Spotted this at the beginning of a photographer's website and couldn't agree more.
Monday, 22 June 2009
Thursday, 11 June 2009
on saturday I bought myself some flowers
Yes, taking arty pictures of peonies makes me a giant walking cliche.
To tell the truth, I've never had a bunch of peonies or, indeed, actually encountered a peony in the wild - I've just gazed at picture after picture of perfect, dreamy, petal-heavy blossoms on Flickr and the delicious design blogs that I lurk on inbetween writing techy articles for the magazines...
...and dreamt that one day, I too would get up early, throw on a plaid shirt dress and pumps and ride my racing green bicycle with battered wicker basket to the market, where I would count out my pennies to buy a huge, billowing, intoxicatingly-scented bunch of the most delicately petalled pink peonies - and the smiling florist would wave my money away and hand me the bunch, and I would beam back at him in return before tucking the flowers into my basket between some freshly baked pastries, a paper bag of raspberries and a well-folded newspaper, and hop back on my bike and be on my way....
or something like that, at least. Well, ok, not much like that at all - it wasn't that early, I haven't bought a bike yet (despite having that on my to-do list for months), the florist was grumpy and I certainly didn't get them for free - but even though the peonies were tightly closed like painted ping-pong balls they were absolutely beautiful, and they made me smile from ear to ear.
Over the past week it's been a delight to come downstairs in the morning and see the five peonies open more and more – plus spending a few hours photographing them (and then a few more in Photoshop, swearing about the processing speed of our ancient home Mac) was a lovely way to pass the time.
Although these pictures are "nice", I haven't quite managed to take the peony photographs that I have in my mind's eye - but even that makes me smile. All it means is that I'll have to buy another bunch when these ones fade, and give taking my cliched "perfect peony" shot another go. Oh well...
To tell the truth, I've never had a bunch of peonies or, indeed, actually encountered a peony in the wild - I've just gazed at picture after picture of perfect, dreamy, petal-heavy blossoms on Flickr and the delicious design blogs that I lurk on inbetween writing techy articles for the magazines...
...and dreamt that one day, I too would get up early, throw on a plaid shirt dress and pumps and ride my racing green bicycle with battered wicker basket to the market, where I would count out my pennies to buy a huge, billowing, intoxicatingly-scented bunch of the most delicately petalled pink peonies - and the smiling florist would wave my money away and hand me the bunch, and I would beam back at him in return before tucking the flowers into my basket between some freshly baked pastries, a paper bag of raspberries and a well-folded newspaper, and hop back on my bike and be on my way....
or something like that, at least. Well, ok, not much like that at all - it wasn't that early, I haven't bought a bike yet (despite having that on my to-do list for months), the florist was grumpy and I certainly didn't get them for free - but even though the peonies were tightly closed like painted ping-pong balls they were absolutely beautiful, and they made me smile from ear to ear.
Over the past week it's been a delight to come downstairs in the morning and see the five peonies open more and more – plus spending a few hours photographing them (and then a few more in Photoshop, swearing about the processing speed of our ancient home Mac) was a lovely way to pass the time.
Although these pictures are "nice", I haven't quite managed to take the peony photographs that I have in my mind's eye - but even that makes me smile. All it means is that I'll have to buy another bunch when these ones fade, and give taking my cliched "perfect peony" shot another go. Oh well...
Saturday, 6 June 2009
new york, new york...
This was my umpteenth visit to New York: I just can't get enough of it.
Unfortunately I fell sick with some sort of bug on the third day of our trip, which laid me up for two days. Still, inbetween bouts of sickness, I got to watch the "Deadliest Catch" Memorial Day Marathon - two straight days of crab fishing in the Arctic Circle. Will there be crab in the pot? Will it be big enough? Will they meet their quota? Weirdly, can't get enough of this program - reckon it's my seaside roots...
Er...anyway! What was extremely nice is that on the second-to-last day of our trip, which also happened to be my birthday, I woke up feeling much better and my significant other gave me the best present he could possibly have handed me - a Lomo LC-A+.
Back in the UK, three weeks later, I finally got round to developing the shots. I somewhat dismissively opened the packet that contained the negs and CD from my first roll and I (quite literally) found myself stopping dead in the street and staring, open mouthed, at the teeny-tiny contact sheet of images. Most of the shots hadn't worked, as I'd expected - but some, just some, seemed to sparkle with a life of their own - even if it was just the corners of shots that were in focus or the weird vignetting perfectly framing scenes.
As I peered at the contact sheet I held my breath - something clicked inside me and I completely, utterly, irrevocably fell in love with this tiny, crappily-built and horribly over-priced camera.
Damn it.
Damn it.
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