My oh my I am a little behind in blogosphere. When I don’t post for a while I start getting a little concerned that I will forget things. I haven’t even written about my lovely trip to the New Forest and there’s still plenty of other images to post, too…
The camping trip was pretty amazing. I’ve never been camping before, other than at Glastonbury, and I don’t really class that as camping. I’m not quite sure how we came to the decision of camping in March in England, which pretty means disaster weather, but it was a rather spontaneous decision. The past week or so had been pretty rough for both of us, I think, so the need to just hop in the car and drive into the distance was very much present. We coasted around the New Forest, whizzed along the west coast around Dorset pretty much taking photos, visiting strange little towns and enjoying both being out of our respective cities.
We called this home for three nights:
I’ve never put up a tent before either so that was another mile stone. I really wish my parents had taken me camping as a kid. We cooked on this ridiculously pathetic stove (actually it wasn’t even a stove, just a pan with firelighters underneath) and I loved it. I ate French Fancies for breakfast, drank beer before bed and was woken up one morning by a wild pony trying to stomp me to death in my tent. What more could I ask for? And I got to wake up to this face every morning:
Beautiful, eh? Anyway, I won’t bore you with the details. Here’s the pretty normal photos from the trip, I’ll post the prettier ones in staggered posts. Here we go…
A couple of months ago one of my oldest external hard drives took a turn for the worse. Clicking and whirring it was pretty clear it didn’t have much go left in it. Some friends recommended putting it in the freezer a couple of times which helped me to retrieve a small portion of photos, but all else seemed lost. Of course I hadn’t backed up. I seem to be filling up hard drives quicker than I can afford them. I admit that I am a complete and utter photo hoarder. Ironically I am completely obsessed with deleting every other kind of file on my computer in my never ending quest for “organisation”, but when it comes to photos (good, bad or entirely useless) I just can’t bring myself to delete any. With the drive dying it meant that I had lost hundreds of thousands of photos dating from 2001-2007, as well as 100gb+ of music. I was pretty devastated. People kept telling me it could all be fixed but that it’d cost me big bucks. I was beginning to lose hope and silently resigned myself to the fact that I was an idiot and should have backed up. Some of those photos were my favourite photos I’d ever taken.
I was sifting around under my desk this afternoon when I came across a bag stashed away. Lo and behold, a chunky bag filled with literally hundreds of CDs and DVDs dating back to 2001! So I have been sitting here at this computer for almost twelve hours now transferring an incredible amount of data over to one of the drives. I had forgotten how clunky, slow and easily damaged CDs/DVDs get. Quite a few of them have been corrupted but I’ve managed to retrieve the majority of the data using software. Hallelujah!
It’s been an odd journey. Much like when I look back through this blog (which I do from time to time to remind me of things), it’s been incredibly nostalgic. Something that has become increasingly noticeable to me lately is the division between photographers, artists, people that practice both and where I stand. Sifting through these images has given me (or reminded me) of why I became interested in photography and why I pursued it. I started photographing as an alternative to the written word. I had no idea that it would totally transform my perception of the world and that I would become so obsessed with documenting and creating images. It’s interesting to see how my attitude to photography has evolved from a diaristic, almost therapeutic approach – which was very much present during my degree and has been continuously evident in my relationships – to a commercial approach. In short, it’s even more interesting to see my photographic style progress, shift, but recognise that my style is still evident in a great deal of my images.
Photography for me is still very much so a therapy of sorts. I am terribly paranoid about the lack of memory. Although I am not as bad as I used to be, I obsess about the possibility of not remembering a place, a person, a moment. For me, this is how photography came about. Seeing these images, to me, are just fascinating. There have only been a few instances where I haven’t recognised, or remembered, taking a photo. Surrounded by my pile of CDs, which will soon no doubt transform into yet more hard drives, I like to think that this great archive will one day be a hundred times bigger than it already is…
So just remember.. backup. Please.
Phew! What a week. Today has been the first time I’ve had the chance to sit down at the computer, catch up on e-mails, do a bit of retouching and defrag the contents of my brain from the previous week.
I had such a lovely time away for my birthday. It was just so wonderful being with lots of my friends out in the country, disconnected from the world (checked Facebook/email a few times, phone died when we arrived and I didn’t bother to charge it). The house was an incredibly beautiful barn conversion with a huge family-style kitchen, lots of comfy bedrooms (despite the snorers) and surrounded by sheep (I love sheep). C & I shared the gorgeous master bedroom and when I couldn’t sleep I enjoyed watching the sunrise from our window as he slept peacefully, snuggled into the thick, warm duvet.
We didn’t leave the house much to be honest. On Saturday we went to Pistyll Rhaeadr waterfall which was incredibly. I am utterly obsessed with the sound of running water and having not seen a real waterfall before I thought I might die with excitement when we arrived. It was breath taking standing at the bottom and looking up and then later on in the day we climbed the mountain right to the top. This part of the adventure was not so good as I slipped over backwards on a rock at the top of the waterfall and broke my camera lens. BUT, it shall not mar my experience… I’ll post some photos of the waterfall a bit later.
Ate so much food it became a little ridiculous. And really good food. Lots of egg breakfasts, lamb tagine, home-made leek and potato soup (a la Mama), huge huge huge roast dinner, with the last evening rounded off with a curry. Absolutely de-lish.
On the way home we headed by Lake Vyrnwy which was also pretty incredible (and cold). Such a huge expanse of water with a rather odd little castle-like turret sticking out into the water. Reminded me of when E & I drove around ‘El parque natural sierras de Cazorla‘ last summer. Paradise? Will post photos of there at a later date too…
Here’s a rather random assortment of photos from the weekend! Image heavy…
It’s my birthday in three days! I am so excited. I have never really been the type of person to celebrate their birthday because it’s all about them. I love to hold big get-together events. For the last two years I have organised trips of 10-15 people friends going away to a beautiful cottage for my birthday. The first year in Devon, the last in Dorset. This year we’re going away to north Wales! This year there will be some people that will be sadly missed, but some new people to the group, and I cannot wait! I love being able to celebrate my birthday by giving some of my favourite people a long weekend away. Who cares that it’s my birthday?! This is an excuse for us to get together, drink, eat, and be merry. It’s basically my version of Christmas!
I’ll be back next week! I am so super-duper excited you cannot understand.
I’ve just spent a good few hours sorting through all my folders of 2009 and selecting 500 photos to get printed – at 6″x4″ – in an effort to never let those memories disappear. In my first year of university I would fill up scrapbooks all year round with work photos, but just also photos taken with friends. Over the years I’ve kind of missed that physical tangibility you get from looking and being able to touch images. 2009 was a really good year for me and I suppose I owe it to myself to be able to flick through and smile at the images that bring back so many happy memories.
These are some more photos taken of May at Dungeness that I realised I hadn’t posted. I love that red dress.
I had a rather nice Christmas surprise this year. I got two book covers! One is for Richard Montanari’s “Kiss of Evil” and is a photo taken in an old asylum. The other is “L’ipnotista” by Lars Kepler and funnily enough a photo of me on the stairs of my old house. It makes me laugh that I am sitting on book covers around the world.
I also got a new camera:
… that made me one happy camper. Now a few days rest with the boy before New Years at Torture Garden.
I’m sure I wasn’t the only one enjoying the abundance of snow in England over the last few days…
