I loved this quote found over on Justine Musk's website.
The photograph of the beach,taken when I was home, is an old and beloved beach of mine, located on the east coast of the South Island, down at Tautuku.
Sometimes, when the highway is roaring here in Belgium, I pretend it's simply a Spring tide down at Tautuku, back home in New Zealand
I love this cafe. Recently discovered here in Antwerp, it's like a small oasis of good food and coffee, friendly people, and excellent music.
There's an interview coming but for now ... today's lunch and a small glimpse inside Escobar.
Go early if you want a table at lunchtime. I went back after the lunch rush for the interior shots, having enjoyed meeting the loveliest New Zealander and her 5-week old son just after midday. It was a most excellent day really ... with sunshine!
It was a 4 celsius, grey-sky flat-light kind of day but an interesting place to wander.
Yesterday, and I was sent off in a new direction.
More to follow.
I'm finally putting together a presentation series of images taken in New Zealand.
We're seeing the Belgian Bloke's parents tomorrow. It's Easter and they were curious to see where that son of theirs spent 5 weeks wandering.
It's easier to work on the photographs now that (perhaps) the last of the snow has fallen. There was a light fall as I headed out into the night last night with my lovely Irish Fiona friend. Irish is mentioned because I have this forever friend always referred to as, since I was 13, my friend Fiona. That would be the New Zealand Fiona.
Anyway, I love this photograph. I took it out on one of those Otago Peninsula roads that we wandered and it's my desktop background for now.
I loved this house and the Otago Harbour views ...
Note: The harbour view was taken down on the road at the bottom of the street ... not from veranda.
Back home, I discovered Broad Bay, Dunedin and I lived in 3 houses in that small bay before flying to Istanbul ...
The first (numbered 1 on the image below) was where I escaped to after my first marriage ended, and it was perfect for a while. Then the house just above me ... on the hill you see there with the number 2 on it ... came up for rent and it was more sensible, less quirky but still wooden, with a verandah and a view of the harbour.
I loved living in Broad Bay. I had a sea kayak, a car, and a golden labrador. And just enough money for secondhand books and the occasional bottle of red.
I hunted those old houses down and photographed them while I was home in New Zealand at Christmas.
I wouldn't normally seek out this kind of image and yet it called to me and voila, I find it beautiful even now.
The sea, the storm, the lines ... who knows.
But another shot from the coast of France.
Last weekend, Gert and I were wandering the wet streets of Le Touquet Paris Plage, about 200kms from Antwerp, playground of wealthy Parisians ... or so rumour goes.
He had booked us the Sunday night special in a rather marvellous hotel and it was really lovely. But the weekend ended up being about more than that. I have been searching, for a very long time, for a bracelet I could wear constantly, without it breaking and devastating me on a regular basis. As has been the story so far ...
We were strolling along the rain-soaked streets, looking in shop windows and amusing ourselves before dinner when I spotted a beautiful silver bracelet. I had to smile ... of course I was going to find a silver bracelet in the playground of wealthy Parisians. Not being one myself.
Gert called me back as I walked on, pointing to the signs that said '70% discount' and 'closing down sale'.
We knew it was impossible but we decided to wander in and ask anyway. There's something rather nice about bracelets when you're a photographer. Don't ask me why but I relate them to the whole practice of photography.
I tried it on, loved it, and asked how much. He pointed to the 70% discount sign and did the maths for me. I was stunned ... and delighted ... and feeling kind of guilty about picking up a beautiful silver bracelet at 70% off.
We walked out smiling, unable to believe how fortunate I had just been.
And the next day, before leaving, I saw this man on the beach and he seemed like a photograph.
My journey is the destination companion recently knitted her first hat. She is the creature who gave me much-needed permission to squander my money on that beautiful scarf pictured in the previous post.
I loved the colours she used and so I am currently negotiating my very own woollen hat. One with a Miss 8 designer label.
As for the origin of the concept, 'the journey is the destination' ... I stumbled across Dan Eldon's work back when I lived in New Zealand. His book has been traveling with me since. I had this idea it would inspire my English students in Istanbul however the syllabus was always quite tight in the private schools where I worked.
So he simply inspires me. As does Miss 8.
I took the photograph on 13 March but looking out from my window today, the scene is exactly the same.
March 20, 2013 and it's snowing. As I set out across the city on the school run at 7.20am it was all about the umbrella, the correct amount of layers to protect us from the wet cold rain. On the return, lost in a book on the tram, I looked up and discovered that 'outside' had turned into yet another horrid snowy winter's day.
To try and break the misery that is Antwerp this winter, Gert and I disappeared over to France, to the summer playground of the Parisians ... on a cheap Sunday night deal last weekend. It rained but I was on a roadtrip and has always delighted me.
Although ... he had fallen on ice last week and sprained his wrist. Slowly slowly he is healing. The roads here are lethal in snow and ice, especially the shiny new bricks they've laid on the round-abouts. He fell crossing the one near home. We were talking on the phone at the time, and I was feeling particularly miserable after making a freezing cold, roadwork-infested, cross-city trek.
There's nothing quite like hearing the Belgian bloke crash to the ground and lie groaning while seperated by more than a few kilometres. I arrived home just in time to head off to A&E with him. Oh yes, that was a long day.
I suspect I shall be giddy with delight when the temperature goes up and the snow finally stops because it really is Spring. And rumour has it that these 2 hour city treks will be over as of the Easter holidays. I really need them to be. Antwerp, and its current mania for both roadworks and house improvements that seriously impede any progress along the pathways and tramways I take, is a bit like having my own seriously dark and snow-filled cloud over my head at all times.
And so, on that happy note .... tot straks.
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.
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!
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 ...
On that last day in New Zealand, I got up early and photographed the mist burning off ... just wandering.
Then later, Peter and Christine, Michael too, dropped the boat in the water and took us out on Mercury Bay.
A stunning day with good people.
I'm missing the colours and the light of Genova ... so much!
I love the way this city goes from post-modern to ancient, and everything in-between, so easily.
I used to live out here on the peninsula. There are so many stunning stories to tell of the Albatross Colony, of penguin and seal colonies, of beaches and birdlife, of a coastline that leaves you looking out across an ocean that doesn't stop until it reaches South America ... some 6,000kms away.
Loved it.
Much-loved friends in New Zealand just got news of a well-deserved victory.
To celebrate, I'm posting photographs of a lunch we would love to take them out to ... at the delightful L’Art'e Cafe and Gallery, if we were there in that land downunder.
I love this kind of view ...an empty road opening up in front of me.
Gert informed me that this song is mine, in those days as he watched me fill with the joy of that South Island roadtrip in the little red car.
I hate leaving, dislike saying goodbye, right up until that moment I'm on my way and then I am happiness-filled.
Leaving is one of those things I do best. And out there, I usually stretch myself to the limit of what I can stand and beyond sometimes, then it's okay to come home again.
I'm not a wild thing, I'm just a smalltime wanderer who doesn't like to stand still for too long.
