Exploring Water

Last week, I was exploring underwater photography. Maybe not so much my One Little Word EMERGE but rather SUBMERGE!

I was inspired by some photos that my brother Peter took of his daughter underwater as well as the ones that my friend Therese publishes on her swimming pool blog.

Bruce found that his small video camera is water proof and I purchased a small Olympus Tough TG2 as I am keen to experiment. We visited Mona Vale sea water pool and had some fun. It is early days as we experiment with taking photos in tiny rock pools as well as the murky depths of the sea swimming pool. Here are our first attempts.

Shell in rock pool taken underwater

Bubbles on the surface

Bruce with water reflections

Underwater selfie
 

Gratitude Feb week 1

Today's post is a week of Gratitude in pictures. It is a challenge to remember to take a photo and think about gratitude..I have also added a paint filter to my photos just for fun..I do like creating paintings from my photos..
Being grateful everyday for at least one thing, improves my mood and reminds me that even when I feel down there is always something that has happened that day that brings me joy..

Saturday 1 Feb; Bruce and I walked from Clovelly to Bondi and back. This is a beautiful coastal walk. We got exercise, fresh air, beautiful blue water and clear blue skies. In this photo, lunch was nearby as was respite from the heat and humidity.



lunch is in sight

Sunday 2 Feb: I enjoyed a quiet coffee in the garden. It was peaceful and restorative. Bruce went to the beach, I stayed home, reading the papers and enjoying the birds, the flowers and the quiet.

Morning coffee

Monday 3 Feb: I went for a swim. Not in this pool - it's the one at Bondi. I swam in an indoor pool sheltered from the sun. Still this image captures the "feeling". Moving fluidly through water..

swimmers at Bondi Icebergs pool

Tuesday 4 Feb: Purple lisianthus are some of my favourite flowers, I found some in the local supermarket and they are now in my kitchen. Beautiful. The photo looks particularly beautiful in the watercolour filter. Wish I could paint like this.

Lisianthus

Wednesday 5 Feb
Bruce and I did some much needed pruning of trees in the garden and restrung some of our solar-powered fairy lights. Love the twinkles at night. The craggy bark and hanging plants are lit up in the dying light of the day.

Twinkle lights on the crepe myrtle

Thurs 6 Feb
Time to do some quilting. I am working on a sea blue quilt for my son, Nick. Enjoying the colours and the challenge. I was drawn to Kaffe Fassett's Earthy Mitre squares as a design but have made this a centre panel while I create soft sea scape stripes top and bottom.



Making progress, sea blues squares and stripes

Fri 7 Feb
Nothing creates a sense of summer more to me than luscious mango. When I was a child we would be given a mango to eat as a special treat. The sweet juice would run down our arms as we sank our teeth into the soft flesh. It is still my favourite summer fruit even if I have learned to nibble the flesh from the skin rather than sink my teeth into the softness around the stone.

mango ready for breakfast

Glass Bottles

When we were in London last year, wandering around the British Museum in the Turkish/Moroccan section, I saw these glass bottles. The light illuminated them perfectly and I was enraptured. I am dreaming of turning this picture into a quilted wall-hanging, if only I could work out how to do it. Design ideas keep swirling in my sleep.

Glass Bottles British Museum London

In the Metropolitan Museum in  New York, I kept circling back to the Tiffany Glass - pictures fashioned in stained glass. Again I thought of creating these pictures in fabric.

Year before last, in Noosa, Queensland, I spied these Mason jars filled with flowers and hanging from trees at a wedding reception. So simple and lovely

 

Now I find my eye is drawn to glass jars and bottles in homewares shops and on Pinterest.

So much so I've started a Pin board on glass bottles - just to get a gallery of shapes to work with.
http://www.pinterest.com/jennyfisher3/glass-bottles/

Hmm, think there is a drawing or design bubbling in the background here or maybe just a need to be creative with glass.

far away, home, stillness & books

I am doing another four day August Break Catchup...

 

Day 12 Far Away

So excited that I learned to take a photo of the full moon this year-

this one was taken without a tripod-pressing the camera hard against my face..

 

Day 13 Home

Love that I work from home and have done so for more than 15 years..

the view from my window is mostly green -lots of trees and in different seasons, I see flowers or bare branches as well.

 

 

Day 14 Stillness

So glad this guy was sitting very still and

I could get a lovely closeup of him.. 

 

 

Day 15 Books

So many to choose from, here is a snippet of my inspiration

as I show you just one spot in my many shelves.. 

 

selfie, taste, red & play

Another August Break 2013 catchup..and I have been playing with filters on my photo program..

Day 8 Selfie

 

 

 

Day 9 Taste

 

 

 

Day 10 Red

 

 

 

Day 11 Play

 

 

closeup, diagonal & skyline

August Break Catch Up and I am cheating - all of these pictures were taken this year but not this week!

Day 5 Close Up

I love taking closeups so this was a hard one to choose...so here is something I haven't posted before. This was taken in an aquarium..

 

Day 6 Diagonal

I almost chose this one for the next category of skyline..

Day 7 Skyline

I couldn't resist this rural skyline..and what a sky!

circle and yellow and love

I am running behind on my August break 2013 and somehow doing three days at once feels OK

Day 2 was Circles

 

Day 3 was Yellow

This was an amazing and inspiring morning

when I heard one of my favourite people speak.

 

 

Day 4 was Love

 

Yesterday, I spent the day with two friends from University. We met 35 years ago and through various changes in our lives lost touch 15 years ago. It was wonderful to be reunited again. The blessing of such friendships is that time falls away and it was as if we had been meeting for lunch every week for the last 15 years....Love enduring friendships.

 

 

 



August Break 01

I am joining Susannah Conway's 2013 August Break In this project, she provides a photo prompt and we take a photo and share it on our blog, thereby joining a community around the world clicking on similar topics for one whole month. You can just do a picture or add words so I will see where this journey takes me and how much I stay on script for the whole month!

For today, 1 August the prompt is Breakfast.

At home, most mornings, I have a very similar breakfast; museli, fruit and yoghurt. Always with a takeaway coffee and often with the papers to read as well. But when I go out for breakfast, I mostly choose eggs.

Here are some photos that make me think of breakfast..

 

 

 

 

52 Photo Projects (5/2013)

The theme on 52 Photo Projects this week is My Wish.

I am standing at the beginning of a new year where my heart's desire is to be bold and creative and step out bravely and with clarity of purpose.

I feel as though I am still unwilling to push out and lose sight of the shore just yet but I am slowly paddling into the unknown a little bit more each day ..

Here is an image that was so unexpected when I took the photo. It is symbolic of taking a punt and finding something wonderful. An inspiration for My Wish.



Grass in the light Oct 2011

 

52 photo project (3/2013)

Reflection Coffs Harbour December 2012

The prompt for this week's 52 Photo Projects is "Wide Open Spaces". I found two photos in my collection that spoke to me. This first one above, I took while on holiday in December 2012. The sky, reflected in the lagoon speaks to me of endless possibility which is one way I imagine this theme.

The one below was taken in the Northern Territory, Central Australia at dawn. The original was a bit blurry but when I added a watercolour filter, it looked dreamy which also says something to me about Wide Open Spaces.

Dawn at the bush camp, outside Alice Springs 2010

52 photos project 2/2013

Nature detail January 2013

The prompt from 52 Photo Projects is "Right Now", being present.

One of my goals in 2013 is to Embrace Stillness, to look for beauty in the everyday and when possible photograph it. So this prompt encouraged me to find beauty in the ordinary.

I was inspired when I took this photo to think "Everything Old is New Again". I had to look it up to reference this quote and was surprised to find it is a lyric from a Peter Allen song. I am sure it is also just an overused phrase. Still, it feels so appropriate for this prompt.

52 photo project (1/2013)

Today's photo project is Softly Fade Away

"Leaving one year behind

and going into the next."

Watching the sun set on 2012, Sydney Australia

haiku Monday

NYE 2012 at Dee Why Beach Sydney, Australia

waiting and watching

the countdown is beginning

new year approaching

 

 



Inspired by the theme at

My Intentions for 2013

This year more than ever, I feel the need to set a clear intention for the New Year. I am not sure whether it is the uncertainty of not working or the influence of Susannah Conway's Unravelling 2013 (This is a really useful process that has helped me review the last year; the sweet times and the challenges. I highly recommend this free workbook)

2012 was a mixed bag for me; some amazing adventures in our big trip to Europe, some great learnings both in my print class at Kuringgai Art Centre and writing classes at the NSW Writers Centre but also on-line. I have dabbled in several classes but my favourite eclasses have been those run by Susannah Conway- I love her style.

So looking back at 2012 my words for the year if it was going to be a book title would be something like "Delve, Discover and Dissolve" or "The Year I lost my way". Whilst there were many great things about this year, my health issues (including DVT in Morocco and the consequent depressive reaction I had for several months when I returned home, a swollen knee from doing exercise that took over a month to resolve, a mysterious electric pain in my jaw that lasted for a painful three weeks) as well as my resorting to old behaviours of over-eating and over-drinking to compensate leading to weight gain and more misery.

Somehow, the thing that resonates most with me about 2012 is my desperation about keeping control, my stress about uncertainty and ultimately my inability to go with the flow. OK so these have been issues that have been part of me all my life but suddenly in my year of transition- the year after we sold our business when I was supposed to "discover" myself and find my "inner creative", I have struggled. My anxiety created a lot of stress and at times, I felt quite lost.  

Towards the end of 2012, I realised that I am still grieving for our business, for my work role, for a structure that gave me meaning and so the word for 2013 that kept popping into my head was "Relinquish". Time to relinquish my micro-managing control, lose the kilos that I have gained and let go of my old patterns for dealing with stress and relating to the world.

The more I thought about "Relinquish" it only felt half right. I also want to take on board some new patterns and new behaviours so another word "Embrace" also resonated with me. I want to embrace writing- part of my strategy for letting go of our business is to write about it, what worked, what didn't, what we learned, embrace new exercise routines; a series of injuries have made my favourite exercise routines like running and gym classes more strain than help and I want to embrace my new view of myself in the work world, without the title of business manager and owner..I also want to embrace a role that will give back, so I have started looking for voluntary work where I can use my skills to help others...and in the spirit of letting go I want to embrace some playfulness, spontaneity and flow.

But more than anything else, I want to "Create". I want to create more beautiful quilts, create a healthy and energetic body, create a lifestyle that I love, create a new work role.

So I have three words for 2013- Relinquish, Embrace and Create.. somehow they are all related and interlinked. What is your word or three for 2013?

Sunset Lord Howe Island 2009

Best of 2012 in photos

Inspired by Susannah Conway and Elisa Blaha, two of my favourite bloggers at the moment, here are some of my best moments captured in photos in 2012. ooh it was so hard to choose but here goes..

Best Sunrise: Sculpture by the Sea, Sydney Australia

Best New Photography skill:  Night Photography Centennial Park with Peter Solness

Best new friends; Ahmed El Jabri & family, Marrakesh, Morocco

Best Sweets: Istanbul, Turkey

Best Taste Sensation: Goat Cheese Snow, San Sebastian, Spain

Best Silliness: Noosa Queensland

Best Flower: Protea from Gooloo, Milton, NSW

Best discovery: Reflections make great pictures, Launceston Tasmania