Observe, Practice, Be Grateful!

Observation

With all that talk about observation I thought it would be nice to share a few photos. Photography has always been a way for me to record some of what I see around me. I take a lot of nature photos.I love tree bark, lichen, moss and blossom. As well as birds, flowers and the ocean.

 

 

Practice

Someone asked me last year, how I took such good pictures of flowers and things. I replied, practice, practice, practice! I honestly believe it's because I've taken a lot that I've started to take a few good ones. I'll often take multiple pictures of the same subject from different angles. The above shots of what we thought were barnacles is a great example of this. As the one below is of serendipity, just being there in the right place at the right time with the camera ready!

Gratitude

I also take and share photos as part of my gratitude practice as I've mentioned before. Nature is a great comfort to me. Noticing small things in each and every day is one of the ways I remind myself to feel grateful and in turn happy each and every day. 

Five Little Things : On the Road

Often as you're driving places or when you stop overnight somewhere you stumble over little treasures and think wow, how lucky I am to have found something so beautiful here. This was the case for us a few weeks ago traveling home from friends in Bourgogne. 

We picked a village on our way, not too far from the motorway, just a place to stop overnight and break-up our journey. It was called Sainte Suzanne and while the "glampsite" turned out to be a little disappointing, the village was anything but. The cobblestoned roads, the soft evening sun, the haunting castle ruins, the clustering roses and the magnificent stained glass windows in the church. Here's what I managed to capture on film.

Five Litte Things : Iris

The view through the Iris

There were  many wonderful things about our holiday home in the Ardeches; the magnificent view over the mountains, the wonderful art work in all the rooms, the swimming pool, the friendly neighbours and animals. But one of the things I enjoyed the most were the Iris. They were magnificent in hues of purple, magenta, grape and orchid through to amethyst, mauve and violet. And always that unexpected hint of yellow or cream. 

I spent a wonderful hour or so photographing them and found them to be fascinating flowers. And so poetic too, they take their name from the Greek goddess of rainbows Iris which is lovely and they have such a generous, sensual expressiveness to their form. Not to mention that their yellow 'beards' stand up like a Mohican along the backbone of their petals also called 'falls'. Absolutely stunning. I hope you'll like the photos. 

Five Little Things : Boats

I love boats. I don't sail but somehow they still represent for me a certain escapism, a possibility of adventure, a je ne sais quoi...
And because I love boats I photograph them. And it's a collection just like our shell collection, or Noah's strange assortment of rusty metal bits or my china cats, I collect boats with my camera. 

Oban, Scotland 2016

Greece 2004

Jardins de Luxembourg, Maya's birthday 2009

Homemade walnut shell boats

Birttany 2008

All that thinking about boats got me writing a list poem about the words we have for boats. It's a very rough sketch, no idea where I'll go with it but it has lovely sounds. Here it is:

The language of boats

Sail boats and tall boats

canal boats and barges

bowsers, cokkleshells

coracles, crafts

cruisers and cutters

dwows, dredgers, drifters

dugouts and flagships

ferries and freighters

gondolas, hydrofoils

houseboats, icebreakers

kayaks and kanoes

life rafts and liners

paddle boats, pedalos

punts, rafts, sculls

shikaras, showboats

skiffs, smacks, tugs

tenders and tankers

trawlers and tubs

vessels and whalers

watercraft, yachts.

 

More blooms

Sickness has hit our smallest again so we're taking it very easy this week. Lots of cuddles in the hammock, little nature walks, easy crafts (a paper cup string telephone, hammer beads etc) and games (Carcassonne, City of zombies).  And of course lots of trying to catch up on the sleep some of us have been missing out on!

The nature walks are giving us a great opportunity to enjoy the springtime and appreciate the flora and fauna around us. The children are really enjoying listening to the birdsong especially our resident blackbirds. Lotta said to me yesterday, "remember mummy if we lie here and close our eyes we'll be able to hear the birds better". And also all the flowers which Maya particularly has been drawing in her herbier/nature journal.

Here are some pictures from our walks...

 

Five Little Things : Blooming Marvelous

I’ve been feeling very optimistic recently and very blessed. It might be joining in with NaPoWrMo (National Poetry Writing Month) or the all singing, all dancing arrival of Spring and the brighter, longer days but suddenly I feel how lucky we are to be living the life we are living. How blessed with abundance we are.

So often it is too easy to see all the things we don’t have and wish to have them – a pair of these yellow chairs from Ikea, that ridiculously expensive dress I like, any number of beautiful things from Etsy. And yet. When I take even the smallest moment to think about it or when a thought provoking film, book or article (like I, Daniel Blake) makes me stop and think, I see how lucky we are – really our cups are flowing over.

It’s a good feeling gratitude and one I intend to keep cultivating. After a winter of discontent, finally spring is here and I’m remembering my blessings not least those given by mother nature in the blossom, the flowers, the green. 

Little Things : Secret Doors

As I think I might have mentioned I have a little obsession with old doors. There's something about them I love. They're mysterious and inviting and I like to photograph them.

Discreetly mossy

Sometimes I wonder if it all goes back to a childhood love of Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden. I loved that book and the idea of a hidden walled garden seemed so romantic. Even now I love walled gardens. But what really hits me about the story is the idea of searching for the door and the joy and excitement of finding it. How Mary's hand must have trembled as she put in the key, wondering what was going to happen when she turned it.

Doors are in many ways symbolic of beginnings, opportunities, chances we can take or refuse. Perhaps my love of them - the old and gnarled, seemingly forgotten, beautiful and strange - stems from the desire to explore, to step into the unknown, to voyage in my imagination. 

So here they are, doors I photographed in the lovely town of Chateau Gironde where I had the exceptional good look to spend a few hours wiht my friend Estelle. Our dear husbands watched the kids and we enjoyed great conversation and the magical ambience of a medieval French town on a sunny Sunday afternoon. What more can a girl poet ask for? And is it any wonder they inspired poetry? Well here's the sketch I'm working on...

All the Old doors

Unopened, keys long lost

like forgotten letters,

stand there watching;

silent and patient.

Locks and barrels,

hinges and latches,

orange tinged and tinted;

rusty and dry with age,

stiff as arthritic limbs

they are still waiting.

No one remembers

what they were for,

where they used to lead to,

all the places they could take you

if you knew where to go.

And this door here -

it’s dark blue faded pale,

it’s paneling cracked,

bare wood peeking through,

this door could be the one.

This door could be your future

if you put in the key,

turn the handle and see.

   

Five Little Things : Colour and Promise

Spring is in the air here, the primroses are blooming, the weeping willows have leaves, the first blossom is on the trees and the beautiful yellow bells of the daffodils are covering the verges. It's great. That and the fact that I'm poring over paint charts and decorating books has me thinking about colour a lot and that's the inspiration for today's five little things. Promise? Well that's what I feel like spring is full of, the promise of sunshine and warm days and more time outdoors. I love this season because on certain days, it really does feel like anything is possible in this life.

Blossom on my knee

Drooping Daffodil

The Old Hortensias

Rock Plants

Warhol Daffodils

ththe

Five Little Things : Thinking about Photography

Back at the beginning of February I decided to begin a 52 week long photography challenge (link here). I take a lot of photos but have never taken a course or spent a lot of time thinking about how to take better photographs. In my last post I explained our approach to kids and photography and there haven't really been any differences in my own. Of course I've been finding it hard to stick to taking a photo a week. There's so much going on in our lives that this project was always going to be difficult to fit in. At the same time I still want to try and do this and so I thought why not just catch up when I can even if that means four or five photos in a row and perhaps sneaking the odd one or two in from the archives when I haven't had much time out with the camera. Here is the fruit of my labours for weeks two and three alongside some other pictures I either came across or took recently.
 
Week Two : Straight out of the Camera

No photoshopping or editing was allowed. This is simply a close up of some seaweed on a beach in Iona. I love this shot for the colours and the strangeness.

Week Three : Land

A landscape or something inspired by land. I take a lot of nature pictures, I like the colours and the sense of peace I find out there. The seashore is one of the most restorative places for me and I love how this picture feels like a soft caress of sunlight across the land.

Some non photography challenge shots...

A beautiful close encounter

A little Photoshop work was required here to clean up the image. It was the fruit of quite a few shots.

Running to the Museum

I gave this photo a colour wash (Bazaar in google photos) to make Noah and the windows stand out more. I love this photo because it captured Noah's joy returning to St Etienne's Museum of Art and Industry where they have armor and weapons and bicycles!

Mysterious Door

I love a mysterious door and often photograph them. This one has seen some time I think and wears it proudly. I still don't know what's on the other side...