The Next Martha Stewart?

When I started my blog, I said I wanted it to be an insight into my brain, so you could feel you knew me better and we were friends. In that vein, I've shared things that have surprised me and those who know me well, because I'm pretty private generally (surprise surprise).

Having said that, I debated the wisdom of my next post, because there's a fine line between knowing someone, and thinking them a complete retard and hot mess. I'm beginning to suspect that if this blog goes on much longer, anyone who reads it will begin to believe the latter.

So you'd remember I bought myself a power washing attachment, yes? While this has nothing to do with it directly, that freaking attachment is responsible (something has to be and I refuse to acknowledge it could be me) for what I'm writing.

After concluding that there was no place for a hose and power washer inside a house, I took it back into the yard for a test drive so to speak, to see how it stood up against the cleaning resistant layers of moss around my house.

It was crap. That's what my brain kept telling me while insisting that I persevere because I spent so much money on the stupid thing so I had to use it. All this, while simultaneously appreciating the appetizing smells wafting from my neighbours kitchen. The scent kept getting stronger. Strong enough, in fact, to reach me where I was, way in the back of my yard, with my power washer in hand. Strong enough for me to start thinking to myself that maybe she should take it off the stove right about now because it smelled like it was beginning to burn.

Then I remembered.

This.

[caption id="attachment_372" align="aligncenter" width="584" caption="No Funny Bone In THESE Elbows..."][/caption]

I wish that picture was also a scratch and sniff because words can't describe how bad my house smelled.

I also wish I could describe the moment of absolute horror tinged with resignation when I realised it was MY forgotten pot on the stove smelling like that, and how I must've looked pelting pellmell back into the house.

[caption id="attachment_374" align="aligncenter" width="584" caption="Not Even Ivory Can Cut This Grease."][/caption]

There's a reason I don't cook. This is it.

Broken, But Beautiful!

We were shooting stills for a production company doing a cool new series for local tv yesterday when, horror of horrors, Betsy decided to pitch a fit and stop functioning. (I don't want to assume it's because Markie was in such close proximity to her for so long, but what else is there?)

At first I thought it was early onset retardation on my part, and that I may have accidentally flipped something or pressed something and caused her to get all PM-essy, but her autofocus stopped working and she refused to show me anything on the LCD, so after clicking and pushing, twisting and turning and even swapping out lenses and batteries, I laid her to rest in my camera bag and sent out an SOS email to Nikon, who, as luck would have it, serviced her 3 months ago, with the service warranty expiring last week. (I haven't gotten a response from them yet...)

Balls.

And she's so beautiful, with her little 50 f/1.4... :(

[caption id="attachment_364" align="aligncenter" width="584" caption="Broken, But Beautiful."][/caption]

I'm going to be seriously upset if I have to pay to get her fixed AGAIN, and even more upset if I'm forced to contemplate sell(sniff)ing her, since a few posts back we established that I'm a hoarder.

Which is not to say I won't get over it pretty quickly if Santa brings me a D3s for Christmas:)

It's That Important.

I'm editing wedding images from a really fabulous one we shot this weekend gone - Peter Gabriel's Book of Love is playing on my iTunes playlist (how appropriate is THAT?) and it's making me feel all fuzzy and warm (maybe it's the 5hr. energy or the most excellent crock pot curry beef I just ate:)

Since I started shooting weddings (total aside - wow, now All I Ever Ask by Freddy Jackson is on - does my iTunes have a serious tabanca or what! 'Tabanca' - an extreme sadness and/or a depression following one's breakup or separation from one's significant other) I've met some amazing people, and been privileged to be a part of one of the biggest days of their lives. It's humbling when people trust you enough to capture details that will form the things that they remember from that day - from little things like cake toppers



to important people like favourite aunts or grandparents - and I'll never forget the biggest lesson learned from top wedding photographer Doug Gordon, at a workshop held here earlier this year, who said that, and I paraphrase, photographers shoot many weddings in a month, but for each couple, it's their only one (hopefully) and it's special to them, AND you never know if that would be the last picture they have of them with a parent or grandparent or sibling, so that makes your job even more important...

Not to be a total wet blanket, but a very big reason getting married is not very high on my list of priorities, apart from the fact that it would take someone with the tolerance of a SAINT:), is that most of the important people who would feature on my wedding day are already dead (and I can't see my brother assuming ALL the roles, superdude though he is:), so I realise even more, how special those little pieces of picture history are...

Of Eating 'Below the Line' and Learning.

Wow - what a week. Trying to eat what I could afford for TT$10/day has been an eye-opening and humbling experience.

I initially saw the website livebelowtheline.com posted in a photography forum looking for photos of what poverty looked like to you - a friend suggested I join because I have a few photos. So I took a look, and saw that there was a challenge beginning May 16th - 20th where people were to eat no more than what US$1.50, or the equivalent - TT$10.00, could buy. Since I've recently become involved in a programme that feeds the homeless, I decided it would be a challenge I would try, approaching it as an exercise in an awareness of how much the money could do - rather than spend it on 'x', I would stop and think that I would have to spend it on 'y' in order to eat and it would make me more aware that while in the ordinary course of life, that is not a life and death decision for me to make, it would actually be one for many people, who not only make those choices for themselves, but for their children. I hoped it would give me a better understanding of what the people I met and spoke to every day were going through.

I got so much more.

I expected I would feel hungry, but that has been manageable - no worse than if I'm just running on fumes for a couple days - but what I didn't expect was the feeling of total isolation I would get when faced with situations where people were eating or snacking, or in places selling food/snacks, or even seeing road signs for various eateries and not having the option of partaking in any of it. It's very demoralising.

I CHOSE to do this for only 5 days and it's been extremely difficult for me - the lack of options I have to eat, the lethargy and extra effort it's taking me to be positive, and having to constantly account for money 'spent' on food. What do people who have no choice and not only have to budget for food, but also health-care, school, transport, living costs DO? It's become very clear to me how a cycle of poverty could just continue, beginning with very little to eat, because it affects your ability to function - yes, you will continue to survive, but existing and thriving are very different.

There's a lot I take for granted - one of the cooks in the feeding programme told me she feeds 100 people her soup for the cost of a manicure. - It cost her $140TT to make a soup that people send messages about how much they loved it back to her about, so it wasn't even to say it was lacking in ingredients. I started doing this for myself, to make myself think more and appreciate more - I'm not fooling myself into thinking I'm going to eradicate poverty or hunger, but I don't think trying to appreciate what someone is going through would be doing me or others any harm either.

It's great to be in the Top 5 for fundraisers globally, but the top 10 thing is purely monetary, and that was never my motivation for doing this - I really just wanted to put myself in the other person's shoes, if even for a little while. Even if me and my team never made any money, I think we've changed our perspective, reached some people and at least made them start to think, or question their own spending, or assumptions, so for me, a monetary reflection isn't accurate as a success marker, because if we never raised a cent, I think we've done what we set out to do, if only for ourselves...

And at the end of the day, it's about making your own journey to where you're going in your own way - be it through pulling other people down or trying to raise them up or just trying to see and understand their point of view, and now more than ever, I think it's a sin that in this super wealthy world we live in, there could be people wanting proper nutrition...

Sar

Ring Around the Rosies

The pic above is one that I really like - taken at a wedding last weekend - fabulous decor - the details practically begged for someone to shoot them. Like the box above, with a pretty charm on top that said 'Thank You' and some YUMMY wedding cake inside (sweets, my kryptonite :D).

I'm really lucky to have hooked up with the photographers I shoot with - they're great people on top of being great photographers. And I'm really lucky they think I'm good enough to shoot with them :p

Here's another one taken at the same wedding - both shot with my 50mm f/1.4 and ambient/available light (window light for the bouquet).



Have a fabulous day!:)

Oh Putz-leeze

(Click on the pic to view video

Some images used Courtesy Ian Farnum)

I'm a putz.

I knew I was beginning what can now only be called a rapid roll downhill (putz-wise) when I used to find myself tearing up every single time, watching the Iams dog food commercial with the little girl and KC her dog. In my defense, I lost my beloved dog Bugsy and have never gotten over it. But still. Crying over a pet food commercial?

So onto this video, which I put together with the most excellent folks at Animoto. You guessed it. Putz City.

I really should stop blogging about what a loser I am...

Koda-dramatic!

I lost my parents some years ago (don't cry for me, Webentina) and put off getting rid of a lot of their stuff (see previous post about attaching sentimental value to crap) that most people would have thrown away at least by year 2 A.D. Also as per my last post, I decided to begin my minimalist lifestyle 2 days early, and chose the store room to begin my odyssey.

Why.

I don't just have a lot of crap to clear out. I have a ton of crap to clear out. I'm prone to exaggeration, but not this time. I've already gone through 2 packs of jumbo garbage bags and that's only after 1 cupboard. I've had the bejeezus scared out of me by a cockroach that decided my track pants presented a safe haven from the broom (an impromptu striptease is not appealing when you're shrieking at the top of your lungs) and to top it off, I'm allergic to dust.

I went into this thing with the idea firmly rooted in my head that I can Throw Things Away. If I didn't know they were there in the first place, it's as though they never existed, ergo, garbage bin.

It's almost as though I forgot who I am.

Why would I need to hold on to keys that obviously belonged to cars long past just because they, at one point in time, belonged to my parents? I don't have an answer to that, except to say that I will throw them away. Eventually.

On a cooler note, I found 4 rolls of Kodachrome in that cupboard - some mold and worse for wear - on this, the last day ever, that the last roll of it is going to be developed.

My mother was the photographer in the family, and this just proves how cool she was.

:)