Postcards from the Mothership

Joy and sorrow and beauty – that pretty much covers the emotional spectrum, doesn’t it? That’s what this long, exhausting week was like. As if early September weren’t crazy-making enough on its own. That’s the thing about this daily photo project — since I’ve fallen out of the habit of daily blogging, I can look back and see how the flavour of each day adds its own filter to the photo of the day.

On Saturday, we got the call that Beloved’s mother was very sick and not likely to make it much longer. She had been in the hospital for a week or so, so the news wasn’t a huge surprise, but it was still a terrible time for the family. Beloved made the trip across the province and arrived in time to say goodbye. And then, while he was still away, I got word that the older sister of a pair of very dear old friends had also lost her long battle with cancer, leaving three young daughters behind. It was a sorrowful week, and even though these losses were really only tangential to me, affecting those I loved far more than they affected me, I still felt buffeted by death and grief. It didn’t help that this was all the same weekend as the poignant flashbacks to 9/11. In the worst of it, I posted this picture, because I really did just want to curl up and hide until it was all over and we could go back to being happy again.

This one, too, was more or less on the same theme.

The funny thing about kids, though, is that they won’t hang around and wait while you wallow in your sorrow. Especially with really young kids, even when they understand the concept of the grief, they can’t live in it for long. Follow the children and you’ll find your way to life, to warmth, to beauty, like sunshine on a late-summer day.

And you can count on a mischievous cat for some distracting shenanigans. I was just walking past the kitchen when I noticed he had filched the stuffed Elmo out of Lucas’s room, and just had to drop to his level and click the shutter while he provided the entertainment. (I love the look on Katie’s face in the last frame: “You’re so gonna get in trouble for this one!”)

And there’s no real story here, except I caught sight of myself in the mirror and liked the light and the colours. Call me Narcissus. And really, this is where my camera spends the vast majority of its time, when it’s not plastered to my face. Is this what they call ‘shooting from the hip’?

I’ve been working with textures a lot lately, exploring the effects they can have on an image. This week I have two, one that I adore and one that I don’t. This is the latter – the more I look at it, the more I wish I’d dialled down the opacity a bit, especially in the darker parts of the image. It’s sort of in the direction where I wanted to go, but to be honest, I simply ran out of time and the dog needed to be walked and homework needed to be checked and lunches just weren’t making themselves. Oh well, they can’t all be winners.

This one, however, I truly love. This was my happy place this week. This one also has some texture work, but it’s much more subtle. I was dropping the kids off at daycare and school on Monday morning when I noticed this amazing vintage suitcase sitting out beside the neighbour’s trash. (Remember “crazy garbage picking wife”? Oh yes, so totally true.) I was so excited and delighted by my discovery that I actually looked over my shoulder as I loaded it into the car, thinking there might be dozens of people on my sleepy street lining up to grab my treasure away from me. These beauties sell for $50 to $100 on eBay and Etsy – gorgeous!

It was late in the day before I could stop to properly examine it. I haven’t been able to pry open the locks just yet, and it has rivets instead of screws holding them in place, so I may have to bust the locks if I ever want to open it. The concept for this picture arrived almost full formed in my head the moment I saw the suitcase on the side of the road. The only thing that caused me trouble was the map — I couldn’t find one in the house or the car. Who doesn’t have a map — any map! — stashed away somewhere? Then I remembered the various boxes of paper clutter masquerading as souvenirs I have stacked in my closet. This map of the Paris metro was in a collection that from our honeymoon that I haven’t looked at in nearly a decade. See, being a packrat DOES pay off!

I love this picture partly because it makes me laugh, but also because it was very intentional on my part, from the props to the set-up to the colours and tones. I’m usually a sort of a grab-and-go photographer, finding and catching images on the fly. I’m pretty chuffed that I’ve now come to a point where I can come up with a concept and execute it and have it come pretty darn close (in this case, maybe even better!) than the original vision. It’s now one of my favourite pictures ever.

It was a long week, for sure, full of sadness, but also of beauty and love.

Isn’t it funny how some days (weeks, months) you seem to be in a creative drought and can’t wring a drop of creativity out of your soul, and other days you can’t stop the deluge of ideas and inspiration? Lucky for me, this has been one of those weeks where I’m practically swimming in a tsunami of inspiration – I can barely keep up with it all!

It helps when you start the week with an adorable baby. I know you’ve seen these pictures already, but I had to include them in the official 365 record, right?

Aside from the soft sweetness of the baby (delicious, isn’t he?) I’m pretty pleased with myself over the frames for these ones. I’d seen something similar on another site and decided I wanted to learn how to create my own, with my little shooting star insignia.

And speaking of repeats, there’s the misadventure of accidentally enrolling the boys in dance camp. (Oops!)

And the last of the repeats for this week… I have to admit, I love this picture of Lucas and his new favourite camera, from my comparison of the Nikon D7000 and the Fisher-Price Kid-Tough Digital Camera.

But look! There’s fresh material here too, that hasn’t been blogged already. For example, the sunrises have been absolutely spectacular this week. I loved the texture in the clouds on this one. This hasn’t been processed at all, save for a little crop and a slight fix on the exposure – there’s at least one benefit to being awake and on my way to work before sparrow’s first fart.

And speaking of sky, did you notice how the clouds have been just spectacular this week? This is the totem pole on George Street, in front of the Ottawa School of Art. As I said when I posted this one on Flickr, sometimes the sky just invites you to leap up and soar away!

I called this family portrait “Happy Last Day of Summer.” I know, I know, summer isn’t officially over yet, but it’s more about how the days feel than what the calendar says, right?

And of course, the last day of summer is followed immediately by the first day of school. *wipes away tear of nostalgia*

From portraiture to snapshots, it was a very picturesque week!

I was worried that the commute from Manotick to the Byward Market every day would prove long and tiresome. It is on the long side — I’m averaging 35 to 40 minutes — but it’s such a gorgeous drive that I’m quite enjoying it. (Ask me again after a blizzard in February and maybe I’ll change my tune!)

What’s interesting to me is the sheer diversity of the drive. I start out in rural farmland, passing cows and barns, and I follow the Rideau River / Canal all the way downtown, through suburbs and down Colonel By Drive, past Old Ottawa South and the Glebe and both universities, all the way to the Market. It goes from capacious and rolling fields to the sharp concrete edges of downtown; from serenity to bustle; from wide-open spaces and the smell of nature to crowds and the competing smells of cars, restaurants and progress. (I notice these differences most keenly in the morning, because let’s face it, the traffic at 4 pm may be worse on Bridge Street in Manotick as it is on Sussex Drive!)

All that to say, the juxtapositioning of the rural and urban experience seems to have informed my picture-taking this week. There was, for example, this improbably blue barn resting quietly in a very yellow field that just begged to be photographed. I wish I’d had a more standard lens on instead of my lensbaby, to really make that colour contrast pop, but as they say, the best camera/lens for the job is the one you have with you!

In contrast, I love the effect the lensbaby had on this picture. To the left is the US Embassy (who apparently don’t take kindly to photographers, but I’ve never had a problem) and straight ahead is the glass dome of the National Gallery of Canada. I love how all the lines converge on the red pop of the flags.

And then, back to the rural thing. I think I’m fascinated by farms and barns just because they are so completely removed from my experience. When I saw the sky the morning I took this, I knew I just had to watch out for the perfect shape to silhouette and show it off. As I said in the caption on Flickr, “Phallic symbol? What phallic symbol?”

This was an idea that didn’t work out like I’d expected, but I didn’t really have anything else for the shot of the day. And didn’t these things used to be way more colourful? (We used them for the favours at our wedding.)(Not these ones.)(Although they were stale enough that they could have been.)

This is a new treasure I found in a junk shop. Can you believe it only cost me $5? What a steal! It’s a Yashica Electro 35 from 1966, one of the most popular and populist rangefinders. It was apparently the first electronically controlled camera. Best $5 paperweight ever! 😉 It’s also my favourite picture this week because I saw this style of picture somewhere else and deliberately set out to mimic it. I wouldn’t have been able to do that a year or two ago, but I did and I was pretty pleased with myself and the result.

At the risk of treading into Stuart Smalley territory, I thought it would be fun to try making some of these poster-type things I’ve seen all over Pinterest lately. I really love the sentiment!

I promise, the next one will say, “I’m good enough. I’m smart enough. And doggone it, people like me.” 😉