Domesticali

The soothing powers of green

Lately, I'm sick of the sound of my own voice. Moaning on about my first world issues. Busy, overstretched, petty irritations. It's all such minor stuff.

Nothing that will have left the slightest ripple a few years from now. It's good to step away from all of it. To reframe and refocus on higher things.

I've always had a great deal of admiration for people with a grand plan. Something on a large scale, requiring vision and tenacity. Beautiful gardens are a prime example. To take a piece of bare earth and have a vision of it so many years from now that it is worth investing in the saplings which will one day be the pefect pleached hornbeams, framing a game of boules.

To keep in mind, through the daily grind of weeding and watering, the vista of your imagination.

But still, in the midst of achieving the master plan, to take pleasure in the small details and the happenstance beauty.

It was a cold day yesterday, drizzly, with that low cloud and strange milky light we do so well in Britain. Not really vintage garden photography weather. But still, the soul of Hidcote shone through.

It was good to walk and chat and soak in the green.

Perhaps my normal voice might even be back. The one which doesn't whinge and whine.

Thank you, Sue - a good suggestion. A green day was the perfect tonic.

April Collage

And finally, the sunshine arrived. The sap is rising and everything is feeling bright and new and full of promise.

Somehow, having to wait for it has made this Spring all the sweeter.

The Seaside

Don't want you to think we spend all our time gadding about making merry. But we've been off to the seaside visiting my folks. When we got here it was frrreeezing, with a howling wind and sleet falling. Hiding inside weather, for sure. But today, we awoke to the sun shining and positively balmy weather compared to that of late. Time to grab the camera and head out to capture some of it, in case it is a short lived interlude.

Hope you caught a few rays and made the most of them.

March Mosaic

With a little hint as to why the last week has been quiet here...

March - you held an awful lot of fun!

Looking for photographers

You can guess a lot about a person from the pictures they take. Their passions, their humour, their lifestyle. It's all captured there in those digital images.

And I seem to have bred a couple of photographers myself - I love finding their shots hidden on my SD card or lurking on my phone. The eldest has decided to take part in his own photo-a-day challenge on Instagram. I won't share his details with you, if you don't mind - not sure you need that much insight into the inner workings of my on-the-cusp-of-teenagehood son! But I really am pleased that they have the chance to experience the pleasure of capturing their lives through a lens.

But I'm looking for some more photographers - to help with Round 2 of The Compound Word Project. Yes, it's coming head over here for details if you're interested.

And if you flick through your digital album, tell me what your pictures are saying about you.

January Mosaic

I've been a long time admirer of the samplers that Sue makes. Whenever she posts a new one, I think to myself 'I should do that'. And this month, I actually did it. And lo,  January came out with more colour than I had expected. But I'm still relieved it's February tomorrow.

Snow frolics

This has been a weekend for revelling in the white stuff. What had been, in the diary, a jumbled expanse of commitments, suddenly transformed into a blank canvas. Such is the magic of snow.

Don't laugh at my movie making skills - I had to get Mark to help me a little bit (filming the live action downhill sections, as well as a teeny bit of technical knowhow). But somehow, in spite of my ineptitude, the finished thing is somehow so much more than the sum of its parts.

And I am seriously contemplating a little Creating Time Capsules course. These days, like the snow, pass so quickly. Somehow it feels important to capture them.

 

 

Where I stood 2012

Almost time to say farewell to the old year. Thirteen is my lucky number - can't wait to see what this coming year has in store.

Having just spent an age in the unruly archives making this mosaic, I'm nominating 'improve photo deleting/tagging/uploading/archiving' as a resolution priority.

Stuffed

Safe to say, I would make a terrible wedding photographer. Because I am very bad indeed at taking pictures of the main event. So much pressure to sum up all that Christmas entails in a visual checklist - the bird, the table, the tree, assembled family, opening presents...

But in the plethora of obvious photo opportunities, it's the little moments round the margins that catch my eye.

In the quiet minutes when there is space to really look.

Those are the things I have come to enjoy photographing the best. Even on the days stuffed full of all things festive, the crispy edges can be the tastiest bit.

Shortages

There's been some alarming rumblings about a pumpkin shortage this year. Bad weather, mumble mumble, too cold, mutter, they don't like it wet sort of talk. 

But that's not why I got my little ornamental gourds early - they are just so cheerful on the shelves outside the back door, that I like to have them there for as long as possible.

Though when I compare them to the shelves of years gone by, there seem to be fewer mini-pumpkin types. Perhaps the stories are true after all.

 

(the same shelves in 2009)

Actually, the shape of the pumpkins aren't the only thing I notice about these photos. It's the pictures themselves. DSLR verus lazy phone Instagram shot - I feel ashamed of my efforts of late. 

There's no real reason behind not picking up my proper camera. No excuse for failing to make the effort to think about how to make a photograph look more interesting. But somehow it has happened. And when I see the results I feel a little bit sad. 

Clearly, there's a photography mojo shortage round these parts. Must do better.

 

Blue - Summer Colour Week

Sports Day today. Blue is my boys' house colour.

The 2012 Victor Ludorum.

That's one proud boy. I think he earned his moment.

You know, normally I feel vaguely uncomfortable if my children are singled out in some way. Always wary of  tall poppy syndrome and the potential for backlash. Usually, if you point out the acomplishments of one of my own, I'll find a way of letting you know that they have feet of clay. But just for today, when people said how well he'd done, I stopped at 'thank you'.

Red - Summer Colour Week

Giffords Circus has become synonymous with summer in Oxfordshire for us.

A slightly muddy village green, the big top, painted wagons and the mechanical organ. Happy times.

Pink - Summer Colour Week

Summer - the days might be long.

But somehow they manage to pass so quickly.

In a little over a week, my firstborn reaches the end of primary school. 

Deep denial seems the only appropriate response.

Green - Summer Colour Week

It's all well and good lazing about in the grass, if you have the chance.

Some of us have had a rather more frantic day supervising the 'on road' portion of cycle proficiency.

It was, quite frankly, an eye opener.

Who knew your personality was expressed in the way you ride a bike?

I was tasked, at one point, to take photos.

The girls studiously ignored me and concentrated on their road positioning.

The boys yelled 'Hi Ali', pulled funny faces and rode with no hands on the handlebars.

God help us when it's time for them to learn to drive.

 

Summer Colour Week

A quick mention that this coming week marks Poppytalk's Summer Colours 2012. Full details are here, but in brief, a week of celebrating the hues of summer with your camera.

The schedule is as follows:
June 25, Monday - Green
June 26, Tuesday - Yellow
June 27, Wednesday - Pink
June 28, Thursday -Red
June 29, Friday - Blue

And what do you mean, 'Where's the grey?', you cynical Brits.

Who's in?

# from where i stand

In all the striving that this time of year brings - to be better, to be thinner, to get fit, to eat more healthily, to keep a more organized house - one important kernel of truth always seems to get missed.

Perhaps the easiest way to be happy is to find a way to appreciate the present, as it stands.

Seems I have aquired the habit of a photo a day, but I have found a new way of framing them. And a flickr group #from where i stand to play along with.

Anyone else joining in?

Rhythms

As a person who has always been very excited by new things, it shocks me to be confronted with evidence of what a creature of habit I truly am. 

My kitchen table - June 17th and June 12th, a year apart.

I may never have realized, had it not been for blogging.

This post has sat on my screen all weekend. The idea being that seeing it there might trigger a suitable conclusion to my thoughts. But one has yet to arrive.

So many of us seem a bit ho-hum about writing our blogs of late. It's not new any more. We're not striving to connect with our tribe. We're in our groove. Or rut, depending on how you think of it.

There seems to have been an exodus of late (to the lure of Twitter, perhaps). But for me, there has always been, in the midst of the quest for the novel, a background comfort in the familiarity of routine. And so it continues.

 

Five months

This year, I really wanted to go for the Project 365 properly. Five months completed- that went fast. Though not quite as fast as the video suggests. It's made with Pummelvision - addictive, I tell you.

I am always so pleased later when I look back at the little capture of days. Even if some of them are a shot of the final moments before sleep, because the day hasn't seemed too photo worthy. It's not the quality of the photographs, it's the capturing of a phase.

When I was in my twenties, I refused to own a camera. It seemed that on many days, taking pictures would put me one step removed from really experiencing what was going on around me. Funny, because now I wonder if you can only really understand the significance of what you've experienced when you look back on it.

Or perhaps that's just age talking.

Last day of January

And first completed month of my project 365 for this year.

Though not technically accomplished, or perhaps remotely interesting to anyone but me, I do find these little snippets of captured life pleasing. And I see that at least one aim for this year (having more fresh flowers in the house) seems to be working out.

Looking backwards

This part of the year often seems to give rise to gentle reflection of the year gone by. Highlights, achievements, changes. But oddly, when I look back through my archive of 365 photos for this year, they show none of those things. They are full of the minutiae of life and all the more valuable for that.

I did toy with loftier goals for the year to come - a photo a day based on The Daily Shoot's photo prompts.  But on reflection, I rather like the random nature of what I captured each day. 

2011 will mark the fourth year of taking on the challenge (with varying degrees of success) but seems to still have value. 

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. (Aristotole)

And if you want to fall in love with the way photographs capture life, you need to visit Pummelvision and make a movie of your entire photostream. In their words, it's like watching your life flash in front of your eyes. Bizarrely captivating.

A splash of colour

When I read Emma's post about cheering ourselves though the dark months with a colourful little project, I knew joining in would be pleasureable.

Today, I feel it doubly. Because the clocks have changed and even by 4 o'clock the light had flattened out, leaving everything slightly muted. Which is how winter always seems, to me. 

Sometimes, it feels right to embrace that - to hunker down and be content with the glow of candles and tungsten light (but never low energy bulbs, which I will loathe until my final breath).

But some days, winter and it's flat greyness makes me want to scream and on those days, perhaps a blast of colour is just the ticket.

C'mon winter - you don't scare us.

Emma's got all the details if you feel like joining in too.

Photo ownership

Keeping an eye on your stats can be lucrative, it seems. It's something I try to do, coached principally by Alice, who is always keen to ensure that blog visitors haven't arrived as a result of unsavoury searches. I take her point, and I do try to check, periodically, which is how I recently stumbled across something.

One of my photos had been getting a lot of hits - when I investigated, it turned out to be a particularly seasonal one, which topped the Google Image Search results for a specific keyword. I was feeling happy - after all, don't people pay good money to make it to the front of the google queue? But a few images on, was a photo that looked suspiciously like mine, only cropped slightly tighter.

Now photo 'borrowing' is, in my opinion, a fact of blog life. Sometimes, people ask and I am always happy to say yes and hugely flattered that they want to use one of my pictures. Sometimes they don't ask, but link back to me which isn't too bad. Once, I did find that someone had swiped my photo and put their watermark on it, which did prompt a rather irritable comment from me, but they had the good grace to apologize and set matters straight. The fact of the matter is, by and large these people are individuals like me - they are just carving out their own little nests in blogland and they mean no harm. They aren't profiting by using my photos, they just like them and I am pleased they do.

But the photo I found was different. Because it had been swiped by a very well known and eminently respectable national magazine. They had used it to illustrate an editorial piece, which had nothing to do with me or my blog and carried no reference to them. The thing that got me was that plastered all over their website were terms and conditions for licensing their photographs. But it seems respect for copyright was only a one way street.

So I contacted them. And I have to say, they were very apologetic and suggested I send them an invoice. And that, is how I came to sell my first photograph.

And it felt really, really good.

But I am really curious about your attitudes to image 'borrowing'. Does it bother you? Do you do anything to guard against it? Are you rushing off this moment to check your stats?

Silver

Never before have I taken so many photographs and still failed to come up with one that captures the subject in question. I am ready to put down my camera forever. So, my metallic silver bathroom.... it looks sort of like this:

But sort of not. If you really want to know how it looks, you'll all just have to come over and take a pee.  But I do love it.

My eggs hit the big time

No, this is not some daytime telly fertility related scandal piece.  The eggs in question are these and they (or rather my photo of them) made it onto Radio 4's The Food Programme.

I know, it's a little sad to be excited. Some bloggers get book deals, I get my photograph on the radio. And yes, I realize how odd that sounds. But hey, I'm proud.

And just for my Mum, who is iplayerly challenged, the glorious egg moment comes about 21 mins into the programme which is here for the next 7 days.

Kew outing

The boys and I headed off to Kew Gardens this half-term. It's one of those places I have been meaning to take them for ages, but somehow have never gotten round to. Does that happen to you too? Somehow, the precious weekend time often seems to get swallowed up with the odd errand or a birthday party or a sports event or guests and there are so many things I mean to do, but there never seems to be the perfect time slot.

The best way to actually get them in the diary as a firm fixture seems to be external stimulus. In this case, an invitation for a Press Day focused on Kids at Kew. Well, it would have been rude not to, wouldn't it? Even if the early morning start was slightly against the half term grain, the gorgeous day more than made up for it.

And being chauffeured around and shown all the best bits that Kew has to offer was a wonderful treat. We looked up

and down

and found animals amongst the trees

and even a couple of bloggers out in the wild... how's that for an incredible co-incidence?

 

We climbed 18 metres up into the canopy (that's the Xstrata Treetop Walkway - undeniable highlight of the visit for the boys).

and looked down at the incredible beauty of the glasshouses

There were  moments for contemplation

and relaxation

letting off steam

and plenty of laughter.

Kew have made huge efforts to make a day out there fun for kids, with plenty to keep them happy and entertained and much to absorb.

And as you may have gathered, I took rather a lot of photographs. Though none as accomplished as the ones which we saw at the IGPOTY exhibition (that's International Garden Photographer of the Year to you and I) which is on at Kew until September.

Incredibly inspiring. In more than one way - firstly, naturally, to take pictures. But secondly, to make the most of every opportunity to see and enjoy the things that are on our 'must do sometime' lists.

People and possibilities - strikes me as a pretty good mantra for our summer.

Pictures of dinner

The radio has been on a lot this weekend. Partly,  in order to distract myself as I scrubbed the kitchen. Which is what I was doing when a very appropriate piece of programming was aired. Radio 4 was talking about food photography - you can hear it here for the next 7 days.

One of my incentives in cleaning the kitchen is the possibility that I may want to take some photographs in there. Probably of food. Or someone eating it.

But it does seem a little bizarre, when you really examine it -  taking pictures of your dinner. Why do we do it?

For me, the pictures of food are one way of documenting the passage of  life. A way to celebrate the million little things we do for our families. One of the perks of a job which comes without paycheque or accolades, but is  fulfilling, if we only take a moment to enjoy our achievements from time to time.

When I look through my archives, my foodie pictures are rather biassed towards baking. Possibly, because I am too greedy and impatient to eat the hot food before it goes cold, to take the time to photograph it.

But I am pleased that I do take the time to record the odd foodie moment. Just to see that sometimes do I produce something tangible with my days. Even if compiling the mosaic just really makes me want a cupcake right this minute.

Reflections

It's Coffee Lady's fault. She wrote the perfect post about middle aged dressing - perfect in that it was funny,  but contained a kernel of truth. As evidenced by the confessional contents of her comment box.

She got me thinking about her project of taking a picture of what she's wearing every day. Well, more than thinking, if truth be told. She made me leap for my camera and rush to my slightly mucky mirror.

I was going to keep my little investigation private, but then I trust you not to be mean and laugh at me don't I?  So before you look I need to make a number of things clear.

1. This isn't one of those exercises where some cute girlie shows off how gorgeous they look in their adorable outfits. It's more an effort to show myself how hideous I can look when I pay no attention to how I am dressed. As evidenced by the first two outfits which came from the style camp of 'pile on as many of the half-dirty clothes from the bedroom chair as you can manage, while still retain ing the ability to move your arms and legs'.
2. It has been extremely cold and snowy this week (necessitating a great many layers)
3. I do own more footwear than a single pair of Crocs. But I don't wear shoes in the house and I use my Crocs as slippers.
4. I do also own more than one pair of trousers. But these are warm, allow me to wear leggings underneath when needed and are narrow enough to be tucked into my wellies.

I'm interested to see where this takes me. But I can't face the confessional nature of doing it in public here.

I've got a little private part of Flickr all sectioned off. Unless of course, you're feeling all reflective and confessional too...

Fall colour week - plum

Autumn is birthday season in our house. And we're off to celebrate a certain milestone birthday.

My Mum's. She looks great in plum incidentally.

Fall colour week - chestnut

Fall colour week - goldenrod

Long time visitors here might remember seeing this photograph before. But I couldn't not use it, because for me, it sums up this time of year so well. Summer has gone, though there are  a few  lingering reminders that it was well spent. Time to clear the decks and hunker down.