In Lieu Of Summer....

Is there anything more difficult, or disheartening, than having to rewrite something you spent a couple of hours writing, and then accidentally deleted? Anything at all less appealing than having to find, again, those just right words that will never flow so perfectly, no matter how you tweak and delete and rewrite yet again?
It's awful. And I'm afraid that's where this post is coming from. So, apologies in advance for the slightly stale crispyness-around-the-edges writing that follows, as I try to recapture just what is was I said yesterday morning, so brimful of inspiration.

I was talking about photographs. And the taking of them. You see my camera is on the blink, nothing too serious, I hope, just something a service will fix. I do hope. But it happened just when I had begun to rekindle my enjoyment for carrying it around, for allowing that to influence my day, to prompt me to pause and stop and look, and to see those little moments that otherwise pass you by in the rush and busyness of the day to day.

Over this last week, I have had cause to go back through our iphoto archives, which are quite substantial as you can probably imagine, and as I have no new photos to share today, I thought I might share a few oldies that I had forgotten about, and found again, on my trawling. And I thought that as I won't be talking about the fact that my previous mention of summer in the last couple of posts was just about right. A mention. Nothing more need be said with the word 'summer' in it. For she is nowhere to be found. Since last week it has rained. And rained and rained and rained. And from what I saw on facebook, it seems it has been literally raining all over the world. So I thought I might share a taste of summers past, instead.

These got me thinking, about what it was like for me when I first got a digital camera and started blogging, something I have written about before and you can read about *here*, and looking back through these photos has made me understand somewhat, my struggle for inspiration here lately. Much as rewriting something steals the magic, the purity and clarity out of it, I feel that my desire to Take A Photo has overridden my ability to Capture A Moment, which is what gave me such inspiration and love for this new media I had discovered, a media that actually fit so tidily into my busy Life With Small Children. I went from being a frustrated creative torn between wanting to make things, and also wanting to be 100% a mother to my young children, to someone who found she could weave them together. It was such a heartening and exciting discovery.

I'll be honest, I don't think of myself as a Photographer. I'm not. I know people who are, and I am not. I love taking pictures, and they serve a purpose in my creative life, and that is what is important to me. But I am now finding the time and headspace to give voice to other mediums of expression, and I am eager to run with that!
This last year has seen our Smallest start 'big school', and we now have two in secondary and two in primary, and my personal life has slowly been shifting out of that previous Mama-mode that had, until now, consumed my life for the last sixteen years. It's a strange feeling! Exciting albeit slightly daunting.
And there are other changes afoot here, which I have mentioned before but cannot go into detail just yet. Suffice to say things are generally unsettled and uncertain here in the Milkmoon household, but you know, sometimes uncertainty and unsettledness are exactly the swift kick in the pants you need to galvanise you into action!

These past few weeks I have been increasingly in the studio and with the summer holidays looming, and therefore less time in my car, I am looking forward to seeing what that produces here. There is still a lot of organisng and sorting going on, and storage is an issue, but I now have my Production Hat firmly in place, with a few murmurings of Collaborations in the air. It's a while since I've done a collaboration, and I feel that is exactly what I need right now to crank things up around here!

Not surprisingly, in the end this post has wandered off and not even tried to really rewrite what was lost yesterday. I suppose that is what happens, isn't it?
But as we are having a brief respite from the monsoon this weekend, apparently, and there is a wonderful festival happening all week in the nearby town that our younger ones go to school in, so we have plenty to occupy us, rain or not.
Ah, if only I had my camera....

Scenes From The Moth House.

We are away in the north-west again, so this is a short post to let you see something I've been up to over the last little while.

It's a little place of photos and words. Of little vignettes and quiet corners from a place in my head, a place I call The Moth House. Of significant, and also small, happenings there, the wanderings and musings and sad reveries of its occupants, The Lovers.

You can visit it here: The Moth House.

I hope you like it!

Those Precious Fleeting Moments.

"...plead the fleeting moment to remain..."

A dear friend sent me this lovely quote this morning. A quote about photographers and why they do it. And it made me think about my own love of taking pictures and why us humans seem to need to do this. Is it just a desire to record? To make our mark? Or is it something more poetic? A desire to capture beauty as it passes so fleetingly through our lives?

A few years back one of my brothers came back from a summer in San Francisco with a small stack of photos he bought at a market. Photos of unknown people. Photos that had been rescued from unclaimed lock-ups or storage units. He said there were thousands of them and they just selected a handful, but he regretted not getting more. I cannot tell you how strangely moving it was to look through this collection of photos, to gaze upon the faces of these unknown strangers. Anniversary parties, family holidays, friends hanging out, all blithely unaware of where their image would end up, and where have they ended up, I wonder?

And it is moving, truly. And again I was reminded of this as I read Sophie's latest sweet entry on her Missed Connections blog, because each person has a story, one we'll never know in the case of those photos, and I do find myself marveling once again at the wonder that is us humans. Those stories mean something to someone, somewhere, and oh how the mind can take off on a figary and with all sorts of  imaginings.

I remember so clearly how starting this blog coincided with getting my first digital camera, and suddenly I was seeing the world differently. It was as though I was seeing through the lens, and the smallest things were, in a blink, being mentally framed and considered. And I was truly seeing the details that I felt I had been missing before. It made me pause, and look. Really look. And suddenly the days were no longer whirling by in a blur of rushed necessities.

And I have relished it ever since.

And although I have forgotten most of the small bit of photography I studied in college, and I do sometimes think I'd love to know what I'm doing when I take pictures and maybe I should go back and study it, I also love this digital age that allows people like me to take pictures and feel happy with the result! (And also to indulge in a fit of polaroid nostalgia like these photos here, even if I don't even own one!) I love seeing friends photo albums on facebook or flickr, photos that look amazing and beautiful and yes, often moving. And all just ordinary people recording ordinary lives. But recording the extraordinary beauty that we all live with every day and sometimes never see.

I have said before, beauty is something to be treasured and encouraged, and if taking pictures allows us to focus on it, then may we all be trigger happy for the rest of our days! Imagine a world where everyone looked through their lens and saw only the beauty?

What a lesson we can teach our children...

Put The Lights On The Tree.

A few weeks back the lovely Cliona rang me up and asked could she use our field for a photo shoot (check out her work here). We were delighted to oblige. We love having our house invaded by hordes (really!) and it's always exciting to have something like this to distract us on a blustery, cold, wet day in the middle of the mid-term break.

I'm always amazed at how much hard work goes into something like this. The team of people involved, the organisation, the unforeseen hiccups.

The day began with the delivery of a sweet 1970's caravan, all the way from Kerry, no less, which was then deposited not in the right place. I'm sure it was a sight to see three women trying to manoeuvre (maneuver) it round a windswept field. But we did it!

The kids were bemused by the Christmas decorations and lights that went up on it, especially as it was only a few days to Halloween!

And fair play to the crew who were there, standing around for hours in the cold and rain.

For the most part we remained inside, out of the weather. I don't know how they do it. It was quite surreal at times!

As the evening train rolled by, preparing to stop at the station at the end of the lane, I have no doubt the passengers were rolling their eyes at the bedecked little caravan, in a field by the sea, in October...

Whatever next?

But for any of you that are in Ireland, you'll be seeing Cliona's wonderful photo of it around the place as part of the Christmas ad campaign of a certain phone company!

Now I'd happily keep that sweet little caravan, lights and all, if I could. I think it would make a gorgeous studio, wouldn't it?

Something Lovely.

It's been a while since I posted about Something Lovely and I thought I'd share these gorgeous images with you.

They are the work of a lovely lady called Doreen Kennedy, and she is a graphic designer and photographer based in my hometown of Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin.

Paris.

For any of you who have been to the Electric Picnic in Stradbally, Co. Laois over the last few years, you will have seen Doreen's 1,000 Flowers, where she covered trees with 1,000 pictures of flowers!

However, I have to admit it's her Holga images of Dun Laoghaire, Dalkey and Killiney that I absolutely love. I've had her calendar on my desk all year and I never get tired of peering at these beautiful images.

Killiney beach.

It seems a contradiction to say that a Holga image can be crisp, but that is exactly what these are. They pull you right into the picture.

This beach is the beach of my childhood. A place I go to still. And these in some way capture the little ghosts of us, right there on the sand and shingle, and it tugs my heart. And the light, somehow is that very light that beckoned us into the waves.

Killiney beach.

Dun Laoghaire pier.

And I almost cannot bare to look at these pictures of Dun Laoghaire, it tears at my heart so. So much of my childhood and teenage years was spent around Dun Laoghaire pier, and I feel I am looking through the years and could put my hand out and touch that child that I was. The otherworldliness of her ghostly images goes deep into my memory and shakes me there.

Over the months I've been looking at these, I have felt a homesickness in my heart that I thought was gone forever. And it's strange that I have felt this at a time I have never felt more settled and happy living where we do, just a few miles down the coast.

But it's a happy, nostalgic homesickness that satisfies something I cannot explain. A letting go maybe, for I am happy to have the memories I am blessed to have.

~*~

Do take a look at the rest of Doreen's work over on her website. And thank you Doreen for sharing such beautiful images with us.

~*~

Something Lovely.

Now, I've gone and done what I always do and forgotten where I first came across this delightful Etsy shop Tiny White Lights.

If it was on your blog then let me know please! 

I adore these evocative photos so much. Am I predictable? There's something about them though...

They must appeal to my overactive sense of nostalgia!