I was glad, yesterday, for the August Break, I could post a few pictures and not worry about writing anything. Let it suffice to say, yesterday didn’t end on a high note.
Remember when I said I was fine when everything else was fine? Well, yesterday did not qualify as fine. The good thing is, it wasn’t my daughter or any of the other kids, so nothing else is really that important.
Today was spent, as I do so often, talking to myself. I like to paraphrase an elderly neighbour from when I was a little girl and say, I couldn’t be talking to a better woman.
I know, my modesty knows no beginning.
Then I did what I prefer to do when other things seem insurmountable and unpromising, I got out the cameras. I have a feeling they reflect my lack of balance but they helped me find some of it again. Perhaps it is the act of slowing down, forgetting about what else is going on around me and focusing on what I see through the viewfinder. Calming myself as I move myself, move the subject, stand, bend, lean, all to get the framing I want, tell the story I want to tell. I look through the lens and see something I hadn’t noticed before or I get to influence how something very commonplace and well-known appears.
I can choose the angle, I can find the best light, I can include what I want and exclude those things that clutter the image.
I need to learn to do the same thing, as much as possible, in life and not just with a camera.
Taken with a Polaroid 1000 using Impossible PX600 UV+ Silver Shade film.
I love the click and whirr, the anticipation as the exposure is covered as it leaves the camera and stays that way for perhaps 20 mins, perhaps half and hour, then the image is revealed. Soft and delicate, like a dream captured.
Which is all to say, sometimes you can have a lot to learn about something but it gives you pleasure and a focus and you can, bit by bit, see improvement and no matter how you feel about other things or what decisions you have to take, or need to decide if you should take, there are always options.
At least, that is some of what I told myself today. The talking didn’t do much for me, the getting behind the lens did.
What helps you when other things appear overwhelming.
Happy Friday.
All images © L. McG.-E. All rights reserved.
© 2012, Penbleth / L. McG.-E.. All rights reserved.
janet isserlis - these are lovely. thank you for making them. xo
Leovi - I like those pictures, wonderful. Exquisite flowers.
Penbleth - Thank you Leovi.
Penbleth - Thank you Janet. The pictures were the fun bit. I’m glad you like them.
Kimberley McGill - Lovely pictures! I dream of having one of those cameras.
I also take pictures when things seem over the top, or I make art. Like you said, everything slows down. I can breathe again.
Penbleth - That moment of time out from our worries allows us to be us again. Sadly I have all the artistic talent of a tomato.