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happy new year honour the old

7/1/2015

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I read once that your sense of fulfillment can be enhanced by looking at past accomplishments. 

The year end seems to come to me in a rush so I find myself taking stock in the new year -listing the events of the old. I was lucky to get away for 10 days of relaxation where I did my yoga practice daily while listening to TED talks and loved this one by Dan Gilbert. Listen to his provocative first test question to the audience. The happiness we create from things about which we had no choice is richer than you might imagine.

So honour the old and honour your obsessions.

I do not yet know why it is that traffic cones move me so. I just know that they do. The cone on my Xmas ecard was not the first traffic cone I ever shot.
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what it says on the tin... merry urbanartmass in retrospect
Just the other night I came across a collection of road signs and markers. Later I was moved to attempt at capturing it in writing.


I will see my watch and stay standing
sentinel, harbour,
place marker, guard

mountain,
moveable;
wherever I am placed

in sun and dark
to bear brunt
of mud, fume, fury,
waggish ridicule

to endure


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let me count the ways
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kaleidoscope

15/12/2014

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On the 10th December and the 19th November I spoke about my half-baked 'theory' of the kaleidoscopic nature of creativity - and on the 10th December I spoke about taking dictation from images/objects. I started with art works, random objects, then worked through a couple of Taylor Wessing exhibition catalogues and a couple of photographic books from the library.

It was advice given to Rilke by Rodin, to write from life, the way an artist sketches.

I mentioned on the 10th that I was just getting round to look at Jo Bell's latest poetry prompt (on her site 52/write a poem a week) 'light: everything is illuminated' (week 49 here).  I  thought I should put myself on the line and share one of my dictation processes here. The photo here was taken the same night as 'red frost' and appeared first on my FB page.
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star frost
I glued together Jo Bell's prompt with taking 'dictation' from the image itself - here goes:


light

at this time of year (bleak

and drear)

still comes

glintglowsmear

out from hiding

to lick the eye

crisp a crystal shout

I am here I am here

to tickle you

pin prickle you

to briefly

shear your heart of doubt

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imperfection

8/12/2014

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ImpeRfECtiON

the broken, the chipped, the darkly lit

the submerged, the blurred, the unexpected

the torn, the sodden, the overlooked

the accident, the underfoot


the worn, the cracked

the clumsily mended

the marked, the stained

neglected, untended

the lateness, the hurried

the forgotten, the lost

the pain, the surrender

the sob, the laugh


the splotch, the grime

the victimless crime

the off-kilter, the wilted

the jammed-up filter

the message, the delay

the lack of response

the sour taste

the faked nonchalance


the kind, the foolhardy

the limping, the lazy

the not–too–strong

the little–bit–crazy

the secret totems

the dull things that shine

the haunted, the heartbreak

one too many times

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still on mission
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lost and found

5/12/2014

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in the empty moments I would reach out to capture something. via the camera, objects in the street became hand holds on a climbing wall, tiny ledges of purchase. in busy trajectories the stop and capture claws a moment of freedom. walking past things I have captured previously builds an eccentric map, breadcrumbs on a trail, to mark existence. when logic fails go to poetry. when emotion is strong, aim at the simple.

I met  a cellist the other day - Mayda Narvey - she shared with me her practice of taking a photo of a time when she was very happy. a talisman to touch. I borrowed that practice from her for my twitter 'creative phone tip' today.

I met a man once in an airport check-in queue. He said: 'I've just said goodbye to someone I won't see for a while.' I must have offered some kind of commiseration. He waved it away by saying 'Sadness is under-appreciated.' Lostness, too, is under-appreciated. 

I remember times of feeling totally aimless and lost - feelings which at the time I wanted at the time to escape. Those moments now gleam with an indefinable quality which is strangely yet undeniably comforting (or is that just me?).

in a moment of lostness - shoot
in a moment of boredom - shoot
you'll never know what was there unless you shoot
Picture
carfish
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    Author

    Performer and theatremaker Peta Lily  has been taking photographs for the last five years. Her aesthetic has been to use her iPhone camera to capture the world close up and with an immediacy that is both surprising and moving.

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