The Season of our Discontent

There is no escaping from ourselves. The human dilemma is as it has always been, and we solve nothing fundamental by cloaking ourselves in technological glory. 

Neil Postman

Every day, on the internet, in group forums, Youtube and Facebook comments, gear reviews and photography groups I see people over and over again complaining about some new camera or lens that isn't perfect for them. It hasn't got a new sensor or there's not enough megapixels or why would a company bring out another lens of a certain length when they already have others covering that length? Or why isn't this lens faster and have better bokeh? 

Constant discontent. 

It seems that no one online is ever happy about anything. I can imagine that if you were to spend any time reading comments anywhere you would soon become quite depressed and possibly end up adding your own depressing comments to everyone else's. I find it all incredibly sad.

I'm an old school photographer. I started in film and switched to digital in 2004. I remember this because my daughter was born that year and her baby photos switch from film to digital part way through her first year. Back then digital cameras were nothing like what they are now. Very low megapixels and the sensor technology has vastly improved since then. They weren't great cameras but we appreciated the new found benefits we got from going digital. No film processing fees and being able to shoot as much as we wanted to as long as we had memory cards and battery power. Everything was new and exciting and people seemed very happy with their camera gear. 

Fast forward a few years though and even with the growth of technology and the internet and how much more powerful and capable our cameras are, no one seems to appreciate just how far that technology has progressed. How much cleaner our images are at higher ISOs and how easy it is to share images with family around the world. Even with the pocket and bridge cameras and smart phones.  I would even say that nowadays there no bad cameras being made.

This seems to be the season of our discontent. 

I don't think people have always been this discontented with things or their lives. I think when new technology like automatic washers came along people were very happy to have them and appreciated the extra time they gained and the hard work this machine saved them from. No, I think the internet and advertisers have bred our discontent by constantly bombarding us with images and information about new things we don't have and places we haven't been. Advertisers have latched on to our fears of not fitting in, of not being good enough and have monetized our struggles to find purpose and meaning in life. All of this is what is creating our discontent with our new modern camera gear. We must be seen to have the latest full frame camera, with the highest pixel count and be seen to be traveling the world taking images for a living to be worth anything. 

All this of course, is not good for the planet. I still think that in years to come we will be mining our rubbish tips to find the things we threw away so carelessly. To reuse those metals and alloys that will one day no longer be found naturally.

Another downside to this constant need for better is the image perfection that everyone now seems to be seeking. 

Portraits must be taken with razor thin focus and wonderful creamy bokeh. 

Landscapes must be perfectly sharp from front to back. From the tiny flowers in the foreground to the mountains in the background. Landscapes must of course also have epic light or there's no point in taking the images. 

Shadows are a huge no no. There must not be any areas in your image where you cannot see any detail because of shadows. 

Noise of any kind is also not allowed. Images must be crisp and sharp and noise free. 

So many rules to follow or your images aren't good enough and you fail as a photographer. This I find particularly sad for a number of reasons.

Beginners have been given a huge mountain to climb. They must first have the latest, greatest, expensive camera and they must take perfect pictures straight away. Expectations are too high on them before they've even had a chance to learn about light, composition or what subjects they might want to shoot. So many learners want to learn how to use their cameras but are too afraid to ask questions or share images for fear of being attacked/ridiculed. I think this also has a lot to do with the decline of camera purchases. People expect too much from beginners so they stick with their phones or hide their work and learn slowly on their own. 

Another reason this saddens me is the narrowing of variety we see in images shared online now. Instagram even has pages dedicated to showing the similar images that are shared on there. Pages of pretty girls in front of the same mountain. Or sunsets all taken from the same place. Even our morning coffee is repeated in images all over the internet. Just like we need diversity in our flora and fauna we also need diversity in our images. 

Lastly we are seeking images that are technically perfect and in a lot of ways, sterile. Not only is the variety of images we are taking reducing but with all of the above rules the images are becoming technically perfect clones of each other with no allowance for any extra grain, atmosphere or personality. 

This is not the world I want for my children. I want a world where originality and creativity are encouraged. A world where tech spec talk is replaced by talk of happy adventures and sharing ideas and photo techniques. A world where our beginners are allowed to buy a cheap second hand camera and learn the way I did. By trying things and sharing things and by people encouraging them. They should be allowed to advance at their own pace and be able to choose for themselves when or if they want to upgrade their gear, not be told their gear is crap so they will never be able to take any decent images. That is just rubbish spouted by a lot of insecure people that have themselves, been pushed into the same thing they are trying to push you into. Don't fall for it. 

Be original!

Go back to works by the old masters of the past. See what excites you from their work and then take what you like from everywhere and find your own style. Don't be afraid of deeper depth of field in portraits, people can have in focus ears too. Don't be afraid to have out of focus foreground elements in your landscapes. Embrace shadows! Shadows shape the light on your subject. No shadows means no shape. No contrast and flat images. Embrace noise! A lot of digital cameras have quite nice looking noise, almost like film grain. I love noise in my black and white images. I also like noise in my gritty urban images and my moody landscape images. Most of all

Have Fun!

Find like-minded people to shoot with or find a good online group to share images and techniques with. They are out there.

This is one group I've discovered on Facebook. It's for women only as a lot of women have shared tales of being ridiculed by men in online groups. This is a great group of women of all ages and photographic abilities. They shoot all different subjects and are very encouraging. They also offer a mentoring program. I've posted a link to the group below. If you know of other good groups please feel free to add their links in the comments section below.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/sheclicksnet/

Have a great week and keep creating! :)

Bags as decor and storage

Hi, my name is Carol and I'm a bag collector. 

Phew, there it's out in the open, my weakness is for bags. 

Not shoes or dresses or cars or one of many, many other things I could collect. 

It's bags. 

I'm not sure when my fascination with bags first started. I wasn't interested in them in high school and I lugged a backpack to work when I first started working. Nothing flash, just a plain old backpack. It kept my stuff dry as I cycled to work. Job done. 

I guess the first time I can really remember thinking about bags was when I was looking for a decent camera bag after I bought my first slr. I wasn't happy with the cheaply made bag that came with my camera and I started looking at better quality waterproof bags. Especially Lowepro bags. At that stage back in the late 80's, Lowepro was the only bag type I really knew about and knew I could buy here in New Zealand. I first spotted them mentioned in an American photography magazine. I looked at British Photography magazines too but couldn't find a lot of the brands they mentioned there, over here. Anyway over the years I've owned many different camera bags as my equipment has grown and changed and then shrunk again. (Over the years I've owned a Minolta film camera and large lenses and huge flash unit and correspondingly large bag. Then a couple of Canon dslrs and lenses plus a large backpack and then I downsized drastically to a Canon G11 that could nearly fit in my pocket, while I saved up for the gear I now have. My Olympus OMD EM5 and lenses that I carry in a Golla Riley Pro shoulder bag. A much smaller and lighter kit than my Minolta and Canon gear.)

Over those years I tried out numerous backpacks for my heavier gear and since buying my Olympus gear in 2014 I've tried out 3 or 4 shoulder bags too. I have to say here, that I think most photographers are on the lookout for the perfect bag but I don't think it exists. The perfect bag is really a couple of bags. One larger one to fit all your gear in when you need it and one smaller one to carry only what you need when you need to travel light. The one perfect bag is a myth. Which is a shame really. (I really like Hermione's bag in Harry Potter. Could carry everything including the kitchen sink and still be light to carry. I think that could almost be the perfect bag.)

Somewhere during that time I started to get interested in other shoulder bags. Not purely women's handbags per se but a mixture of messenger bags, handbags, cross-over camera bags and bags for your electronic devices.

I must say here that I've never been interested in designer or high-end handbags. They clash with my hiking boots and I find them a bit gaudy and sparkly for the places I like to hang out. Most birds would be scared off by shiny sparkly bits on a bag except perhaps the Magpies and after having been dive-bombed by a nesting Magpie in the past, I'm not too keen to attract them.

Anyway, that brings me to my current collection of bags which I had stashed in my wardrobe. I pulled them all out to go through them and donated  three handbags to the local Hospice shop. This has left me with five bags left. One handbag, one colorful bag my sister brought me back from Thailand and three messenger type bags. I didn't really want to stash them all back in the wardrobe and I was sick of shifting my currently used bag around the house as it didn't have a set home. So I came up with the idea of hanging my current bag on the wall where I could easily get it when needed. Then I put the handbag I wasn't using in the larger messenger bag along with a smaller messenger bag and hung that and my Thai bag on the wall too. (see the picture above) (My current passion is for army style canvas bags. Soft and moldable to your body whilst being tough and hard wearing.)

I've found the bags on the wall have added a bit of color to my bedroom whilst also adding some extra storage space. (Storage space is sadly lacking in our home. No hallway cupboards and no linen cupboard either so any small places I can add storage is good.)

So what do you think? Do you have some bags or baskets tucked away in a cupboard that might look good displayed and provide some extra storage?

  

How easy is it really, to walk away empty handed?

"It is desirable that a man... live in all respects so compactly and preparedly that if an enemy take the town, he can, like the old philosopher, walk out the gate empty-handed without anxiety."

David Henry Thoreau

I love the idea of the above quote. To be so unattached to my things that I'm able to walk away after a fire, flood or war and miss nothing. To have nothing that can't be replaced. It sounds so freeing.

This quote is from Thoreau's book 'Walden' published in 1854 and the paragraph this was taken from was discussing the merits of quality clothing versus cheap thin clothing. Taken out of it's context though, it sounds like everything should be easily walked away from and that's how I am taking it for this blog post.

I guess in 1854 it was a lot easier to walk away from everything. I'm not sure it's so simple now.

So I asked myself, what things in 2018 would I have difficulty leaving behind and can I find a way around losing them? 

After a bit of thought I decided there are three main things that I would have difficulty leaving behind.

1. Important documents
2. Photographs
3. Artwork

Important documents

I know from experience how hard it can be trying to prove your identity in a modern world without the correct paperwork. The modern fixation with red tape and bureaucracy have made it extremely frustrating, costly and time consuming to get anything done and if you don't have proper identification you pretty much don't exist in the eyes of some places.

A possible way around losing these documents could be keeping them in a fireproof safe or a safe deposit box at the bank. This wouldn't save them from everything that could possibly happen to them but it would sure take a load off your mind knowing they were as safe as you could make them.

Photographs

In a modern world where everyone shares their breakfast lunch and dinner with you online it can seem like there's too many family photos to keep safe but if you look hard at the images you have and only keep the very best photos, discarding multiples, blurry images, over or under-exposed images and the weird images (you know the ones where someone makes a face, or shuts their eyes or sneezes), you'll find that you have very few to store. 

I noticed a while back, on a news report about the Syrian refugees, that quite a few of them had packed photos on mobile phones and usb sticks in their belongings. I have a usb stick with important photos on it too, just in case, but in reality I know I might not have it with me if a disaster struck so I also have them online in cloud storage. As long as I can remember my passwords I can access them from anywhere. I also share some images on Instagram and Facebook so I can see them there too. 

Artwork

When I was a child and some of my artwork got damaged I used to get upset about it but nowadays I work small, take photos or scans of my work and sell it printed on items online. The original images stay with me but if they were lost or destroyed I'd still be able to see them online so I'm not really too worried about this either. 

It seems to me that anything I may be worried about losing in 2018 is in fact safely backed up or can be safely stored with a bit of forward planning. Maybe it's easier for me to walk away from home empty handed than I thought because everything I care about is backed up safely.

"But wait", I hear you say, "What about jewelry, or trinkets handed down?" 

Well, I don't associate things with people. I love photos because they can remind you of the people you love and places you've been, which I think would be very useful in later life if I had dementia but I don't get those sorts of feelings from things. They're just things to me. I have no interest in glittery things either. I don't wear rings. I only wear sleepers in my ears and own no other earrings. My only necklace is a Maori carving in green-stone on a piece of leather that my husband and children bought me one year for Mother's day and if that got destroyed in a fire I'd still know my family loves me. It wouldn't be the end of the world for me to lose any of it. It's just stuff. 

I guess at the end of the day, it is possible for me to walk out and leave everything I care about behind, as long as technology is backing me up. I mean really, if the world was ending and the cloud disappeared I think I'd have more to worry about than a few photos and drawings.

Is that cheating? Yep, I think so, we have so many more ways to access what is important to us now than they did in 1854, but, to be fair, I think nowadays we have become much more bogged down in red tape and bureaucracy as individuals and somehow we have now also become the keeper of our family histories. As we now document every little everyday thing thing that we do, I think we have created a huge load/responsibility for ourselves to preserve things that I'm not even sure should matter that much.

I guess as individuals we each have to decide what matters to us and what doesn't and that's what minimalism is all about really. Sifting through your stuff, your commitments, your life and decluttering the rest, so that we can all live as freely as possible.

(I hope it goes without saying that the most important things in my life aren't the above things. My family and our newest family member Bayley, a black Labrador are way more important than papers, photos or art.)

I'll leave you with a pic of Bayley.

Have a great week!

Okay maybe three because she's so gorgeous!

Week 8 Black and White 365 Challenge

50 Steep stairs

51 Workshop shelving

52 Fallen toy soldiers

53 Gloves

54 Stairs

55 Wire netting

56 Barbering

Another rainy week so I spent it mostly back in the workshop again. 

The highlight of my week was when my husband and I went in as models for my son in his barbering course. That was a lot of fun. The barbering photo was shot with my cell phone (a Samsung Galaxy J5 Prime) as I didn't take my camera out with me that day. All the rest were shot with my camera as usual.

I'm going to be taking a little break from shooting for a week or two while I have other house related projects going on. There just aren't enough daylight hours in the day at the moment, especially as it's winter here. 

Have a great week :)

Week 7 Black and White 365 Challenge

43 Basket weave

44 Camelia flower

This bush was severely pruned (practically to a stump) by the previous owners of our house. It's started to regrow in the couple of years we've lived here and this year we have been rewarded with

some lovely pale pink flowers.

45 Homegrown Feijoas and some Passionfruit a friend grew.

46 Toolbox.

47 Industrial light fitting

48 Three phase powerpoint

49 Saw blade

This week the weather was cold and rainy and miserable so I spent some time in my husband's workshop looking for inspiration.

Have a great week :)

Week 6 Black and White 365 Challenge

36 Basket weave

37 Buddha eye

38 Thai elephant fabric texture

39 Metal texture

40 Crosstitch texture

41 Dreary weather

42 Fabric texture

This week the weather was lousy but I did get a guy out to quote on replacing our upstairs heatpump and installing a completely new system downstairs. It'll be great to get some proper more economical heating throughout this house.

Have a great week :)

Week 5 Black and White 365 Challenge

29 Budgie

30 Sunny Day

31 My son texting

32 Paint texture

33 Fabric texture

34 Ceramic texture

35 Blurred trees

I'm a few weeks behind in posting these images as I've been a bit busy with the renovations and having a massive declutter so I can't remember what I was thinking when I shot some of these images. Sorry about that.

This week I processed some of my images using  an Instagram filter that made the images a bluish color for a bit of a change.

  

Have a great week :)

The Way We Use Our Spaces

Recently I've been wondering whether we really still have too much stuff or whether some of the cluttered feeling in our house comes more from a misuse of our available space and a lack of storage where it's needed.

Hubby, when he's home, spends most of his time between his workshop and his office off the lounge. Which to be honest is a bit of an eyesore with not enough storage space.(see pic below) . 

Did I say, ' a bit of an eyesore?'

I spend my daytime hours when I'm at home either at my desk, which is also in the lounge, or in the kitchen, laundry, or garden. Our current office spaces don't have any real storage. Hubby has a few drawers, otherwise everything's all over his desk and I have files stuck in boxes in a cupboard off the lounge that are a pain to get into when you need something in a hurry and a few art supplies stashed in a drawer in the spare room.

The picture below is of the office space we built for me in a corner of the dining room just after we moved here. Hubby built my desk for me. It had lots of positives like great lighting, lots of space and close to the kitchen for working while keeping an eye on things cooking but unfortunately the cold draft from people going in and out the back door (out of sight to the right of this picture) and the constant disturbances from everyone coming and going decided the fate of this office space. So I ended up moving into a dark, out of the way corner of the lounge for the last year or so. 

Looks great but has too much through traffic and cold drafts in winter.

Another problem has been a lack of linen storage. The previous owners of our house had removed the linen cupboard from the hallway and extended the bathroom into the space. They had then created a cupboard in a corner of the dining room, I suppose to replace the missing linen cupboard, but it's in a really silly place and the door opens over the doorway into the lounge. Blocking traffic flow through and around the main hub of the house. It turns out that they must have built the whole wall between the lounge and dining area as it doesn't show on the original house plans at all and after removing the wallpaper from the wall you can see that that whole section of wall has all new wall linings. Effectively they took an open plan house and partitioned it all off. 

Our problems; 

• We had a cluttered lounge filled with office stuff and overflow from my daughter's room. 
• A large master bedroom space with more floor space and storage than we needed and all the best but unused light.
• My daughter's room with not enough closet space or floor space to play and so her things were spilling into other areas of our house. 
• We also had no linen cupboard as the people that lived here before us thought it was a good idea to take it out and extend the bathroom and then partition up the lounge and dining areas and squeeze a cupboard into a random corner. 
• No proper storage for office related things and a messy office just by the front door and my desk in a dark corner.

Our solutions;

• Hubby and I decided to swap bedrooms with our daughter. We gave up the master bedroom to her as she has far more need of the storage and floor space in her room for playing and dancing with her friends than we needed just for sleeping. We had the largest room with the best natural light streaming though huge windows and yet the room remained empty most of the day. All that light and space was wasted on us. Now she has storage for all her books and toys/board games. She has plenty of floor space to spread out with her friends and the low winter sunlight in the room makes it a sun filled, warm, pleasant place to be for her. She loves it!
• We moved our bed into the spare room. It has ample space for us and a great large wardrobe so we haven't lost any space. It's on the South West side of the house so we don't get much sunlight until the late afternoon but that's fine because we're rarely in there during the day.
• Our daughter's bedroom we've turned into an office, it only has a single wardrobe so we've converted that into the linen cupboard. All the towels and spare sheets are in there and it's close to all the bedrooms and the bathroom where we need it.
• The office space is large enough to fit two desks and some shelving with room to spare, so all the files I have stashed in boxes will have homes as soon as I pick up another shelf unit. That also means that Hubby's desk can be cleaned up.
• Which leaves the lounge. I haven't taken a picture in there yet as I've got a large pile of things to be donated growing in there at the moment. I can also say that we've moved our home library in there too (it was in the spare room before) and it's so much better having the books near a comfy, well lit, place to read them.

So it looks like we had a mixture of problems. Some of it was due to too much stuff but a good bit more of it was due to us not thinking about how we could better make use of our available space.

The master bedroom doesn't have to be used just for the adults. I'm not sure where the idea came from that we have to have the largest bedroom in the house but it seems a waste of space to me. If I want some quiet time I can go to my room, lie on the bed and read or listen to music. I don't need loads of space for that. I've also discovered that if the kids have a nice space of their own to be in, they're more likely to spend their time in it. So the lounge is then quiet anyway. 

If you have a spare room you can turn into your office, do it!

This removes all the work thoughts to that room, where you can walk out, shut the door and leave them when you need a break. Having the office in the lounge just encourages working at stupid o'clock or when you should be having family time.

Storage is best placed where you need it. Linens and towels near the rooms you use them in. Files and office stuff in the office. Your home library is best placed near a comfy chair and a window for good light to read by.

Week 4 Black And White 365 Challenge

Day 22 Tree Fern

Day 23 Interior Painting

The undercoat is on the walls and I thought I'd shoot it while waiting for the paint to dry. Better than watching it I guess :) 

Hubby and I decided to go against the norm this week. We moved out of our 'master bedroom' (above pic) and once we had finished painting we moved our daughter in there instead. Our daughter's room always seemed cluttered and messy and her stuff was in all the rooms all over the house. She only had a single wardrobe in her room so there was never much room to store more than her clothes in there. Moving her into the largest bedroom with the best storage seemed like a good idea. It's not like hubby and I were holding regular gymnastics competitions and dance parties in there with lots of other friends like she does. Now all of her toys and things have a space in her room and she has room to move. We also have a much clearer idea of what things she has now that everything's in one place. Which is making things easier to sort through. The room also has lots of natural light and lovely winter sunshine. Perfect for someone that spends a lot of daylight hours in their room, not so much for those of us that only see it in the dark as we stumble to bed lol.

This has had a flow on effect throughout the house. The lounge is now less cluttered. The messy office that was just off the lounge is now moving into my daughter's old room. Which gives us plenty of space for two desks and I'll even have room for some shelving for files that I didn't have before. So that's sorted out another storage problem too. There's also the added bonus of being able to close the door on the office and know we've finished for the day. No more sneaking in a bit more work before bed because we can see the work beckoning us from across the lounge.

Hubby and I are happy with the smaller room, all our stuff fits fine and we still have a large wardrobe space so we haven't really lost anything out of the move, though to be fair, all the upstairs bedrooms can comfortably fit a kingsize bed so it's not like we moved into a closet.

It's been a win, win, win all round!

Day 24 Wood Texture

Day 25 Monarch Butterfly

Day 26 Sparrow

Day 27 Palm Shadows

Day 28 Busy Bee

I guess that's it for another busy week.

Have a great week :)

Week 3 Black And White 365 Challenge

Day 15 Flaking Paint

This week I decided to explore a few more textures such as the flaking paint above and the textured throw below.

Day 16 Textured Throw

Day 17 Steampunk Hat

 My son wearing a Steampunk hat he created for a fun day at his barbering course. It's made out of a cheap $2 shop hat and old cotton reels and broken swim goggles and other bits and pieces that he spray painted gold to pull it all together.

My son's hat in color.

Day 18 Quan Yin

Day 19 Bits and bobs drawers

Day 20 Our neighbors at night

Day 21 Scratched paintwork

As I post this I'm already four days into the next week and I feel absolutely knackered after spending the last couple of days painting our master bedroom from top to bottom. It looks great now that it's done though, and it was the last bedroom needing to be done so, Yay! That just leaves the big jobs left. The kitchen/lounge/dining and bathroom. Also a lick of paint in the office off the lounge too maybe, but that's a small job compared to the rest and I'm not sure what I want to do in there yet.

Have a great week :)