Olympus OM-D E-M5 MkII – Musings from the cold

Day #12: Venice

Posted on January 7, 2018January 7, 2018 by Sharon

Lunedi 1 Gennaio 2018

Yes, it’s the New Year and we’re in Venice! I heard the fireworks last night as the sound bounced around the canals and streets from Piazzo San Marco, but didn’t manage to see them. We’d seen squads of police heading towards the Piazza late in the afternoon but we didn’t feel like joining them.

Murano and Burano were on the agenda for today. It was another drizzly day but we figured we couldn’t let a little drizzle stop us getting out and about so we walked to Fondamente Nove to catch a vaporetto to Murano. The tide was high and water was lapping very close to the edges of the streets – in some places spilling over the edges – but we managed to get through without getting our feet wet.

Murano was quiet – it was too early for the shops, and given it was New Year’s Day the glass factories weren’t open either. But it was lovely to get lost amongst the laneways and follow random strangers in case they knew their way out of the maze of streets, to see places tourists wouldn’t usually get to see, and to end up in a bar with a group of old men drinking wine like it was water and they were dying of thirst. It was fascinating to sit there and listen to their interactions, the ways they greeted each other, the ease with which they welcomed each newcomer into their circle, their comraderie and gentle ribbing, without understanding a word they said.

More and more visitors were arriving on the island and the shops and factories were opening. The water continued to lap at the footpaths and before long it was drizzling. We rushed into a restaurant to have an early lunch, then set out for Burano, the island of colourful houses and lace making. We hadn’t made it very far onto the island before the rain intensified … Tim managed a few shots (including the gorgeous one below), then we ran for the vaporetto station and a very welcome hot (and sweet) lemon tea.

I went back to the apartment to dry off while Tim explored the Doges Palace. I still haven’t made it into the Basillica. Perhaps next time.

Italian pizza for dinner – one more thing ticked off Tim’s bucket list, then back to the apartment to pack for the next leg of our journey.

Photography

52 weeks … a year in words and images

Posted on December 1, 2017November 30, 2017 by Sharon

As you’re no doubt aware, I like to take photos. Some of them are even okay. Others are relegated to the ‘do not ever open’ folder on my computer.

I generally take photos of flowers*, and when I travel I take photos of buildings and gardens and bridges. And people. Especially people. As someone who prefers not to interact with people, I’m often bemused by my love of taking photos of people.

I’ll happily walk up to someone in the city and ask to take their photo and have a chat with them – but put me in a room with other people at a conference for instance, and I find a corner in which to stand awkwardly, avoiding eye contact with other conference participants in case they somehow, inexplicably, think it’s okay to talk to me. It never is. Ever. Standing awkwardly in a corner is fine with me, and because I’m so old, I can even do it without a phone in my hand.

So, photos of flowers and people. But I’m also part of a small group of photographers who are engaged in a 52 Week Photography Project (note the caps – that means it’s a ‘thing’, an important and significant thing), and that means I have to extend my range, photographically speaking, beyond people and flowers. And it’s often (read ‘always’) a challenge.

We have a theme each week and I generally spend the week thinking of ideas. Or at least knowing I should be thinking of ideas. By the weekend, when no ideas have fallen on me from the ideas generator in the sky (I’m beginning to think the ideas generator doesn’t exist and that I’ll have to do my own thinking!), I get desperate and take a photo of the first thing that crosses my path.

Well, there’s a bit more to it than that, but sometimes my creativity tank is very low and I feel pressured to find something to photograph. I have a few cringe-worthy shots as proof of my depleted creativity – but let’s focus on the positives shall we?

Our themes have included ‘blue‘, ‘still life with food‘, and ‘the natural world‘. We shoot a self-portrait in Week 1, Week 13, Week 26, Week 39, and Week 52; and in Weeks 10, 20, 30, 40, & 50 the theme is photographer’s choice (now, if you think it’s hard to think of something when you have a theme, let me tell you it’s VERY difficult to think of something to shoot when there isn’t one).

The weekly post is released each Sunday night on the 52 Week Photography blog, and we sit and chat (electronically, as we’re spread across the globe) about each other’s images. As my sister Debbie, her husband Grant, their daughter Melanie, my son Daniel, my husband Tim, and our friend Alison form the group, it’s a lovely way to end the week.

I love to see how each person has interpreted the theme and marvel at the photographic prowess on display, and commit (to myself at least) to trying harder next week, which, come Monday I promptly forget, only to be reminded the following week when I see everyone else’s shots.

And it’s already Week 21 (the year really is flying by) and the theme this week is ‘play’ … how would you interpret that theme? Feel free to upload your photographic interpretation in the comments.

[Using my readers as potential ideas generators?? Never!!]

[Please (please) feel free to play along!]

* I don’t actually only take photos of flowers. Sometimes I also take photos of lightbulbs! (This is a shot from last year’s 52 Week Project.)

Fun fact: I was contacted by an energy company in the UK earlier this week asking if they could use this image on their promotional material!

Life, Writing

Life’s like that: On being a guest blogger

Posted on October 25, 2017October 25, 2017 by Sharon

A message pops onto my screen as I’m scrolling through my phone one day last week. It’s an invitation from my sister, Debbie – an invitation to write a guest post on her blog in a new series she’s starting called ‘person of interest’.

If you’ve been a long-term follower of my blog, you’ll know that I blog for days and days on end, and then go quiet as other areas of my life take precedence, or as I search for something to blog about. Those silences have been known to last for months. I blogged yesterday, for instance, but it was my first post in a month.

Life’s like that. Fits and starts, slow patches where nothing much happens and you wear a dent in the couch, then suddenly it starts to warm up and still moments are hard to find.

At least, that’s what life’s like for me. A burst of energy, blog posts pour forth, images are taken and posted, creative thoughts engulf you and you make plans for projects and then teaching takes over, there are provocations to record, discussion posts to write, ideas to be shared and explored and challenged and questions to be asked, responses to student posts to be crafted to ensure warmth and encouragement and generation of thought, assignments come pouring in and feedback needs to be given that’s warm and encouraging and generates thought, and your daughter falls ill and you fly interstate to support her in her recovery and prepare nutritious and delicious meals like vegemite on toast to tempt her to eat again, and your dog is run over and you spend a week crying in the shower, while you’re walking to the station, in bed late at night, eating breakfast, and your dad gets sick and is taken to hospital and spends days not being able to talk walk eat stay awake and you hold your breath and prepare yourself for news you don’t want but know will come one day and days later he wakes up and is able to feed himself breakfast.

And then stillness, quiet, time for contemplation and an invitation pops onto your screen from your sister, inviting you to be a guest on her blog and you write responses to her questions and think about what those responses say about you but you send them in anyway, in the end knowing that you’re you and you own your responses and the person they represent.

Life’s like that.

And writing responses for my guest post sparks something in me that’s been dormant for some time and I figure if I can do it for my sister, I can do it for me too. So here I am …

… except more assignments have just poured in which means more warm, encouraging, thought-generating feedback needs to be written … and my blog will have to wait just a little longer.

I love the light in Tasmania. This image has nothing outwardly to do with my post, but I felt the calmness and serenity captured by the light suited my mood.

Flowers, Life

368

Posted on October 24, 2017October 24, 2017 by Sharon

My aunt, mum’s younger sister, came to stay recently, travelling, for the first time, on her own from interstate on the train. We had a lovely week together – a mix of busy days and new adventures, and other days of rest and calm.

A few days after she left, gorgeous flowers arrived as a thank you. Aunty Jan had told the florist to choose the flowers carefully because the recipients were photographers ‘of note’. While that’s possibly over-stating things (but thank you AJ), I did spend some time photographing them.

The flowers were predominantly yellow and brightened the kitchen beautifully. Here’s just one of them in the late afternoon light…