U-turn

Last Sunday I was on the Squarespace website, cancelling my subscription, clicking through all the options until I got to the final “OK” button where it said “Your website will be deleted immediately”. As I read that sentence I burst into tears. Total curveball. So I closed the computer, not having clicked on the button, took a breath and wondered what the hell was going on. And then yesterday morning a comment from Esther came onto my previous post, a very beautiful and moving one, saying how much my pictures had meant to her and how they had set her off on her own photography journey. The timing! As if the universe was nudging me to follow the hunch that made itself known on Sunday, and that maybe, after all this time, I have actually changed my mind. So there you have it, I’m doing a u-turn 🙃

So long, farewell...

… auf wiedersehen, goodbye. I’ve been thinking about wrapping the blog up for a long time, and had thought that a natural stop in the year I turn 50 would make sense, but now I know I don’t have another year of blogging in me. I started the blog in 2008 as a way of getting me to take more pictures (and boy did it work!), but now I have to end it for the same reason. I’ve really enjoyed posting in this space for the last 16 years, but I feel that blogging has stifled my creativity for a while, and that I’ve perhaps gone from my funny eye to my tired eye… I want to thank you so much for having been such a great audience over the years, and to give a special thanks to those of you who’ve taken the time to leave a comment or two - or twenty. I will miss hearing from you, but when an I’m old lady (ok older lady), and hopefully still taking pictures, I’ll remember that decades ago when I sent my pictures out on the worldwide web, there were people there who really liked them, and were kind and generous enough to tell me. What a privilege!

I’m leaving the blog up for a while longer as my contract with Squarespace won’t end until the end of the year, so you’ll still be able to go through the archives should you wish to do so. Wishing you all that is good, and again - thank you so much for stopping by here. You guys rocked.

Born to run

January’s theme was running, quite an apt one for the month, seeing as probably quite a few people would’ve taken it up as a New Year’s you-know-what. It was actually quite a fun theme, as I’d see someone running, and would have to react pretty much immediately, with only one chance of getting the picture. Catching people running, rather than out for a run, was more along the lines of what I had in mind, but you really don’t see it that often, unless you stake out a bus stop, in which case I’m sure you’d see it all the time. The guy in the last picture really made me laugh; I saw him miles away coming running towards me, and I turned to face the doorway and meant to take a picture ahead of time to take a light reading, only to have him run past me at exactly that moment, saying “Sorry!” as he did. I love his facial expression and the ducking of his head, which is exactly what people do when they try their best to not walk (run) through someone’s shot. Little did he know that’s exactly what I wanted.

Body Politic

Went to see an Antony Gormley exhibition a while back and took these. It’s always a pleasure to look at his art, and to see how he re-interprets his own body through various scales and mediums. The sculptures are all based on the proportions of his body, and I found the brick ones especially fascinating as you could see that each brick referred to each joint/muscle group of the body (I particularly liked the square buttock bricks). The theme of the exhibition was a serious one, so if you want to find out more, you can watch this film where Gormley talks about the inspiration for this work. He’s such an intelligent artist, and has interesting messages embedded in his art.

P.S. I’m also glad I caught the man in the last pic mimicking one of the sculptures 🤗