I was working on a shot of a yoga gong and saw this ... in case you were wondering.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 ...
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.
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 ...
I think I'll journey out some day to wondrous lands afar,
Or even chart a journey to a distant blazing star.
But rest assured that when my journey begs to take its cue,
Always know that when I go, this journey takes you too.
Mark R. Slaughter, from Journey to Be.
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.
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 ...
The streets in Genova pull me out into them ... I can spend hours walking there, lost in the now. I am missing those days where images came in through my camera lens as a deluge of colours and textures.
In New Zealand I was the kid and later, the woman, who disappeared constantly ... on my bike or in the car, with my dog, I was off, in search of a place to dream. Rivers, lakes, the beach or, more simply, a school field.
In Genova I find that space more easily in a cityscape than anyplace else I've lived so far. It used to be Nature, now it seems that this remarkable old Italian city can soothe my soul.
I could spend quite some time just photographing those giant bubbles I find in Genova ... they fascinate me some.
Wendy Towers is about to establish a second Women's Therapy Group here in Belgium.
She is opening the door to women who are interested in working together in a therapeutic way, women of all ages and at all stages in life.
She explained, 'the primary focus of the group is about creating a safe space where it is possible to explore our own lives; a space where we can be heard and where we are willing to hear others.'
The key words, when defining the group, are confidentiality, safety and commitment. A therapy group needs to be a confidential space. It is a dynamic that requires commitment.
Group size is limited to a maximum of 7 members. Places will go quickly and so if you think this might be for you, give Wendy a call and talk it over with her.
You can read more about Wendy and her work over on her website - Wendy Towers, Psychotherapist
I have absolutely no hesitation in recommending this woman's work.
Just so you know.
I have to share this beautiful moment in New Zealand's history ... I wanted to put it someplace so I can go back to it sometimes.
We were so proud of him, that country of mine.
Anyway, let me quote wikipedia, to get the story right: David Lange was the 32nd Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1984 to 1989. He headed New Zealand's fourth Labour Government, one of the most reforming administrations in his country's history, but one which did not always conform to traditional expectations of a social-democrat party.
He had a reputation for cutting wit (sometimes directed against himself) and eloquence. His government implemented far-reaching free-market reforms. Helen Clark has described New Zealand's nuclear-free legislation as his legacy.
Lange made his name on the international stage with a long-running campaign against nuclear weapons. His government refused to allow nuclear-armed ships into New Zealand waters, a policy that New Zealand continues to this day. The policy, developing in 1985, had the effect of prohibiting United States Navy ships from visiting New Zealand.
This displeased the United States and Australia: they regarded the policy as a breach of treaty obligations under ANZUS and as an abrogation of responsibility in the context of the Cold War against the Soviet bloc. After consultations with Australia and after negotiations with New Zealand broke down, the United States announced that it would suspend its treaty obligations to New Zealand until the re-admission of United States Navy ships to New Zealand ports, characterising New Zealand as "a friend, but not an ally".
Erroneous claims sometimes suggest that David Lange withdrew New Zealand from ANZUS. His government's policy may have prompted the US's decision to suspend its ANZUS Treaty obligations to New Zealand, but that decision rested with the U.S. government, not with the New Zealand government.
The Oxford Union debate shown below, went out live on New Zealand television in March 1985 showcased Lange, a skilled orator, arguing for the proposition that "nuclear weapons are morally indefensible", in opposition to U.S. televangelist Jerry Falwell. Lange regarded his appearance at the Oxford Union as the highest point of his career in politics.
His speech included his memorable statement "I can smell the uranium on it [your breath]...!"
Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady. I hope you will find some way to break the rules and make a little trouble out there. And I also hope that you will choose to make some of that trouble on behalf of women.
Nora Ephron, Wellesley's Class of 1996 commencement speech.
Life has been busy, with days tumbling over one another and to-do lists that seemed impossible. The knowledge of things left undone was pressing down on me.
I knew that I had to wait. That there were things to be done in those weeks leading up to us taking my daughter and granddaughter to Frankfurt. And we had the lovely Australian called Jobe staying with us in that last week. A Tasmanian, and a friend of Jessie's, he ended up helping her with the packing and cleaning here in this Belgian life, in-between visiting Bruges, Brussels and Antwerp.
Saturday rolled round and exhausted, we 3 New Zealanders and the Belgian packed ourselves into the car and began negotiating the roadworks that hugely delayed our 4-5 hour journey between here and Frankfurt.
It was hot. The rental car didn't have A/C. One series of roadworks saw us take 30 minutes to crawl 3kms. We were stuck in it for 45 minutes ...
But Frankfurt is beautiful. It's not my beloved Genova but the city planners have bowed to Nature, seemingly respecting her. It's clean, it's pretty and it was okay leaving my people there.
Home again, and the itinerary for the 2 and 5-day photography workshops is done. I have projects and plans all over my working desk here, forcing me to move my book work upstairs to the now spare big bedroom. The step children have gone home ... it's just about me and my work. Well, there is 3-storeys of quirky Belgian house to clean and reclaim but that can be baby steps.
Summer comes and goes here, on a daily basis. We can go from an ordinary 15 celsius kind of day up to 29 celsius, almost in the blink of the eye. Gert's rhubarb is going crazy ... actually his garden is. There are parsnips and silverbeet seedlings, raspberrys, and the herbs are ferociously wild. My Jasmine and Lavender are pleasing me ... actually, it's not bad outside, in the tiny pocket-sized Belgian backyard.
And I have a title for my book on Genova that is so unbelievably perfect that I shall keep it completely secret until publishing.
I'll leave you with a photograph of Miss 7 and I messing around with the camera in Central Station, here in Antwerp sometime last winter ...
I do believe I shall be miserable without my little soulmate somewhere close by ...
I read about Andy Campbell this morning and had to share news of him with you ...
I've embedded his introductory video below but he introduces himself over on his website, starting with this: 'On the 7th of June 2012, eight years after becoming paralysed, I set off from London to travel 30,000 miles around the world in a wheelchair.
Following an idea never before attempted, the record-setting two year adventure will cross four continents and almost every type of natural environment on the planet, from seas to deserts and everything inbetween.'
I fly back to New Zealand, after just over 8 years away, on 25 November.
There will be tears!
Years ago, there was this girl-child and she was me, and she was clear on what she wanted to do. As soon as she was old enough she began wandering.
It was always known by my smallest self that I loved people and new places. Later I loved writing and reading - which is really just wandering in other ways - and I was gifted my first camera in my teens. I loved being the keeper of memories.
However, when I was about 10, I spent two years with a teacher who was obsessed with the fact the world would be ending ... SOON. CATACLYSMICALLY.
There was the Cold War and the imminent nuclear holocaust but he had a list of other options that would see the world fall to pieces before I was 16.
My small self would also break out in a cold sweat whenever he talked of his ideas. A memorable one was the fact that so many oil-carrying ships would sink that they would cover the ocean with a slick that would stop the sun from doing its thing.
We were all going to die.
It was about then I started having some serious anxiety attacks, often in the middle of his class. No one made the connection, not even me. I was too little.
Not only was I an anxious child, I was so right-brained and curious that I learned to be constantly mortified by this terrible character flaw.
I was stubborn. I was placed in secretarial school at 16 or 17 but I escaped into a lawyer's office ... just before final exams. They weren't exams I was going to pass. I wrote poems in Mr Thornycroft's accountancy classes. I looked at the keys when learning to touch-type, and I despised Teeline. It's the form of shorthand I was meant to learn so as to be employable as a female back then. The options were, and it came from a place of love, secretarial work or nursing and I knew I was never going to be a nurse.
I exited after 9 months with the lawyers. I wrote poetry there too because the work was in no way taxing and I had time to fill. A friend had two uncles who owned a rather posh caryard in the city. I moved, impulsively, to work as a car groomer when the 'emperor's new clothes' nature of the office job overwhelmed me. I learned to drive, and how to add quite some value to a car with the thorough clean but one day, I left.
Finally I found a most marvellous job with one of Dunedin's top photographers back then. He was very right-brained too. It was maddening and fun in the same moment. It was so good to find such a creature existed but I didn't quite understand all of that yet. I didn't really know that there were creative people and that perhaps I was one of that tribe ...one of the irresponsible ones.
I married my first boyfriend, moved to a small town in the middle of the middle of the South Island and, like a piece of driftwood at sea, I began following the currents of his life. He was a teacher with a university degree. I was the wife who wrote and took photographs, while raising our daughter.
Fast-forwarding a huge number of years and the Cold War is over but the world is, as it always has been, unstable. The oceans are a mess but we're still breathing. And I made it past 16.
The anxiety didn't stop me. I earned a university degree in my 30's, moved to Istanbul alone despite being terrified, and I cried in the shower before flying to Rome that first time. Sometimes, when I'm in Genova, I almost die from my imagination and fears but these days I'm working with someone on pulling out these slightly wonky pieces and fixing them some.
It's interesting, for me, and has become that thing I wish I had done so many years earlier. I always had the 'just do it' attitude but I worried ... A LOT. I really didn't like flying but flew anyway, so far from New Zealand. I'm terrible at languages but spent two years living alone in Istanbul, and now there is Nederlands. I still bite my fingernails.
I love the story of people so much that I forget to be businesslike. I need a personal assistant to keep me on the rails and stop me from having a million ideas that are good but that involve so many lifetimes that it's better to have them nipped in the bud. I still struggle to understand that I have some talents.
I struggle. Maybe that's what I'm trying to write here. I think we all do ... or maybe not everyone but here on the blog, I have written mostly of good things and I'm not sure that I should because what I do, this way of living, is really difficult. It's full of doubts and insecurities. It's full of feeling a fool for all kinds of reasons.
So I'm stepping back from just writing of photography and travel here and perhaps, sometimes, I'll write of the things that I'm learning as I make my way back to that little girl who knew who she was before she learned to be scared.
My mother had a beautiful red peony rose bush that grew in the front garden of my childhood home. I'm seeing them everywhere this Spring ... I need some too I think.
While I was writing the post below, this song came on. It's there in the midst of my Zucchero collection, and I was stunned by it.
I went searching, found the youtube and realised, if I had been photographing that event ... I would have cried as I worked. It's beautiful, in that deep way ... that touches a soul.
I do hope the neighbours didn't mind. It's 9.32am but the volume just had to go up ... way up.