Category: Portraits

Posted in Life, Mid-life blogger, Photography, Portraits, Writing

3 questions and an F word

Posted on by Sharon

As regular readers know, I have an older sister. Not much older, just over a year, but older is older, right? Deb, my slightly older sister, is a blogger over at Deb’s World and the other day she wrote a post, which led me to writing one in the same format. It felt strange and strangely uncomfortable because it isn’t the kind of writing I generally do, but I did it anyway, because … well, because boundary pushing is sometimes a good thing to do.

So here I am, about to start writing another post copying another format she sometimes uses – the 3 questions and an F word of the title of this post.

The three questions are:

  1. What’s made you happy (I’m not sure if that’s ever, or this week, but I’ll work that out as I write).
  2. What’s made you sad (ditto)
  3. What’s made a difference (again, I could go back to her post and check out what this is supposed to mean, or I could do what I’m going to do and that is make up my own mind about it. It’s my blog after all!)
  4. The fourth thing is to find an F word that has some meaning to me (possibly mis-remembering this bit of the prompt … but, my blog and all that).

Deb has all the details on her most recent post: Friday Feels: 3 questions and an F word. Not sure what the Friday Feels bit is about, but it’s Friday, so I’ll go with that.

So, what’s made me happy?

Family. My eldest son came to stay and we drove a few hours to spend a few days with my mother and sister and it was fabulous to be together. We laughed, and we cried, and we watched my granddaughter’s footy grandfinal on the telly and heard her mother yelling from Tasmania. One of the best bits was getting my photography studio properly sorted and getting to try out the new lighting set up on my son (who did all the sorting).

In this shot we used the beauty dish as the lighting source.

And what’s made me sad?

Goodbyes. Not, I hasten to add, that I’ve had to say any permanent goodbyes of late, but there’s always a twinge of sadness when we have to say ‘see ya’.

What’s made a difference?

Wallpaper and paint. We bought a house just over a year ago and have been taking our time in working out how we want it to look. We had the loungeroom painted earlier in the year. Clouded Sky. That’s the name of the paint colour. A few months ago, we added some wallpaper to the family room, and yesterday we had the little sitting room painted. Bean Counter. That’s the name of the paint colour. It’s made such a difference!

An F-word

Face-mask. I had never used a face-mask before the weekend, but Deb said we needed a ‘glow up’ and so bought us both one to apply. It was slimy and cold and felt disgusting for the fifteen minutes it was on my face. I was distinctly uncomfortable and I think Deb was slightly disappointed that it wasn’t the relaxing experience she had imagined it would be.

After peeling the slimy wet thing from my face and gingerly rubbing the leftover gloop in with my fingertips, I have to admit that my face was glowing. It has continued to glow in the days since. So much so, that I’m considering doing it again sometime in the next 60 years.

So there you have it: 3 questions and an f-word. And no mention of my newly published book Enacting a pedagogy of kindness, available now from the Routledge site (as well as loads of other sites that sell good books). I did well not to mention that, didn’t I?

Posted in Photography, Portraits

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Posted on by Sharon

We (my mother, my sister, and I) popped in to see Dad today. Since August last year my Dad has lived in an aged care residence and the last time I saw him was a few days before he moved in. It was great to see him in his new ‘home’. It’s full of photos of family: his three children, ten grandchildren, and 13 (direct) great-grandchildren – and mementoes of a life well-lived.

Here’s another photo that will take pride of place on his wall!!

* Photo by Debbie

Posted in Melbourne, Portraits

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Posted on by Sharon

A few weeks ago, Tim and I did a fashion shoot. I’ve already featured some of the female models – so today I thought I’d post a shot of Evan. I watched while others had their three minutes taking shots of him, and thought about what I could do to get a different image from the ones they were doing. No one else asked him to take his jacket off … so I did. He was very serious about it!

Posted in Photography, Portraits

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Posted on by Sharon

I attended a photography workshop on the weekend – a ‘build your portfolio’ workshop. There were models and sets and lights and action. It was fabulous. I felt that I’d found my new home!

Over the next week I’m going to feature some of the (many) images I captured from the weekend. The first image is of Grace …

Posted in Portraits, Teaching

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Posted on by Sharon

I haven’t taught pre-service teachers for what seems like a long time … and out of the blue, a former colleague rings and asks if I want to teach a unit on engagement! Yay. The next week I start teaching. One student writes in his introduction: ‘Sharon, you were the most respected and most feared lecturer we had. It is poetically fitting that you are teaching me in my final year, as you also taught me in my first year.’

I had recognised this student’s name as soon as I saw it. As all teachers know, some students make an immediate impression on you. When the students are young, it’s often the students who challenge you the most that make the most impression – those students who don’t sit still, who don’t comply quickly, who ask lots of (what appear to be irrelevant) questions … the students school isn’t designed for. They remain with you for many years, and even ten years later you talk about them fondly (or with residual despair).

When the students are older the ones who make an impression are those who ask lots of questions, who bring a different perspective to class discussions, who don’t sit still in their thinking; the ones who develop tremendous resilience and now call themselves ‘teacher’ effortlessly, when initially that word reached their lips with great reluctance and unease.

A little over ten years ago I walked into the Week 1 tutorial and asked the students why they chose to study teaching. One student, a slightly chubby redhead, said that she’d wanted to be a paramedic. ‘Why didn’t you do that then?’ I asked, somewhat bluntly. Some weeks later I noticed she wasn’t in the lecture. The next week I ‘marched’ (according to her) her to my office to talk to her about the importance of regular attendance. (When you have potential, it’s a shame to waste it.)  I taught her again in 3rd year, and then again in 4th year where her response to a literacy paper I had asked students to write was outstanding.

But even though students make an impression on you, at the time you’re teaching them, you don’t expect to end up lying on the grass under an umbrella listening to Ben Abraham and Archie Roach (as warm-up acts for Missy Higgins) on a hot summer’s afternoon in late January with them. Unless they’re Alison, the former slightly chubby redhead, who had come to stay for the weekend.

And then the next day, Alison asks me if I can take her photo.

Wouldn’t that be a great project … to return to all the memorable students I’ve taught and do a photography shoot with them! Who’s up for it?