Just playing

Photoshop gives so much creative potential if you know how to use it. I know an itsy bit but am having fun playing around.

I like things a bit different. I get told that I’m odd, all the time. Must be a connection I think.

Back on track again

Sorry about that last post. I know I worried a few people who sent me lovely, supportive emails. Really, I’m OK. Was just taking stock and got a bit melodramatic I think. I’m not giving up just yet but am reviewing the scale of my dreams into something that is closer to the real world.

Being sick, realising I can’t go back to school next year (without a lotto win) and a few other hiccups, had me down and out and wondering which bus load of Chinamen I’d knocked off this time. After your lovely emails and phone calls, a lovely day that was reasonably productive and a slight improvement in my health, I’m a bit more sane now and looking at things a little more positively.

Also, pissing myself laughing watching ‘How to Lose a Guy in 10 days’. The poker seen is a pisser LOL.

Thanks guys

Disillusioned

Youth is a wonderful thing. Not least because your metabolism is working, your collagen still intact and keeping those deep furrows off your face, or gravity hasn’t dealt it’s blow and all your bits are still where they’re meant to be. The real wonder lies in blissful ignorance and the belief that you have time, with all the possibilities and hope that brings.

Then you get old. . . like me, at 46 years, and you realise that many of your dreams, of your beliefs, have timed out and you’re forced to reevaluate who you are and what you can achieve with the time you have left. You know that there are people worse off and others, better off and that, each of us is dealt a certain hand of fate that no dream or belief will ever change. You spend the greater part of your life fighting against that hand of fate in the hope you might be one of those rare human beings who can change their destiny by sheer will and hard work but, eventually, you realise you are wasting your energy on something you are never going to have and should have spent your time making the best of what you already have.

I was brought up to believe that, above all else, it was desirable to be a good person. I still fundamentally believe this is true, however, I think my interpretation of what constituted good or, more to the point, who decided if you were good, was a bit off beam. I have spent my life trying to do the right thing, and be ‘good’ and honest in the false belief that this would somehow make my life easier and I would be rewarded with the same. That I would find peace and happiness. Basically, to this point, I’ve lead my life on a falsehood.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe I should have been an evil, cruel, criminal and that I would have found what I was looking for. I am relatively happy with the way I’ve lived my life (not perfect or without mistakes, by any means but with good intentions always), just not happy with myself for wasting so much time and effort EXPECTING certain things;

- Expecting others to understand who you are or your intentions and judging you appropriately and not understanding (until recently – slow learner) that you can never truly know another person, or they you.
- Believing that people are generally good and honest and not believing, despite a mountain of evidence and experience to the contrary, that everyone has their own agenda and that too many people will prey on your trust to your detriment.
- Having the ridiculous notion that if people close to you were ‘good’ they were so in every facet of their lives. That to have any major flaw marred every other good characteristic and made them untrustworthy in every way. This despite the knowledge of my own flaws and belief that I am basically a good person. This despite an acceptance of the flaws strangers or more distant people might have. How stupid and judgmental can a person be.
- Believing that, despite the pain it would cause me, that I should follow the ‘right thing to do’ as dictated by some unseen moral and social standards committee.
- Expecting that because you wanted something so bad that there would be a way to get it.
- Expecting fairytales.

It not that I haven’t been told all of these things at one time or another throughout my life but, I think I just believed I had time to prove them wrong, to prove that the world could be different to what the pessimists kept preaching. But now I’m tired. I’ve worked hard, been proactive in the face of countless obstacles and stayed positive. But, nothing really changes. I’m still struggling financially, I’m still on my own, and I’ve finally lost the time and the hope that there is anything I can do to change it.

So, my future visions include being a crabby old woman living alone on a pension and sharing cat food with my 100 cats (’cause I can’t afford human food) in the government supplied rental at the end of the street where the local kids are all afraid to approach. The upside will be that I will have a beautiful family to visit me and gorgeous, fragrant roses in my garden to sweeten the air. I’ll look back at my scrapping albums and recall the dreams and hopes I had while watching another stunning sunset that mother nature provides for free.

In the meantime, while I am still working, I’ll live in my little house and look forward to my grandson’s birth in March. I’ll take lots of pictures of him to scrap and be glad that, even though I didn’t finish my Diploma, or work professionally, I still take a good picture. I’ll ‘ooh and ahh’ at others travel exploits, all the while feeling a little jealous, but make do with my local environs and be glad that I’m alive and healthy. Then, when I finish work and have to sell my house, I’ll join the local senior citizens club and play lawn bowls and drink tea (or maybe not – yuk) and enjoy the memories of my journey.

So, not so bad after all.

No Wandering

Looks like my wanderings blog will have to stay dormant for a while longer. This month’s trip has been cancelled. It’s probably a good thing as it gives me an extra week to finish my folio for school and a bit less stress while I have pneumonia can’t be a bad thing.

Got a phone call from Courtney today (she’s in Bali) and it seems her arsehole boyfriend is treating her pretty poorly and she was in tears wanting to come home. He won’t talk to her and disappears on his own leaving her to eat alone and basically fend for herself. I am not impressed that he is ruining her holiday and could cheerfully knock his block off but I will hold my tongue (and hand). Can only hope she will see the light.

Have you met Norman? I bought him for my grandson (who will be born next March). He is very cute and I’ve given him the task of guardian giraffe when baby visits us. Don’t know if I want him to go live with new bub as we have struck up a lovely little relationship of our own.

I shot a wedding recently for a school friend of Courtney’s. It was an odd situation with 3 different ceremonies. One a couple of months ago at the Registry Office, the one I shot which was a Hindu ceremony and another last week which was a Catholic service and reception.

Alice in Wonderland

My other folio is based on the characters in Alice in Wonderland. I’ve been putting together ideas and costumes etc for weeks and finally got two great models in today to work with me. Another little planet for the Mad Hatter and a very 2009 version of the Queen of Hearts.

More Ballet

More photos for my folio.

Think I’m going to have to turn them all to black & white to match them (bugger!).

Wee Planets and Ballerinas

Also called Little Planets.

We had an assignment at school to make one and I’ve fallen in love with them. They are so quirky.

Here is the very first one I’ve made. I’m looking forward to making more

And on the subject of school, I’m doing a folio on Metaphors (which I’ve chosen Alice in Wonderland to explore) and Reflections (which I’ve chosen Reflections of a childhood dream to be a ballerina – I can hear you snorting *hmph*). Here are a couple of the photos that will make up my Reflections one.

Thanks to darling little Chloe who is always an awesome model.

Cheers

Way too long.

I can’t believe that it has been so long since I last posted. Someone must have skipped a few months on the calendar I reckon. Actually, I’ve probably spent more time on Facebook but it’s driving me a bit nuts to tell the truth. Think I like the blog better.

Updating my life…

I’m back at work and doing OK. I have some lovely colleagues who have made sure I feel welcomed back ‘on the road’. Management is a whole other story and I’m not going to even bother about them anymore. My perspective has changed in terms of the priority my job holds in my life. Not financially, of course, but in terms of my attitude.

I’ve been enjoying this semester at school again. Lots of work to do and getting closer to folio due dates but I am motoring along OK atm. Ask me again in 3 weeks though.

Don’t think I mentioned that I am going to be a grandmother. Marc’s girlfriend is pregnant and due in March 2010. Not ideal circumstances but I am very excited about having a little one around.

I’m off to visit Monte in Malaysia again in a few weeks and we are going to head to Vietnam (around Sapa, Halong Bay and Hanoi). It seems a bit more traditional up in the North so I am looking forward to some good photo opportunities.

Very late so am off to bed. Will try and keep up a bit better from now on.

Cheers

I’m back

Back to this blog now.

I enjoyed my time in SE Asia and keeping my travel blog but now it’s back to the real world for me again.

I finally head back to work next week after a long time off the road because of the crap my employers have put me through. I know it’s not over yet and fully expect the reprisals off their ‘loss’ in their attempts to get rid of me but I’m bracing myself for it and hope I have enough in me to keep fighting and maybe, just maybe make them accountable for their actions. We’ll see though.

After spending a couple of days assimilating back to the cold weather (after 3 weeks in the heat and humidity) I’m ready to get back into some of the other projects I’ve been working on and PSC starts back week after next and I’m looking forward to that.

I just found out today that PSC won Tertiary Institution of the Year at the recent Australian Professional Photographers Awards (APPAs). I entered as part of the College and am keen to see how I did. It was really only a ‘be in it and see’ kind of thing because I am nowhere near the standard of the winners but it will be interesting (or maybe soul destroying) to see how I was marked.

I also have a new great nephew…Nate James. His mum has asked me to take some photos of him in a couple of weeks so I’ll get to meet him then. He was a biggun. 9lb 3oz – exactly the same as Marc was.

Cheers

Off to SE Asia

Not that I’ve been updating this blog much lately anyway but, I’ll be away for a few weeks and using my travel blog if you are interested in what I’m up to. Of course, that is said with a presumption that I will have internet access and won’t be barred from any sites.

Also, in case you’re interested in the final shots I used for my assessment folio, they are here

Cheers