
Day 16: Selfies

This edition of My Week in Pictures is sponsored by cake, and dedicated to one of my favourite people on the planet, Tatty of tattyfrankland.com who celebrates her 21st birthday on Sunday.
On Wednesday we celebrated her (fake) birthday in style with cake, crown and candles, before she jetted off to Sri Lanka yesterday. I am beside myself with jealousy and have been pining quietly (not that quietly) at my desk all day, while she frolics in the rain forest with the elephants.
Pictures, left to right, top to bottom:
Show us something uncertain, and manipulate light around you to enhance the mood of your image. Via Photography 101: Mystery (13th March 2015)
I didn’t do anything to get today’s shot, I didn’t even get up. I merely snapped a shot from the comfort of my own bed and I was away.
I did use the light from outside to create the illusion of mystery. The road outside our window is always uncertain, sometimes the hum below brings comfort and sometimes, when I’m a stressy bunny, it makes me anxious and I can’t sleep.
Either way, you know not what is out there in the middle of the night.
Today, capture an image of warmth, ideally using the sun as your source. Via Photography 101: Warmth (12th March 2015)
I’m not a sun worshipper. Being a ginger means I have to be careful not to spend too much time under its watchful gaze.
However, I do miss its gentle kiss in the mornings. Now it’s lighter when we wake, I feel like Spring is really around the corner.
Today’s image doesn’t feature the sun, per se, but it wouldn’t have happened without it. Darkness and light and all that.
I like my silhouette in this shot, I call it the ‘accidental Wonder Woman’ but I also remember that the sun was out and on my face and it felt good.
It felt like good things are just around the corner.
Capture a snapshot that conveys the state of being alone. Via Photography 101: Solitude (6th March 2015)
I love being alone. When I think of it, although I am surrounded by people all day and live with another human being, I am quite often on my own by choice. When I don’t get this quality time with Me, I start to get angsty and then I seek it out.
It’s usually nothing that drastic, just a wander on a Saturday or a walk in the park, but I like to be able to dissect and then reassemble my thoughts.
This image is a banana, left out too long in the sun. I feel like this banana sometimes, overlooked and no longer wanted, abandoned without thought to rot, basically.
(What am I, a 15 year old Sylvia Plath, without the talent or the authenticity?)
Really, it’s just a banana in the sun. But it’s kind of beautiful, don’t you think?
For day three, we want to see your interpretation of water — how might your image reveal more about you? Via Photography 101: Water (4th March 2015)
Water is an interesting theme to me as it’s my biggest fear, however, I wanted to stay light today.
Hence this gentle reminder to self to drink more water. (There are two clues to who I am in this post, I’m a big scaredy cat and that I need to keep myself better watered, like a delicate flower).
Thanks to my boo, Tatty for coming outside for the photography session and being down with the whole concept.
I’ve been inspired by Hayley Margaret of A Stitch to Scratch to take on Photography 101, starting today. Poetry 201 was fun to begin with but I couldn’t keep up and felt a bit silly in the end. I think my future career as a beatnik poet is now firmly on hold. Sorry, world.
Photography 101 looks like lots of fun though and having seen Hayley M mention it on her blog last night, I hopped firmly on the bandwagon too. I’m very original like that.
Today’s theme is Home (and Getting Orientated). This is about taking the concept of what ‘home’ means and running with it, in whichever direction I see fit. The Orientation is more about getting to grips with my equipment (not a euphemism).
Since I am going to simply point and click my trusty Samsung Galaxy S4 whenever the mood takes me, I’m already pretty comfortable. However, there are a few features I’m sure I haven’t explored yet, and this might well be the opportunity I’ve been waiting for!
To the theme!
Home
I’ve taken the word home and gone quite literal for my first assignment. This is my front door. I’ve always liked it despite it’s slight shabbiness and ugly wiring up the side of the building.
This morning’s light was gorgeous and although there is a subtle filter on this image, I still think it captures the small stab of joy I felt when I got to the bottom of the stairs and looked back up towards that baby blue door.
Home to me is wherever I am with my love. That sounds incredibly cliché but it’s honest. We have a good deal on a nice place now, having had varying degrees of luck with our previous living situations, both together and apart. But I could live anywhere with him, if I had to.
When I think about joy and love and living together, I think of the lyrics in Cell Block Tango from Chicago (stay with me):
So, we started living together.
He’d go to work, he’d come home, I’d
mix him a drink, We’d have dinner.
It was like heaven in two and a half rooms.
Sure, the relationship takes a turn for the worse when she finds out she’s just one of his wives and poisons him with Arsenic but until then, I know exactly how she feels.
Our home is heaven to me, even when the washing up is piled high, there’s nowhere to hang my knickers and I’ve tripped over his shoes for the seventh time that afternoon. But it’s wherever he is.
It’s not all picnics down Memory Lane round here, you know.
I may have shed loads of unresolved issues to work through via the medium of blogging (and some light disco) but I also read a lot of great stuff too. I am particularly happy this month as three of my friends have started blogs and they are all magnificent creatures with a lot to say, so my Reader has never looked so good.
Don’t worry though, I’m more than happy to share. Without further ado, my favourite new blogs. Enjoy!
Stand out post: Beck looks back on her trip to Primavera Sound 2014
Read for: New listens
Stand out post: Why run?
Read for: An honest account of why this girl exercises
Stand out post: There’s something wonderfully nostalgic about this and it’s subject matter, of course
Read for: Life ponderings that we can all identify with
Stand out post: There are loads but I like this most recent one because HATERS
Read for: Genuine love for local spots like The Butterfly Cabinet plus did I mention the photography?
Stand out post: All of them, sorry not picking just one!
Read for: Thoughtful reviews like this one and also some great introductions to covers I might otherwise have missed
Stand out post: It’s hard but my favourite posts to date have been: this, this and this
Read for: No nonsense reviewing of a wide range of films including some underrated gems and some good horror (my favourite genre)
So there you are. Some fun new blogs to get stuck in to. I hope you find as much joy in them as I do on a day-to-day basis.
Now, give me some recommendations please! It’s only fair.