Severe Jam Damage

I finished the 365days project on flickr yesterday. I can’t say that I’m happy with my final shot - I was tired and cranky and its kind of a lazy shot. Very little setup and effort put into it, which is why I’ve posted my day 363 shot in the blog which I’m much happier with. A year of my life in self-portraits - although even that isn’t quite true as I only managed shots for 217 days.
I ‘gave up’ twice - unhappy with both my technique and myself - and then came back to it with a bang for all of about four days until I once again lost my creative spark.
January and February I was using the Finepix Z2 - a slim little machine that could be thrown into my purse and pulled out on a whim. There are a fair number of ‘arms length’ self portraits from the Z2 - not particularly flattering as my arms aren’t that long and the fixed focal length made my face look deformed. With the limitations of the camera I tried different things, using a tripod, props, hats and different locations to make something interesting. My potatoshop skills were pretty rudimentary - cross processing and desaturation was about the limit of it.
March and April were fairly similiar but the weather was getting warmer so I could go outside - also I went to Barcelona but had neither the time nor the patience to set up intricate shots - he11 who does on a holiday?
I bought the D80 in May of last year and there is a noticeable improvement in the quality of shots. Partially down to the camera and partially down to a new found sense of interest in the project. Day 141 was the first hiccup. I took a break for a couple of weeks, unsure of what I was doing. July and August were pretty good months, I managed a shot most every day. Most of my ‘explored’ shots come from the summer portraits. Day 151 is still the most popular shot on my stream.
September was really flaky and October wasn’t much better.
Then came November.
The more astute among you will notice that there were NO shots taken in November. You may also remember there were no posts to the blog in November. Actually, there was nothing at all done in November bar me writing the World’s Worst Novel - I have mentioned that I killed off all the characters in one massive cull in the last paragraph haven’t I?
December wasn’t much better. I got lazy and used to not taking a shot - there was always ‘tomorrow’ and I wasn’t ‘that far behind.’ And then it was January ‘the final month’. Even that didn’t get me taking pictures, I knew I was falling farther and farther behind, and it was only in the last two weeks that I began to make the effort again, despite a massive lack of creativity.
And now its done.
I don’t know why I started the project in the first place, possibly something to do with the long cold boring January nights last year. Or maybe something to do with wanting to see if I really was any good at it. I know a lot of people think that the whole thing is pretty narcissistic but I never really thought of it that way. I hate looking at myself in photos for a start, so when I was choosing that days shot it wasn’t with the idea of ‘which one do I look the best in?’ The questions I asked myself were more technical: ‘Which one has better shape \ colour \ form \ lighting \focus?’
If I was to look at the photos from a more self-centred point of view I’d have to wonder what I was trying to say on a particular day. Some of them I really love and think ‘jeez, that was a fluke’ others are just awful, awful, awful and I don’t know what I was thinking posting them up.
And then there is the nostalgia \ life thing. Looking back at the first few days and weeks of the project I’m tempted to question everything. Has anything about my life really changed - besides getting another year older - am I any closer to realising any of my goals or ambitions? Probably not. Has my self-confidence increased? In some aspects, but generally no. Am I more comfortable in front of a camera? No, not really, especially if other people are behind it. Do I have a better understanding of what it takes to make a good portrait? I think I’m beginning to…

My 365 flickr set

So yeah, woot and all that.
It was an extremely hard one this month. In the end I killed off all my characters I hated them that much.
I’m off now to bathe my wrists in ice.

To the start of NaNoWriMo 2007.

eek!

About a month ago I bought myself a new lens for the Nikon. Unfortunately for whatever reason I didn’t get a chance to try it out before I went to Barcelona so I was sort of worried about how it was going to perform.
It’s a Sigma 28-300mm MACRO. Anyway, here are the results:

This was taken at the macro end (300mm) of the lens. No photoshop, scanned straight from the negative. And this one:

was at the wide-angle end (28mm). What impresses me here is that there is no vignetting. The kit lens that came with the F75 (A Nikon) has some pretty bad vignetting when I shut it down to 28mm - however the new ‘generic’ lens has absolutely none.

I think this is going to become my new favourite thing.

Museum of Anthropology
Specimen No: 233984-13
Item: Homo floresiensis - Skull
Carbon Dated Age: 14,000 BC
Details: Female, young adult.

‘Nur!’
A voice called out over the rocks and bounced around the small valley. At the bank of the river a small girl played with stones, skipping them into the water. She heard the voice and froze, then looked quickly for a place to hide. It was too late.
‘There you are! Kurthi has been looking for you!’
Joko was not much taller than his sister, his skinny torso at odds with the strength that lay in his thighs and legs.
Nur shrugged. She didn’t want to go back to the village. She just wanted to be alone.
‘Come on, I don’t have time to waste out here.’
‘Well leave me alone then, I’ll go back later.’
‘Kurthi wants you there now!’
Joko grabbed his sister by her shoulders and spun her round, pushing her ahead of him.
‘Ow!’ shouted Nur.
‘Be quiet and move! I don’t want to be late!’

Homo Floresiensis was contemperanous with modern day Homo Sapiens. First specimens discovered in the Liang Bua Cave on the island of Flores on Indonesian archipelago. Believed to have limited language capability.

‘Where have you been? People have been looking all over for you!’ Kurthi was angry. Nur didn’t think she’d ever seen her so angry. In her hands she carried a long spear, the tip carved sharp enough to break the hide of the Buta.
‘Here, now.’
Nur paled, feeling the weight of the spear in her hands. When she held it upright the tip was even with her nose.
‘Go on now, it’s your turn’ said Kurthi and stood with arms folded looking proudly at her little daughter.
Nur slumped and padded over to the group of young girls that stood chattering excitedly. Each of them held a spear similar to the one Nur carried, the difference was that they appeared to know how to use it and were familiar with its weight.
Nur had never been on a hunt before.

Joko had already left with the rest of the young men. It was their job to track the Buta and tire it out so the girls could deliver the final killing blow.

Museum of Anthropology
Specimen No: 233984-16 to 233984-36
Item: Stone beads (20)
Carbon Dated Age: 14,000 BC

Nur touched the leather pouch that was tied around her waist, and her lips moved quickly in a silent prayer to the gods. The pouch contained a selection of small rounded stones, beaded with tiny needles carved from bone. Nur felt comforted by the weight of it on her hips. As the girls set off Nur looked back at the village one last time. Kurthi had disappeared - probably feeding the baby. Nur felt disappointed, it was her first hunt. Surely Kurthi could have stayed to wave her off?

The group began to move faster, loping through the tall grass, calling out to each other. They followed in the tracks of the boys for a while, Nur could feel her legs getting tired. Just when she thought she couldn’t run any further the group stopped. Ahead of them the boys had cornered the Buta. Its strangled cries rang out across the clearing. The grass flattened where it had frendziedly stomped in fear and panic.
‘Ready’ shouted a voice from the grass and Nur reached a hand to her pouch. Quickly she pulled one of the stones from the wallet and placed it in the hollowed out tube of her spear with the bone needle facing away from her.
‘Aim!’
Nur stood and around her the grass came alive with other small bodies who raised the end of their spears to the mouths.
‘Fire!’
Nur blew with all her might as the tiny bullet sped through the air and found its mark. The Buta trumpeted in pain, red eyes spinning. Its great feet flailed in the air and thunder rolled through the valley when it landed. It spun in pain and the girls closed in, continuing to blow their tiny needles until the Buta tired. Its shrieks grew weaker, it slumped and fell over. Nur was almost close enough to turn her spear around and begin the process of finding its weak spots. As she braced herself to stab the beast it let one last bellow and kicked out with its great foot.
‘Nur!’ screamed a voice, and Nur was vaguely aware that it sounded like Joko calling out to her. Then the foot of the beast connected and Nur watched in fascination as a spray of stones arced high into the sky.

Stone beads, no known purpose, most likely decorative. Found buried with specimen 233984-13.

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Anyway this weeks flicktion effort inspired by The Gallipoli Campaign. Copyright Flickr user Pasanin Yeri Check out the rest of the flicktioneers: The Gurrier, Chris, Tadmack, TeaandCakes, Aquafortis, Valsha and Neil.

Jackie found the book in one of those old second hand shops. It was stuck away on a back shelf, hidden where no one would even notice it. She’d actually been going for the hardcover copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales but it was stuck, slightly too large for the shelf and wedged tight. She braced her knee against the bookshelf and pulled. Hard. The Grimms fell with a squeak and a small shower of sawdust which powdered her shoulders and eyelashes. Coughing, she opened the book to the flyleaf and then sighed in disgust. It was an updated copy, not the 1857 copy she had hoped. She brushed the dust from her eyes and put the book back on the shelf. That was when she found the other one. Just a corner of it stuck out of the shelf, enough for Jackie to get her fingernails under the spine and wiggle it out. The cover was brittle and coarse like bark. Jackie forgot about the Grimm’s book, here was something really unusual. A copy of Collodi’s ‘Adventures of Pinnochio.’

Jackie opened the book and winced as the spine cracked. The basement filled with the smell of fresh cut wood. Inside the pages were soft and pliable, thick and slightly veined. Each leaf had been fitted into the book with precision, matched perfectly for size and shape.. The typeface was difficult to read, blotches of ink stained where the blotter had not been quick enough. Jackie paged quickly through the book taking care to turn the leaves softly. They felt slightly waxy like tiny new buds in spring.

This was one of the special books, the ones that appear as a prize find in among the battered Harold Robbins and dogeared chick-lit that normally cluttered up the shelves. How this one had come to be here was anyone’s guess. Some niece or nephew clearing out their dead relatives belongings not knowing what they had.

Jackie knew.

Or at least she knew it was something unique. A book to treasure, a book to keep safe.

Jackie walked up to the till and laid the book softly on the counter, holding her breath until the clerk turned to serve her.

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Hmm, this is NOT where I thought this would go. I had ideas about a sort of Jack and the Beanstalk tale and probably if I’d had more time I could have shaped it that way. Anyway this weeks flicktion effort inspired by Book Tree. Copyright Flickr user Ulle B. Check out the rest of the flicktioneers: The Gurrier, Chris, Tadmack, TeaandCakes, Aquafortis, Valsha and Neil.

As children we were told not to go near the old storm-struck tree down the end of the high field.
‘There’s bad things and worse’n that’ Uncle Jake told us. ‘You don’t wants to be goin’ to the high field lessin’ you got a reason. And that reason, well it’d better be nuthin’ less than your own life.’
After these warnings he would glare at us with one rheumy eye, the other having been lost years ago in some unspecified incident. Then he’d slowly lift his eye patch and glare down with his empty socket at us. That always made us shiver, no matter how close to the fire we sat.
‘You young uns gotsta stay well away from that place. Well away!’
Then he would lean back in his seat and speak no more. We knew better than to ask him why, cousin Jimmie had taught us all that lesson. He still weren’t able to sit proper on his seat after all this time. We’d never seen Uncle Jake go into such a rage after it. Later when Jimmie had quit his slobberin’ and cryin’ he’d told us there weren’t nothin’ up in the high field ceptin’ some old gnarled up lookin’ tree stumps.
‘The old man is crazy as a coot’ said Jimmie.
‘You aints’ bin up there to know!’ we taunted.
‘He’s a crazy ol’ man’ replied Jimmy but alls the same there was somethin’ in his face that made us wonder if Uncle Jake was all that crazy after all.
Late at nights we’d lie in bed, all jumbled up together, legs ‘n’ arms, stickin’ elbows into ribs and we’d whisper amongst ourselves - taunting and daring each other. None of us ever took it serious. We knew well what would happen if’n we tried goin’ anywhere near the high field. Alls we had to do was look at Jimmie wincing in his chair and with that look of fear on his face.

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I didn’t want to do the typical ‘Merlin and Nimue’ with this, so this could be the beginning of something, unfortunately didn’t have time to finish it so this is all you’re getting this week. This weeks flicktion effort inspired by Sculpture Copyright Flickr user RightIndex. Check out the rest of the flicktioneers: The Gurrier, Chris, Tadmack, TeaandCakes, Aquafortis, Valsha and Neil.

Nobody knew where The Factory came from. It was just there, steadily taking things in through a gate that opened once a week. Trucks lines up around the block waiting their turn to unload then drove away empty, to return the next week full again.

No one ever saw what the trucks unloaded. The drivers didn’t stop, dour looking men, high in their cabs they drove to the factory and drove away. For months nothing ever came out of The Factory. No sounds, no smells, nothing. Stories spread that late at night when everyone was asleep a small gate opened in the side of the wall and things came out. Nobody knew for certain though.

One day the deliveries stopped. There was no line of trucks, no open gate. People began to forget about the mystery of The Factory. Life went on.

It was about a year later that the Dolls started to appear. Tall, and slim their arms and legs wobbled as they walked. Bodies sexless, covered in latex with faces that had no features except for a pair of silver-irised eyes that shone like jewels from their sockets. The first Doll that appeared was found sitting on a park bench by some children. Their parents heard the screams but by the time they ran outside it was too late. The children had pulled the Doll apart, ripping arms from torso. There was a short report on the news about it. The children were in hospital, suffering shock. The remains of the Doll were taken away by the authorities, but nothing could be ascertained. There were no manufacturing marks, no clue as to where the Doll had come from or what its purpose might be.

A week later two more Dolls were found wandering the streets. A crowd gathered, staring. As one, the crowd tore the Dolls to pieces. When asked about it later no one could give a clear answer. Observers - those who had not seen the Dolls before the attack - claimed that the crowd had gone berserk. Others claimed that the Dolls were the instigators. No one could prove anything.

Reports began to flood in. Other cities, other unexplained attacks. And after each, the people left drained, in shock.

No one ever thought to link The Factory with the appearance of the Dolls.

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Damn, I have no idea where I was going with this. Ahh well, this weeks flicktion effort inspired by as far as the eye(s) can see By Flickr user phantom kitty. Check out the rest of the flicktioneers: The Gurrier, Chris, Tadmack, TeaandCakes, Aquafortis, Valsha and Neil.

They think they can do that to me eh?
Think they can just let me go like that. I’ll show them, I’ll bloody well show them.

There is a cold draft blowing under the door. I can feel its chill fingers blowing up my skirt. I sneeze once, twice. Dustballs scurry in the wake of my breath. I should have brought a flashlight. The cheap flourescent lights flicker above the table making sickly shadows dance. There isn’t enough light down here, my fingers poke and prod looking for the outlet.

There.

A creaking floorboard causes me to freeze. Fuckit. I thought everyone had gone home, but it’s just the building settling. Old beams moving. The office has begun to cool down, heating turned off for the weekend. On Monday this place will be like an icebox.

My fingers have found the outlet, I jab the fork in and bend quickly. The outlet is switched off, all unnecessary power switched off at the mains - one of the ‘cost saving measures’ put forth by the boss. And I, another.

I crawl out from under the table, blowing dust and lint from my face, smoothing my hair. Turn out the lights in the boardroom, close the door and key in the security code.

On Monday I will look for a new job - somewhere in a bright clean office block. Somewhere new and shiny. Old buildings are bad for me- too cold and drafty. Decades old wiring snake through the walls - fire hazards in waiting. You never know what might set them off.

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This weeks flicktion effort inspired by twelve By Flickr user receivingend. Check out the rest of the flicktioneers: The Gurrier, Chris, Tadmack, TeaandCakes, Aquafortis, Valsha and Neil.

‘Where’d they come from?’
Dunno, they bin here long as I can recall.’
‘Whatcha think they are?’
‘Dunno.’ A shrug, shoulders hunched and hands in pockets. The voice is small and bored.
‘They look old’
‘Yup.’
‘A bit battered as well.’ A rough hand runs over the wooden frames, a shower of crackling paint falls to the ground.
‘Wood is sound anyway.’ Says the second voice.
‘Ayup.’ A beat. ‘So you taking them or not?’
‘Reckon I will. Just wish I knew what they were.’
**
They are lighter than he had thought but it is not easy. The boxes rotting and splintered in places prove awkward to shift and sweat pools under his light Memtex shell. Shards of glass tinkle and crunch under his feet. If he can clean down the wood, smooth the rough edges the timber might be worth something on the black market. He runs fingers down the side of the box. Even the splinters feel soothing. Con wonders again what their purpose could have been.
**
The buyer unrolls a length of molywire and gently touches it against the corner of one of the boxes. They are pristine. Con spent hours sanding and varnishing until the timber gleamed like glass. He winces as the buyer slices a splinter from underneath one of the corners.
‘Gotta test the merchandise’ says the Buyer and inspects the tiny fragment.
‘Oiled and polished’ begins Con, but the buyer isn’t interested in Con’s work.
‘Do you know in the old days they used to burn wood? What a wonderful waste.’ The buyer pauses, eyes Con. ‘It’s all good for you though isn’t it?’
Con says nothing. He is used to this- these buyers who detest him for providing them with exactly what they want. Con enjoys his work, even if it does mean that he has to deal with these people. The buyer runs a finger across the finely finished timber and nods.
‘I’ll take them’ he says.
**
Outside the dome nothing moves. A deep black desert stretches to the horizon. Con peers out through thick plexi-glass. The void stares back. Behind him an alarm beeps, his Chrono signalling that night has begun. Once, so the story goes, this was all forestland, this blasted and barren place. Con can’t imagine it. A world where trees are so bountiful that they could be wasted and used. Con slips into his pod and sleeps. His thoughts bring him to a world with a warm yellow sun and a gentle breeze. Of sweet grassy fields and a forest of trees.

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I don’t know where this is going. Think Con may have more to tell. This weeks surprisngly green flicktion effort inspired by Booths in a Field By Flickr user Rick Harris. Check out the rest of the flicktioneers: The Gurrier, Chris, Tadmack, TeaandCakes, Aquafortis, Valsha and Neil.