Thursday, December 30, 2010

The Friday Photo

I took this about 18 months ago, on the shore of Lake Rotorua, so he's an inland gull, a member of one of the hundred or so gull species; these red-legged ones are the most common we see on our coasts, along with the bigger Pacific gull.
The sun was just starting to set, and there was a nice quality to the light which picked up the colour of the rust on the pole.

 

Happy Friday - and Happy New Year.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Favourite Shots of the Year #3

Wintry light

These are photos which I took in midwinter this year in Northland, New Zealand. They were all taken between 10.00 am and noon.  (Click to enlarge)

It was very cold; there was rain about, the sun was struggling to come through, and the light was strange, eerie at times:

Mussel Farm and Barge (and Blue Heron)

Mussel Farming



Mussel barge
Whangaroa

 
Mahinepua Bay



 Sorry to post so many - I couldn't decide which to leave out ...   

Thursday, December 23, 2010

The Friday Photo

I've decided to indulge myself and start a weekly Friday photo post. Just because.

I was going to post this one as part of Thematic Photographic's favourite shots of the year - until I realised that I took it last year....

Driftwood on the beach after an autumn storm, May 2009.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Another TP favourite Pic

Little boys in Turkey are traditionally circumcised - it can be done at birth, but is often delayed until they are 7 or 8 years old. On Circumcision Eve they have a big party, receive gold coins and other gifts, and dress in a costume which is meant to look like that of a King or a Sultan.
In Istanbul this little chap was happy to pose for a photo, and his parents gave their smiling consent when I asked if it was ok.


I love his expression. Am I just being fanciful when I say that I can see excitement, pride, shyness and fear in that little frowning face?

See more entries in Thematic Photographic 128.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Favourite Shots of the Year #1


The new Thematic Photographic challenge is around favourite photos, and we've been given 3 weeks for it - whew!

This year I have done some travelling, thanks to a small bequest and a promise I made to the person who left it to me. That promise was to "just get out there and do it!" So I've made a start - and I mean to keep on going.

First, Barcelona, where my son lives. Click on photos to embiggen.
Three four Five favourite shots from that fascinating city:

 


Palau de la Musica Catalana


Street performer on the Rambla
Street scene

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Monday rave: why I love being a teacher

  • I like that it's never, ever boring - and as someone who gets bored easily - that's a real bonus. It's never the same from one day to another. Or from one year to another.
  • I like the energy, creativity, ideas, and  humour of the colleagues I work with.
  • I like the energy, creativity, ideas and humour that I get from the students in my classroom.
  •  I like that I get to (justifiably) spend money on books and movies.
  •  I like it when a student or a group takes an idea and runs with it. I'm a big fan of veering off at tangents.
  •  I love it when kids are racing each other to get in the door so that they can be the first to see what the "Word of the Day" is - and I really love it when so many of those words turn up in their writing.
  • I love sitting on the stage at Prizegiving - with a number of tissues at the ready - and seeing the fine young people who are finishing their secondary school career.
  • I love that I get paid to be passionate about books and poems and song lyrics and films and words.
  • It's fantastic when a student gets so involved in something that they are really angry or upset - like when Othello is sooo blind to Iago's evil, or when Piggy dies....
  • I like that I sometimes enter my classroom in the morning feeling grumpy for some reason - I'm tired, or it's raining, or some political skirmish has broken out in the staffroom - and realise 20 minutes later that I'm feeling great!
  • I love it when a student points out something that I hadn't thought of.
  • I love those Christmas cards which tell you how much they have come to love English.
  • and I especially love being a teacher when it's the first day of the summer holidays!

Friday, December 10, 2010

Thematic Photographic 127: Family (2)

On a happier note

My grand-daughter, aged about 19 months:

And her new brother, about 20 hours old, taken yesterday:



Thursday, December 9, 2010

Thematic Photographic 127 : Family

 

This man was my father.

When I was born, he was 65 years old. My mother was 45. He had been married for more than 30 years to a woman who was institutionalised for most of those years, because of mental health problems. They never had children. Finally, her death liberated both of them.

A few years later he met my mother, a widow with four daughters, the youngest of whom was about 9 years old. They married, and he was a wonderful stepfather to her girls – but he always spoke with regret of never having had a child of his own.  So, although she must have previously felt that her days of having kids were finished, and although it must have been scary to become pregnant at her age, she allowed that to happen.

He doted on me. Everyone said that they had never seen a man adore a child as he did me.

When I was 3 years old, and he was 68, he died, suddenly, of a heart attack. Apparently, I became sick with grief when he “disappeared”.
I wish I had known him. Because of his age he was probably never going to see me become an adult, but I wish I had known him long enough to have some memories of him. What memories there are, are buried deep in my psyche, and are more like scars.

I know little of him, sadly – my mother spoke of him very little, and the few things I do know came from the two eldest of my half-sisters. He was a farmer. His parents were born in Scotland, and emigrated to New Zealand for a better life. He was very tall – 6 feet 4 inches. He loved me.

I have my father's colouring, his bone structure, his chin. My son has his height, and we both have his enquiring mind and his intellect.

Hei maumaharatanga

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Thematic Photographic 126 : Night


This week's theme is Night, and Carmi asks why some night-time scenes seem so sad.
 "There is something haunting in the light of the moon; it has all the dispassionateness of a disembodied soul, and something of its inconceivable mystery."  ~ Joseph Conrad
Van Gogh - Starry Night over the Rhone

There are so many connotations around darkness, blackness, death... Many of us have been fearful of the night as children, and night often suggests danger and evil - just think of all the links to bad deeds, ghosts, vampires. It all goes along with the sense of night's all-encompassing darkness, and its taking-away of our sense of sight.

"Fooey! The porchlight is burnt out, and I can't see whether it's dark outside or not."  ~ Dave Beard

Humans were daylight animals from their beginning, until fire then electricity came along, and night is innately associated with our feelings of vulnerability when we cannot see. Scary stuff is concealed by darkness.
Image: NASA

In nearly all societies and cultures, there are stories and myths warning of the dangers of the night.
"The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve. 
Lovers, to bed; 'tis almost fairy time."  ~ Shakespeare
 
And the sadness?
If you are feeling down, lonely, frightened, then all of those feelings are magnified when night comes down.

I hate having to go to sleep. Life is so short, there are so many things I want to do: it really irks me that I have to waste a third of each day in bed asleep!
"It is one of life's bitterest truths that bedtime so often arrives just when things are really getting interesting." ~ Lemony Snicket

Last night I went outside and thought once again that it is a shame suburban skies are so encumbered and made ugly by wires and aerials :

 

















Good night!

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Thematic Photographic 125: Sepia

I'm not sure I really know what constitutes a sepia photograph. I've looked at all the beautiful images which clever people have posted in response to this theme, and they seem to range from black and white to gold. And I don't have any sepia collection, so this is my sole contribution this week:

A friend's son walks in the harsh salt desert of Uyuni, in Bolivia:


Visit Carmi's Thematic Photographic - click the button on the right.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Rockers get it right

 

New Zealand is a small country. 
We don't have many underground mines, and thank God we don't often have 
disasters which kill a number of people at once.  


But this week the whole country is mourning the 29 men who died in a coal-mine calamity 
on the West Coast of the South Island. 
16 miners and 13 contractors became trapped in the mine after a large methane-fuelled 
explosion on November 19. A second bigger explosion on Wednesday of this week 
put an end to any hopes that the men had survived. 
And a third, smaller explosion rocked the mine yesterday, just five minutes 
before the time of the first explosion a week before.

 

Most of the men who died were New Zealanders, but there were also Brits, Australians, 
a South African.  And in a country as small and sparsely populated as this, everybody 
knows someone who has lost a son, a husband, a friend.



Last night, U2 were performing in Auckland, and made a moving tribute to the lost men by 
posting all of their names above the stage as they sang their song One Tree Hill, which was
written to commemorate the death of their Kiwi roadie and Bono's PA, Greg Carroll.


Rest in peace, 
and may those who are left behind find comfort 
in the love of their friends and families, 
and consolation in their memories of you.



Arohanui
Alexia

Sunday, November 21, 2010

3 Things that Make me Happy on a Monday

Mondays aren't great, traditionally.  Although you're supposed to have rested up over the weekend, and be full of energy, it really seems a very long time until the next weekend.

Plus, it's been a long and busy day at school (aren't they all??).

I thought I'd do the positive thinking approach and post about 3 things that bring me joy.

#1 Lighthouses  There's just something about them: strength, pride, danger, loneliness. This one's at Castlepoint, a (normally) wild and windy place on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand.

Castlepoint Lighthouse

#2 Mosaics   I've dabbled a little in making some, and plan to do a lot more - some day, when time expands. One of the reasons I went to Turkey was to feast my eyes on the beautiful mosaic work:

 
Mosaic above door, Green Tomb, Bursa


#3 Water  Always makes me feel happy and peaceful, whether it's a lake, river or the sea.

Lake Rotorua, New Zealand

What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life.
~ Leo Buscaglia 

What cheers you up on a Monday?

Alexia

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Brave and beautiful poppies

The other day I really enjoyed reading a post on Karen's lovely blog, about Minnesota's state flower, the Lady's Slipper.  She also talked about the poppies of California, which made me think of how delighted I had been earlier this year to find poppies growing wild everywhere, in my springtime trip around Greece and Turkey.  It made me think about the photos I took of them - hence this post!


In Mycenae, in Greece, the poppies grow amongst ruins which date back three thousand years.  These ones were in cracks of the stones which remain from the palace where Agamemnon was murdered by his wife and her lover.



On top of the Acropolis in Athens, poppies grow amongst the tumbled columns of many centuries past:



Ancient ruins are pretty much my favourite places to be in the whole world.  I have spent so many years learning about classical history - I love nothing more than to stand in these places and imagine what it would have been like to be there when the inhabitants were going about their daily lives. 
For some reason they give me an incredible sense of peace and connection.


In Perge, in southern Turkey, the same bright flowers flared bravely amongst the stones:


and in Pamukkale, a strange and beautiful place:


Finally, on the way back to Istanbul, we visited Gallipoli.  I had really hoped to see poppies here, but no - everything had been rendered very neat and tidy for the Anzac day celebrations a few days later.  

These poppies there were, however. 
What heavy burdens these symbolic flowers carry, what dark stories they relate.


At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Laurence Binyon


Alexia

Friday, November 12, 2010

Thematic Photographic 123: Black and White

Black and White?
Nothing ever is, although I know a fair number of people who think in those terms.

My first thought was about The Little Dog (probably because he was sitting on my feet at the time). His name is Manuel LeGrand, and here he is, on a winter's day at the beach:

 



He doesn't know he's a little dog. He is not aware that his head is kinda too big for his body, and that he has the funny, stumpy front legs which some Jack Russell terriers have.  He always acts with dignity and decorum, and is as brave, affectionate and loyal as any dog we have ever had.   He firmly believes that he will catch every rabbit or pheasant he disturbs out on a walk; of course, with those legs, he doesn't.
He smiles a lot.

I always said I would never have a little dog, "because they're yappy". Thankfully, he's not; he does have a good manly bark when needed.  Especially when he's treed a possum in the middle of the night.... !!



Manu misses The Big Dog, his friend Mr D'Arcy, who departed this life a while ago.  I haven't yet found him a new companion, but I'm working on it.
To see more Thematic Photographic postings, on this theme or a number of others, go to Carmi Levy's blog - click the button on the right.

P. S. Possums are classified as noxious pests in this country.

Alexia

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

The Great Ocean Road

The Great Ocean Road is described by the Australian Tourist people as one of the world’s most scenic drives. It runs from Geelong (just south-west of Melbourne) in Victoria,  along the southern coast of the state, 243 kilometres - 151 miles - to Allansford, just east of Warrnambool. It has some beautiful views of what can be a rough and wild coast, and is heavily populated with excursion buses and the like for a large part of the year.


Recently I drove the road for the first time, with a friend, and found it a worthwhile and interesting experience. One of the first places to stop at is a popular surfing spot, Bells Beach. They have a big-time surfing carnival there every year, the Ripcurl Pro - it's been held there every Easter since 1960.

There wasn't much of a swell this day - just a few slick black shapes sitting out the back, waiting for some action.  The day was beautifully sunny, with little wind, and quite cold.

It's a stunningly beautiful place, although looking out from the beach towards the south I could totally believe that the next landfall was Antarctica; somehow in spite of the sunshine,it had that bleak desolate beauty down to a fine art:


We had a lunch stop at Apollo Bay (great coffee, yummy falafels and pita bread) and a brief, cold walk on the beach -

Next we headed inland to visit the Otway National park, where we walked around the Treetop Walk:

 This claims to be the longest and tallest elevated walk of its kind in the world. It is 600 metres (about 0.4 miles) long and 35 metres (115 ft) above ground level. I don't like heights at all but I walked around it without minding the bounciness too much!



The best stop of the day was at the 12 Apostles, a group of weathered limestone stacks which has long been a visitor draw on this part of the coast.

By the time we got there, the sun was low, but I was reasonable happy with some of my photos all the same.






All in all it was a lot of fun - a great day to be alive !



I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.  
~John Burroughs