photo challenge: HAPPY

I thought I'd kept the challenge simple. Photograph what makes you happy. Even amidst chaos & mayhem, there are things that make you happy, right? Or, there should be, to keep you grounded. The important thing is, you should never stop looking for things that make you happy, especially while in the jaws of disorder and dust bunnies, both actual and in the form of dislodged bits of settled life.

And I do actually still see the happy! I would be lying on the floor in one big blubbering heap by now if I didn't. Honestly, yes, I am that dramatic in the face of Big Change. But Squirt keeps me firmly planted in the Now, most of the time. I like to think I'm more realistic and practical these days, since becoming a mamma almost 2 years ago. But still. All I ended up with was a photo of a pizza cooked from frozen (with added banana and jalapenos), after a hard day of sorting, discarding, packing, cleaning...

& a bowl of fresh home-made pesto. So apparently, as far as visible records go, my happiness is in food these days! But it isn't, not really. Although it helps, food. Especially the not quite responsible, greasy kind. My happiness is - as always, really - in the small gestures, the funny remarks, the Big Hugs I get at times. The stuff that doesn't photograph well at all. So I emailed Mridula, and told her I was out of the challenge till the move - The Move - is complete, somewhere near the end of November hopefully.

But my creativity isn't locked completely - granted, it's a tangled heap at times, these days, but it's definitely part of what's keeping me sane(-ish, some might argue)!

And also, I think there is nothing wrong with responding to a challenge saying; 'well, there it is. This is the best I can come up with right now.' So, I'm not out! I'm still in! I can't promise to meet exact deadlines at the moment, but I'll be there with what came up, whatever it is, to publish when I can!

Please look at Mridula's post to see how she interpreted the assignment! She came up with the next challenge, SHADOWS, and the deadline is the 8th of November. I'm going to try to make it there :)

photo challenge: NUMBERS

The latest assignment in the photo challenge Mridula & I set up a while ago - numbers...
It was another tough one, but that might be just me. There are numbers around, plenty of them, but I have this silly notion numbers need to mean something. So while it's always fun to scout for photo opportunities, I wasn't easily satisfied with what I came up with. Most numbers in the collage above might make sense to their owners of sorts - though still not to me - but the number 75 on Squirt's top means nothing! He wasn't born in 1975, nor were me or Man, and he, nor us, nor his grandparents are yet 75. We don't live at number 75 and I can't think of any other way this number will soon make sense to any one of us. That's what I mean, it's wrong. Which is why this top is already on its way to the second hand shop (we're about to move and it's clear-out time, by way of an excuse, and anyway - it was a very cheap 'needs must'-buy of the diaper-wearing-related kind, but that's all by the by)!

So I kept looking for numbers to speak to me, and then I saw this! A car of sorts, one of Squirt's favourites! He calls it 'red weird car'. He also has a yellow version, so that clears that up ;) But the number! It's 32! We'll be living at number 32 in the new house!

But that was all I could come up with, as far as physical numbers are concerned. Like I said, me and my odd notions (yes, I count steps at times, too!)... It doesn't make life easier, at least not all the time :)

But then I saw how Squirt liked walking around in my shoes :) And I decided that, like with SPARKLE, I could take it out of the literal and into the illustrative of sorts! He had fun here, I promise - no little kid got hurt in the taking of these pictures ;) - and I got ample opportunity to take as many shots as I wanted!

The caption would read: Size is but a number. Sometimes, numbers matter. Does this count?

Please pop over to Mridula's to see what she came up with!

I know it's my turn to come up with a new assignment, but I haven't. Not yet. Sorry! Brain mush... I'm going to take today to come up with something and add it as an edit to this post tonight. The deadline will be Monday 25th October, and you're very welcome to join if you want to!

Edit, three days later...
I didn't forget and I didn't flake out as such. I have been racking my brain to come up with a new theme, and it's just not happening! So frustrating!!
So I've decided to keep things relatively simple: this round, photograph what makes you happy. Either constantly and long term, or something fleeting like a ray of sun - as long as it makes you feel good :)

photo challenge: QUIET

So here I am with my photos for this round of the photo challenge Mridula & I set up a little while ago - a day late & all... It's not that I'm not taking this seriously - I do and I love it, too. It's just that I didn't have a lot of head space going spare over the past two weeks due to lots of snot - both my own and Squirt's, and the mounting - let's call it suspense - surrounding the house-moving-thing that's getting closer by the day.

I had all these ideas that I didn't get around to trying out. Scenes that would have taken me out of the house and into nature - soft leaves and moss, for example. And I couldn't think how I was going to get 'quiet' across in another set of photos taken on my trusted coffee table...

I'm not sure if these first two photos give you any sense of quiet at all, but quiet it was. That's what I ended up with, eventually. Squirt was picked up by my dad on Friday morning for a sleepover, so that we could have a little time; to think, talk, eat and drink ideas for the new house, and to sort a couple of things. Which we did. And it wasn't quiet at all. Not in my head, either!

Except for my early mornings. Which are sort of sacred every day, but got seriously extended by Man finally grabbing a chance to sleep very late! :) So I decided to use the light. And space both literal and figuratively speaking. And I ended up with these light filled macro still lives on my coffee table. Again.

I love light filled macro still lives on my blue coffee table. I do. Which must be fairly obvious, the number of times my blue coffee table (here, here, here & elsewhere) shows up in pictured scenes. Even if you're not a close observer! BUT... I wanted something different. Something outside. Something nature-y! But with every passing hour and rain cloud I sort of saw my chances floating away from me.

Until I decided on a fluke to bring my camera along on the drive to pick up Squirt at his grandparents late yesterday afternoon. And the weather gods decided to give me a break. And I ended up with water. Not the spot I wanted to go to; nor a place I would have picked. But light filled waterscapes of silence, none the less!

I don't have many words to add to this. Except a heartfelt 'thank you!' to Man who was willing and able to climb over slimy rocks for better composition!

It was hard work, this week's attempt! Due to circumstances though. Not because it isn't fun! Good stuff, when you end up with something worthwhile to publish after the moaning is done - at least in my own humble opinion ;)

Please click over to Mridula's post to see what she's done with QUIET, and to find out what the next challenge is going to be! If anyone is reading, interested and willing, you're very welcome to join us! Just leave a comment or send a mail; we'd love to see what you come up with!

photo challenge: SPARKLE

A few weeks ago, Mridula from Blogaloorgirl's Blog sent me an email asking me if I'd done any photography recently. And I hadn't, not really. Which got me thinking. I love photography much! But at times it's hard to find objects or subjects to talk to your lens, especially when inspiration is running low. When there's a lot going on in my head, I find I'm not looking around at the world with as much wonder as I need to restock the proverbial well, to paraphrase Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way.

So... I suggested a photo challenge! I've done a couple of courses in photography, and I've found it's much easier to capture something worthwhile when you know what you're looking for! It's great to have a theme to work with; it gets the creative juices flowing and it helps me open my eyes to what's been staring me in the face all along!

Luckily, Mridula accepted, and she came up with the first theme: SPARKLE.
Which was a challenge for me, to say the least ;) I don't know whether anyone who knows me would actually classify me as the outgoing type, but in my own skin, I feel I'm more of an introvert. I get it, it's a 'duh!' thing to say. But much of the beauty I see around me gets chewed on and put away on shelves in my mind, never seeing the light of day. Never mind sparkle!
But I love a good challenge, it really works for me - as far as photography is concerned anyway ;) - so I set out on a quest to find sparkle in my world :)

Here is a rose from the bunch of beautiful flowers we got as a present for our wedding anniversary last Wednesday. The water drops didn't really want to sparkle much, even with the low sunlight I had to wait for - for days! Which isn't that strange, really, considering we've been married for 10 years now. Nothing wrong with that, just that it's more the soft light of a place to call home than it is the dazzling sparkle I was looking for ;)

Here are some shards of glass I found in the bike lane on my way to the shops. They shouldn't be there, for various reasons, and I felt they might do prettier work on my coffee table, too. Oh, the funny looks I got when I got down on my knees to pick some up ;) I love that - giving people something to talk about around the dinner table ;)

I still didn't feel like I got all the sparkle out of the challenge, so I added the one piece of costume jewelry I own into the mix to see what that would do... I don't know what it is, but - there wasn't any real sparkle to be had... You know, the kind with the light-star, refraction or whatever it's called... Maybe my lighting wasn't what I thought the early Autumn sun was going to be, and maybe I just didn't do it right, but I couldn't get what I was looking for.

So here we are, at the biggest cliche of them all, when it comes to sparkle... It suddenly hit me! If I'm such an introvert, at least by my own sense of being, then surely the sparkle must be inside! From the senses being tickled in every way imaginable to the world of possibilities behind it all - eyes are the windows to the soul (to stick with cliche!). If it sparkles anywhere, surely it must be there! Not brilliant photography, but honest sparkle if I say so myself :)

There. That's it. My ode to the sparkling beauty inside :) Hop on over to Mridula's post to see what she came up with!

Now I had to come up with a new theme, and here it is: QUIET.
That might not be a much easier thing to capture, but the word's been playing in my head (for various reasons - haha) for weeks now, and I couldn't ignore it...

Our next deadline is Sunday 26th September (if that's okay Mridula?) - but we might post sooner, depending on how it's going. If there is anyone out there reading this, who wants to give it a go too, whether it's sparkle, quiet or the next little/big theme, I'd love to see! Send me an email or leave a comment here or over at Mridula's!