 |
| On Tuesday I finally ventured over to the Left Bank (this refers to the southern side of the river Seine). I took my first bus trip in Paris rather than the Metro, and I am hooked. The reason? Well you can see things from the bus, which you can't underground on the Metro. This photo is looking down towards Saint Sulpice. |
 |
| I'm becoming addicted to photographing old walls. |
 |
| Back on the Right Bank, I jumped off the bus here: Hotel de Ville (City Hall) and walked back home to the Marais. This is image is fairly heavily processed using the Iris app on my iPhone. |
 |
| More of the above. |
 |
| On Wednesday we celebrated our 25th Wedding Anniversary with a degustation menu at Le Bristol's 3 Michelin Hat restaurant. It wasn't really the sort of place where you could whip out the camera but by the last course the champers had done its work and I snuck the phone out to quickly snap this. |
 |
| On Friday we headed to the Centre Pompidou, the National Museum for Modern Art, which is also in walking distance. They have 60,000+ of their works in their online catalogue. If you would like to take a look it's here. |
 |
| View to the "you-know-what" taken from the top floor of the Centre Pompidou. |
 |
| The restaurant at the Centre Pompidou. |
 |
| I focussed on the display from the permanent collection, which was a chronological survey of modern art. This display rotates through works from their collection and I can't say I saw any of my long-standing favourites. Instead I was surprised to find that it was the room dedicated to work by Giacometti that caught my imagination. Above a sculpture, and below part of the wall from Giacometti's studio. Isn't it gorgeous? |
 |
 |
| It's a long week-end here now and the weather has hit the summery high-twenties. I've been taking it very quietly after the busy week, just enjoying the view from the bedroom window. A bientot! |
Edit 16/08/11: The title of this picture should have been “This Is Not My Home” because it isn’t. Sorry to anyone who I inadvertently misled. It was meant to be a generic house, but I can see why you would think otherwise. I don’t feel that our home is particularly photogenic, but I felt I sort of “owed” you all a pic, so you can now find one right at the bottom of the post (heavily processed to improve its appeal).
No, no, we’re not going to be on TV (thank heavens!) but we are finally going to be making some changes to our home and hopefully putting our own mark on the place.
We bought here (a three bedroom ground floor unit built in 1994) back in 2003, just before moving to Melbourne for two years. It was sort of our safety net. A way to say yes, we are heading south to live and hopefully have some adventures in a “real city”, while knowing we have a home back near our families, where we can return.
When we moved back two years later because the family needed us, there wasn’t really time or money (or energy) to do much other than move in and get on with life. But many years later, the time finally seems right(ish).
At the start of this year, we made grand plans for a renovation that would fine-tune the space we have to our (somewhat unusual) needs and lifestyle. Our “forever home” as Kirsti of Location, Location is so fond of saying.
Then we spent a month in Paris and we realized a few things. We saw that part of the reason we both become a bit disenchanted with the world is that Brisbane doesn’t actually offer us much of the things we love. High on this list for us is a sense of a long, long history and culture (with the appropriate buildings, layers of time, and yes, dirt & grime). On a bad day, I could go on and on about the things that Brisbane doesn’t offer and what it has replaced those things with, but it seems much more reasonable just to say, I’m sure some people love it, but it’s not for me!
At the moment we have “family things” that we want to do, but they won’t take forever, and then we will look to move elsewhere (exactly where is still undecided). In the meantime, it changes the way we think about this unit and the work we will do. Yes, now it’s 17 years old it’s definitely time for a refurb but if it’s a given that we don’t intend to stay here forever, the changes we make need to take that into account.
So you can see that there’s been a lot of thinking, discussing and heart-searching going on here, in this little unit, as well as practical decisions about a new kitchen and new floorboards to replace the horrible carpet. And of course, quite a lot of work in the studio towards the BAO edition with its approaching deadline (which I promise I will post about just as soon as I have time.
EDIT: 16/08/11
We live on the ground floor behind the high fence. I may be a city girl and unit dweller, but I still like to have my feet on the ground.
Something’s happened to Harry….for the last day of the August Break, I went out for a walk looking for photos, and I stumbled on this little mystery…
Well there are some! Honest! I hoped to snap a lovely close-up of them slurping up their food at the surface, but this is as close as either of them would come today. Can you spot him/her there in the middle of the shot?
Well tomorrow is the last day of the August Break and of me focussing on my photography, but I’ve got something new up my sleeve for September…
Well okay, the train from Sydney to Canberra doesn’t actually travel at this speed, but I wanted to emphasise the colours, which I think of as typical of that area of Australia.
Last one before the week-end, and then only two more days of photos to go! It’s been fun and interesting, and not as difficult to keep up as I thought.
…but this isn’t tonight. Taken in the eastern sky just outside my front door a while ago.
I’m notoriously bad at seeing these things. (Also those Magic Eye thingos). What do you think it is? Taken while flying to Sydney last month.
A lovely example of traditional Queensland architecture.
I’m thinking of making a long-term series along the lines of “In my street” or “In my suburb”. This would obviously be a part of that.
Starting week 4 of “The August Break”.
If I told you how I got this shot, you’d be shocked by how mundane it really is!
If you’d like to see the work of some of the other participants in the August Break, you can see them in the associated Flickr group.
No processing at all – just as it came out of the camera. More photos on Monday.
More reflections, this time in the windows of a train at Central Station, Sydney.
Last photo before the week-end.
Taken this morning on my walk, after heavy rain on Wednesday. This small grove of trees is one of my favourite local spots.
If you click on the image, you should see a larger version.
Even though it’s winter here, I’ve decided to join Susannah Conway on “August Break”. From her blog:
“The plan for the August break: you simply share one photo per day on your blog – Monday to Friday, or every day. Or whenever you want.”
It looks like a lot of fun, no pressure, and a lovely way to see some interesting and beautiful photos. Perhaps you’d like to join in too? There’s 300-odd of us taking part.
I’ve decided to go for the Mon to Fri option, and although for Susannah it’s a way to take a break from regular blog post writing, that’s not how I am planning to use it.
Having been away for a couple of weeks I’ve seen lots of art and I’m keen to share my thoughts about it with you, so I plan to still write at least weekly. But I have also taken lots of photos, so the plan is to post one each day Monday to Friday.
Sometimes the photo may be a reflection of the day I’ve just had (like today’s) but my goal in joining The August Break, is simply to devote a month to photography, and see what happens. So, here it is -
Day 1: Coming Home
This week I’ve been in a very dozy state of mind. I don’t often talk about the cognitive effects of cfs on this blog, and more dramatic symptoms like migraines or physical weakness are better known by the general public. However, what is generally described as “brain fog” is a major part of the syndrome.
I used to have a fantastic memory. And I used to be very organized and capable of thinking things through in a highly analytical way. Sadly, this isn’t the case any more.
It’s easy to believe that the issues I’m trying to resolve are just more complex and abstract than the problems I had to deal with at uni, and of course my brain is aging too. And I know lots of my friends do show similar albeit milder memory problems, but that is with families, careers and generally really busy lives to manage.
I’m talking about the days when you stare at the clothes in your wardrobe for ten minutes, trying to decide what to wear, and you aren’t even planning to leave the house that day. And eventually you walk away, still in your pjs. The only decision you’ve made is to try again in an hours time. It seems to me that there’s little doubt that your decision-making skills are “affected”.
The interesting thing about one set of skills diminishing is that it can lead you to enhance another set. As a teenager taking maths, chemistry, physics and so on, I focussed on being rational, thorough and logical. All good, you might say, and generally I agree. Although…does that mean I can never be spontaneous, intuitive and passionate? I hope not.
I recently read Eric Maisel’s book “Coaching the Artist Within” and in it he discusses duality. He argues that it is easy to set up dualities such as logical and intuitive, disciplined and flexible, doing and being, and then opt for one side of the duality, taking it as your own. His point is that the creative process demands all these things at different times, and to declare that you are logical and disciplined (as I have in the past) and apply it rigidly, is to install limits that can only hinder the process.
I started off talking about the cognitive effects of cfs, and I’m not suggesting they aren’t limiting, or that they aren’t serious (obviously they are very serious as they are caused by insufficient blood flow to the appropriate areas of the brain).
However, what I am saying is that on those days when my physical energy is okay, but the brain fog has rolled in, I am forced to work in an intuitive, responsive, visceral way, and this has been a valuable lesson.
I’ve been working this way this week, using a trial version of Adobe Lightroom (more soon) and Photoshop to process some of the photos I took on my recent beach holiday. I find processing photos is one thing I am able to do when my energy is very low. I tried to print some out and quickly found I was not up to the problem-solving required to make my printer behave, so for now these images remain screen-bound. I hope to have prints available soon and also to experiment with them a little further with some mixed media.
