si tu sais jouer avec la lumière et les ombres,
observer les couleurs, en inventer d’autres encore,
respirer et gouter aux parfums des jours et des nuits
toucher du regard l’éphémère, l’immortaliser
si tu peux trouver dans l’oreille du renard
un ami qui prendra soin de tes secrets
si tu gardes en toi le désir de bulles toujours plus grandes
si ton souffle fait éclore des nuées d'étoiles
tu seras une rêveuse ma fille…
We’re not doing anything special. It’s just summer: we get up a little later, jump in the pool to fight away the heat a couple of times a day. I find myself mostly tied down to my iPad and keyboard, struggling to find words and ideas for projects that will all be due at once. I even have a voiceover to record.
I’m on the deck this morning so I can feel the breeze—but the wifi sucks. Which means I won’t be here for much longer. And for some reason my entire body hurts like hell; enough to wake me up several times a night for the past month or so.
I almost dove into our recent camping trip for this entry but then I stopped myself: three weeks is too far removed—I’ll keep those stories for my own blog instead. The challenge here is the snapshot right? However...boring?
I grabbed the camera a few minutes ago and walked around. I’d love to say it’s peaceful but there’s a day camp in the park nearby, and apparently it’s all about screaming at the top of your lungs now. Yeah...“Get off my lawn!” says the old man with backaches and too little patience ;)
So there it is.
Snapshot.
The vacation is over. Or at least our joint vacation as a complete family. We had 2 weeks together, which seems like a good amount of time going in, but feels like a brief second going out. We had an amazing holiday. We spent most of our time in Croatia, but on our way home we made a brief stop in Prague. It was a very weird feeling, wandering through Prague in all of its mighty beauty, and still feel like it wasn't even close to the sheer magnificence of the Croatian cities of Biograd, Sibenik, Zadar and Split.
The following pictures have an obvious visual commonality, but more importantly they have contextual commonality in that they were taken in the 7 different cities that we visited the last 14 days.
Some things never change; well, not much.
I know this place. I know its history. My own history is - quite literally - written into the walls.
Living as far away as I do, these visits are much more rare than they were when we spent our summers here, swimming in the lake many times per day, playing cards, reading books, stubbing our toes on the rocks, and messing around in boats.
I thought I would have to cancel this trip to Prague. As my sisters health deteriorated it was looking more likely that I would be staying home. But we're here now, grieving earlier than expected, in a strange country, in blistering hot sunshine that has no place in the world of grief.
I've brought my Domke F-3X bag on this trip, but forgone putting a smaller bag in my luggage as I often do. At times that's felt like a mistake as I've been carrying a bit too much kit. X-Pro2, X100F and the X70 are in there, as are the 50/2 and the Samyang 12/2.8. A camera bag always feels twice as heavy an hour after you leave the hotel. The X70 charger is no longer working, so I’m on my last battery and after that the camera will staying in the safe for the rest of this trip. Lucky I brought the WCL-X100 for the X100F, so I'll still have a 28mm.
The light is so much better here than in the UK and It's a welcome distraction when I get in the zone shooting street photography for a while. But we're taking the morning off and I'm writing this by the swimming pool. The kids are playing with a GoPro and Fe is lying on the lounger next to me. It's strange the way normal life goes on, but I'm glad it does. There is an odd feeling of guilt though. Guilt for being on holiday so soon after my sisters death. Guilt for leaving my parents behind at this time. But mostly just guilt for being here, having a life and waking up each day.
I love my Kage buddies. I really do. I see them as brothers. We've been through a lot together.
I've helped Patrick fend off Gulls in Brighton, I've helped Jonas help a stricken damsel in distress in Cologne, I've even shared a rather incongruous experience with Bert in a bathroom in Yokohama.
However.
Imagine my consternation, when, excitedly opening up Monday's Chronicle to see what Pat had posted to see..... swimming pool pictures.
I mean. Come on, man. I shoot weddings. All year. Weddings. Then, I have a whole month in Spain where I shoot (mostly) pictures of my kids in the swimming pool.
So that's it. The gloves are off. No more brotherly affiliation.
Here are my pool-plops. And a bit more. I'm spending a month in a very remote part of Andlucia. Some liken it to Mars. It is a bit. But if I had to be stranded on Mars, I'd be happy with a pool, a GoPro, my X-E3 and my family.....oh, and a LOT of Cruzcampo beer.
Between my two of my son's football practices we immersed ourselves in nature, friends, family, sand, barbecued food and 36 hours of living the life.
Ca sent le feu, le fer, le foin. Ici à Castelroc, on marche sur les traces de combattants, on vit l'espace de deux jours au rythme des forgerons, des passes d'armes et des prouesses équestres...
I’m reading David Lynch’s Room to Dream these days, a co-written biography/auto-biography—a very peculiar, yet fascinating literary object that alternates between two voices. I was probably eighteen when I saw Eraserhead, as part of a late-night show at the old Théâtre Outremont in Montreal. Part of me was shaken but mostly I just sat there, completely riveted and transfixed. Lynch’s work made entire universes possible: the darkest and most surreal visions could be unleashed unapologetically. We could weave tales beyond our earth-bound senses. The movie was a license to reveal ourselves.
I’ve been on a steady trajectory for over a year now, reuniting with the obscure and the abstract. There’s certainly nothing in it for me in terms of work opportunities, but for some reason I feel less and less interested in precision, both in words and imagery. I keep reaching for dreamscapes, compelled to break up what I see...as though I now need layers to understand reality.
This weekend—tentatively—it was water.
Black sun piercing the veil.
Shapes like explosions.
Finally vacation time. Finally time for family.
We drove through Europe. 1900km+, it took us a couple of days to get here, improvized hotel stay et all. But now we are. Here.
In Croatia. This is a first for our family, but it probably be the last. This place is amazing.
We do what we usually do. Live simple, enjoy it all. I am so ever grateful.
