Portraiture and I

One of the wildcards, in terms of my photography, is that I have no set way of doing things ... there is no structure or formula. 

Each person ... each portrait shoot, is a new journey.  A setting off into the unknown

Sometimes I think about being terrified in these unfamilar settings, working in unknown or ever-changing light, with a person who may or may not trust me in my attempt at capturing them.  But then I remember ... this is the space where the magic happens.

And so it was with the American ...

 

Flowers are always the way to arrive ...

I didn't realise how much I love a bunch of flowers in a new place ... not just in Genova but in anyplace new.  They are surely a way to arrive ... a way to feel 'at home'.

The Sweetpeas have been abundant in the garden herein Wallonia.  They remind me of my childhood back home in Mosgiel.  My mum loved them.

We were up early out here in the country this morning, a pavlova made from freshly-laid eggs went into the oven straight after breakfast.  Gert whipped up a batch of his sultana and frangipani bread ...  Welcome home gifts for the family who gave us their beautiful house for a couple of weeks. 

Now to clean and leave for 't stad.  Meanwhile, my beautiful flowers ...

Everything is Fiction,

And I mean that—everything is fiction. When you tell yourself the story of your life, the story of your day, you edit and rewrite and weave a narrative out of a collection of random experiences and events. Your conversations are fiction. Your friends and loved ones—they are characters you have created. And your arguments with them are like meetings with an editor—please, they beseech you, you beseech them, rewrite me. You have a perception of the way things are, and you impose it on your memory, and in this way you think, in the same way that I think, that you are living something that is describable. When of course, what we actually live, what we actually experience—with our senses and our nerves—is a vast, absurd, beautiful, ridiculous chaos.

Keith Ridgway, from The New Yorker article Everything is Fiction.

Maybe it's animalness that will make the world right again: the wisdom of elephants, the enthusiasm of canines, the grace of snakes, the mildness of anteaters. Perhaps being human needs some diluting.

Carol Emswhwiller, from Carmen Dog.

Momo took all the balls to his bed under the stairs ... game over.

Quote found over at Terri's marvellous blog.

Himself and His Women and the Flowers ...

This morning, we were first up and active here in the big old house in the country ... as is mostly the case but I decided I would try releasing the hens and their rooster.

It's a process.  You find all the scraps from the previous day, add some dry bread, find the big stick and then venture forth.  You walk the course to their water trough, and drop the bulk of the food there, then wander back to the big door and prepare yourself ... not unlike the prep required for an Olympic 100m dash.

I threw the door open and took off ... sprinkling bread as I ran.  Laughing because, for-goodness-sake, they're just little creatures.

I looked behind me, the little brown hen, nicknamed Curious Chicken, was right there on my heels but the others were nicely distracted by all kinds of things.  I may have thrown the food container aside as I sprinted.  They recognised it.

Gert and Momo, the dog who protects all his humans, stood up near the outdoor dining table ... I believe they were both laughing too.

Mission accomplished, I returned to the table and we sat there a while to watch them ... as you do.

I noticed a little black hen climb into the sweetpeas. She didn't come out.  I pointed it out, suggesting we might have solved the mystery of the rest of the missing eggs.  We waited until she came out then found the big stick, called Momo ... was distracted an attack of the giggles as he played sillymomodog around my feet ... then set out.

Hot on the heels of Sabine discovering 7 missing eggs at the base of the Livingstone Daisy last night, we struck paydirt again this morning.  ELEVEN eggs had been laid at the base of my beloved Sweetpeas.

I must say, the hens have good taste.  The Livingstones and the Sweetpeas would have to be two of my favourite flowers.

In the space of 12 hours we have gone from the bizarre situation of hens and no eggs to hens and 18 eggs, just in time for the big happy family returning from France.

Anyway, meet Himself and his Women.

 

The Waterloo Market, Belgium

Gert and I have twice enjoyed one of the Europe's top 10 markets ... the Waterloo Market, in recent days.  We first heard of it via BBC's Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is and loved the idea that we could rummage around, with the possibility of finding both genuine antiques and quirky collectables there.  As a New Zealander, from a country young in collectable material history, I loved the age of everything ... and the European flavour too.

The market is held every Sunday, in the carpark of the Carrefour supermarket in Waterloo.  There are so many small stalls that it took us 3 hours walking to explore them all today.   Last weekend, unprepared for the heat and having left the house without breakfast, we gave up our exploration as heat exhaustion set in.

This Sunday we were ready.  A good breakfast, sunhats, a bottle of water, comfortable shoes ... no worries, mate.  We were off and wandering with relaxed intent.

And I came home with a few small treasures.  I couldn't afford the beautiful 19th century travel writing desk at 40euro, nor could I justify the darling old 1960s opera binocular glasses 10euro, or the exquisitely-shaped whisky hip flask but ... I did buy a pipe-rack for 7 euro.  The quote on it will make a pipe-collector of me.  And I picked up my first, a clay-pipe, for 3euro.

But it was the little blue leather coin purse pictured below, by Neiman Marcus, that I loved best.  The woman gave it to me for 1euro when she saw I only had a 20euro note.  I wasn't even haggling because she had only wanted 3euro total. 

It works like a pelican's beak perhaps.  The silk-lined leather pouch expands as you fill it with coins.  I love it.

Parking isn't usually a problem, there are clean toilets in the Carrefour complex, and there is a range of places to eat.  The market itself is laid out in an easy to explore grid too - so we backtracked to a couple of retailers, just in case the traveling writing desk became justifiable  ... 

Highly recommended.

 

1,100kms, a fire and a trans-Tasman Meeting

Last night, I realised that I had driven to Frankfurt in Germany and back without any form of ID on me.  The German police would not have been impressed had they checked ...

You can go to jail for 12 hours in Belgium, if you're caught like that here, although they let me off the one time that was discovered.

Anyway, this was how that massive day ended ... 3 Aussies, a kiwi and a Belgian, sitting round a big old outside fire, chatting. 

A Portrait ...

Jarryd's a singer/songwriter, and as we worked through this portrait shoot, we talked. 

He's a story.  But isn't everyone?  I think the thing I have most loved about sharing this big old house in Wallonia, is that all of us are stories ... massive tapestries, woven from vastly different experiences and yet, here we all are, sharing meals, working together, talking ... and sharing our stories.

Impromptu Photo-shoot ...

You know those days when you feel like you're flying in your chosen field?

Well ... yesterday I had an impromptu photo-shoot with this guy, an Australian singer, songwriter and wanderer, and I'm quietly rapt with the results.  Interview to follow one day soon.

 

Seen from the Stairs

I wandered downstairs, still bubbling with joy after two back-to-back, rather successful, photoshoots and I saw this from the first floor window ...

The American and the Aussie prepared dinner tonight.  The sun has returned and yes, we all ate outside.  It was lovely.

A life sometimes lived via the senses ...

I love people.  Each person I meet seems like an interesting, richly-textured book and I do adore reading. 

I love the parties we give at our house, enjoy bringing all the people we know together in one place but one of my ongoing works of fiction is about a woman who lives alone in the mountains with her dog. In the second storyline, she lives alone in Italy ... with her dog.

When I wandered out into the world, I was surprised to have people describe me as 'empathetic and sympathetic' ... immediately upon meeting me.  I didn't recall that happening back in New Zealand.  Obviously not everyone out here feels this way but it happens often enough to startle me.

Recently my psychological boundaries were described as porous which fascinated me because yes ...  The definition was a relief, in a way, because it could be said I don't come from a culture that is famous for its sensitivity.  It was mock or be mocked while I was growing up.  You had to learn to be fast to avoid the witty verbal slapping that is the affectionate norm.

I learned to laugh off my sensitivity, excusing it as a writer's imagination however when it comes to photography, I am finally learning to be grateful.  Those same senses I wish I could dull down a little in my everyday life come into their own during a photography session.

Photography, for me, is all about being completely and utterly engaged and present.  You need to be able to sense your client's needs.  If you're on a documentary photo-shoot it's more about disappearing completely while working but in portraiture, it is all about the attempt to capture the relationship between the photographer and the subject.  It's about trust and respect.  And there is that magical moment when you just know that they're with you.

I photographed these guys as part of the 24 hour family photo-shoot I recently completed and I think this was 'that moment' ... the moment when they relaxed into the shoot.  When they saw my respect and decided to trust me as their photographer.

This morning, I emerged from a nightmare at 5am and I fell straight into one of my anxiety attacks.  I've been under a lot of a pressure these last few days.  So many stories that don't get told here but that weave their way into my life and bite me anyway. 

To come back from one feels like making my way back down from Mt Everest without oxygen ... everytime.  I know the way down but, quietly, I'm never sure I will find my way because lordy ... I'm having an anxiety attack.

I love this sensitivity.  I don't ever want to lose it because my work needs it but I'm learning to recognise and manage these funny little traits of mine.  Let's see how it goes. 

It's 10.46am and I'm back from the mountain ... ready for the day now.

A post about why I shouldn't impulsively cook for vegetarians ...

Tonight, laughing some, my Rwandan friend and I decided to try and cook dinner for the vegetarians sharing this big old house with us ...

You need to know that she had been studying and I had been working all day long ... that we're not vegetarians, that we have a ton of zucchinis and eggs that need eaten and well ... yes, these are disclaimers.

So I found a recipe that seemed like a rather delightful zucchini patty, using eggs too... as a bonus.  The hens are all laying.  There is this constant egg avalanche going down here. 

We didn't take the excessive watery nature of the zucchini into account and ... the recipe didn't mention it either.  So we grated zucchini, broke eggs, realised we were going have to take a hit because we didn't have baking powder in the house, chopped onions, smushed garlic, added chilli (to their batch) and cumin. 

And I whipped up the little cherry tomato and feta cheese salad thingy that appears, quite oddly, in the middle of the recipe. 

I can't even think of tonight's zucchini fritters without giggling.  The excess of water made it seem like we'd added cheese AND as I cooked them, I had another of those 'recovered memories' of cooking in a previous life ... in a previous marriage ... in another country.  I remembered that I used to squeeze the excess liquid out of the potatoes when making potato fritters, or pre-cook them ... never mind.

The vegetarians, the charming Aussie bloke from Melbourne and the lovely woman from Long Island, soldiered on and took second helpings. 

I quickly wandered off and made a 'ohmygodi'msorryhere'sapavlova' dessert and all is good, here in this Wallonian world, that region where we completely lost touch with anything resembling summer.  Tonight the house smells of woodsmoke and food.  We had to bow to the weather gods and light the fire.

But last night's dinner ... now that is worth posting a photograph.  This is what happens when a vegetarian cooks vegetarian food.  It was stunningly  good.

The Belgian Summer ...

It's not happening this year ...the rain keeps returning, the grey skies reappear again and again.

We've had glimpses of a glorious summer but no, it disappears and is replaced by weather so foul that you forget that you had those warm and promising days.

On the bright side, the garden continues to thrive. The rhubarb, back home, has been prolific.  Here in Wallonia, the zucchinis are going crazy too.  We fight our way through a reasonably abundant supply of fresh tomatoes and beans.  The hens are all laying, so we 4 are dreaming up things to cook with those eggs. 

Peach clafoutis and pavlova are at the top of the list, quiche too.

I  have set up a work station at the dining room table, here in the light-filled kitchen, keeping company/kept company by the lovely Rwandan woman studying for her examinations.  I think we have given up on summer.  She mistook this morning's drizzle for snow. That it didn't seem impossible probably tells you how we feel about summer these days.

Anyway, here's a glimpse of the house where I'm staying ... just a corner for now.  I have to work out how to photograph it, in all its hugeness, and I need to learn the story of it more precisely.  There is a Nobel prize winner involved in its history ...

Terri Windling and Brenda Ueland

"But the moment I read Van Gogh's letter I knew what art was, and the creative impulse. It is a feeling of love and enthusiasm for something, and in a direct, simple, passionate and true way, you try to show this beauty in things to others, by drawing it. And Van Gogh's little drawing on the cheap note paper was a work of art because he loved the sky and the frail lamppost against it so seriously that he made the drawing with the most exquisite conscientiousness and care. ”

Brenda Ueland, from If Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit.

I found this extract this morning, just as I had set up my work station for the day, down here in the big country kitchen, and I thought it was surely something to share. 

I have Terri Windling's blog in my google reader and most days, she has something like this to share with whoever cares to read her.  She is a writer, artist, and book editor interested in myth, folklore, fairy tales, and the ways they are used in contemporary arts.