ta-ta

brings him to himself. And to all of us.
Ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling through the town.
Public transport civilizes us, makes us festive,
maintains our confusion.
Herman de Coninck
Translated to English by Cedric Barfoot and Sonny Williams.

Way back in 2007, that was me reading Herman de Coninck's poem on stage in front of more than a few people. 

Little Bushman, Peaceful Man - with the NZ Symphony Orchestra.

"Though some, in darkness of heart, seeing their land ravished, might wish to take arms and kill the aggressors, I say it must not be. Let not the Pakehas think to succeed by reason of their guns ... I want not war, but they do. The flashes of their guns have singed our eyelashes, and yet they say they do not want war ... The government come not hither to reason, but go to out-of-the-way places. They work secretly, but I speak in public so that all may hear, " Te Whiti-o-Rongomai III told his people in March 1880.

You can read more of the man who was rumoured to have influenced Ghandi in his peaceful resistance.  Tim Finn and the Herbs sang about Te Whiti too.

Regarding the music clip at the end of this post,  Mark Bell asks the question of Little Bushman, regarding the 2009 collaboration between Little Bushman, composer/arranger Psathas and the NZ Symphony Orchestra – did he actually manage to enjoy the experience given the enormity and pressure of such an undertaking?

His reply, over on Mark's interview, made me laugh.

I am loving all this digging around and finding New Zealand music and movies I've missed.

The Truth About Me ...

Raf, Gert and I were talking of flashes and cameras at the kitchen table last night and there I was, relaxing.

It makes me laugh to confess that I have become a woman best-suited to low-light, layers and filters.

Writing, Football, and Photography

Raf came to dinner last night, asking if he might use my camera flash while he was over.  He was curious about the process of using the master/slave set-up on his camera. Neither of us had attempted it before and it was the best fun I had had in a while.  More to follow as I experiment with that in the months ahead as it turns out the Gert's Metz flash is able to make a wireless connection with my Canon flash. 

The photograph following was taken when Raf put down his beautiful Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, with its battery pack attached and picked up the smaller Canon EOS 550D, laughing over how to hold it in his big hands.  I liked how it looked and took a series of images with my beloved Canon EOS 5D MkII.

It was a lovely evening.  Thank you, Raf, for opening the door into this new way of working with light.

Pa Boys, a New Zealand Movie by Himiona Grace

There's a new New Zealand movie due out this February and I want to see it.  I found the song below and loved it. The movie is The Pa Boys.

I wandered off and discovered this interview with the man behind it all, Himiona Grace - ‎director, writer, photographer and musician too. 

I desperately want to see it but I guess I'm waiting until it comes out on DVD. 

Listening to Himiona's story unfold brought back memories of a weekend spent at a writing workshop on Stewart Island with Himiona's mother, one of New Zealand's best writers, Patricia Grace.  And then he's married to New Zealand writer Briar Grace-Smith.  Someone I missed the arrival of by virtue of losing track of New Zealand's arts scene.  He loved the anonimity of this ... he was either Patricia Grace's son or Briar Grace-Smith's husband.  Meanwhile, he's quietly got on and created something marvelous.  Or so it seems.