its all about the kids!

We are almost done with the Easter break now and what a break its been!

A hectic arrangement of activities to keep the small ones amused and entertained started with a trip to the ice rink last week.  Ever since they had a go at skating on a mobile ice rink at Christmas they have been pestering me to take them, bearing in mind im 40 and havent skated for 17 years I knew this was going to be interesting.
Kyle (7) was off first whizzing around the ice while Kate (6) and myself clung onto the side for dear life!! Connor (17) and his mate Luke were also off like there was no tomorrow.  All was going well and even Kate an I managed a few laps without hanging on to the edge, then disaster...
Luke; not the little ones, and not myself had managed to fall flat on his face and break his nose and burst his lip, being the compassionate soul that I am after much stifling of laughter I did manage to check he was ok, there was a lot of blood :( and after his visit to the first aid he sat the rest of the session out.  It was almost a complete success but even he admitted it was fun!

Weekend came and without the munchkins I had the chance to go and watch my son and my dad in a play, they are both members of the local amateur dramatic club and the plays are usually hilairous, this one; Caught in the net, was possibly the funniest I have seen for a long time, a very fast moving play, no idea how my dad didnt pass out he had so much to do, and the boy wonder was brilliant in a very understated way. My sisters and I have been known as the witches for years now due to our dreadful cackling laugh and Connor did say he had trouble trying not to laugh onstage as he could hear us all.... oops!! 
For future ref you can check out the whitechapel players website to keep up with their antics, its looking like a pantomime again in November which will no doubt as always be incredible.

You would think that would be enough excitement really but nooooo!!!

Next on the agenda, what with the unusually lovely weather we packed a picnic up ready to go to the beach, this was thwarted by the increasingly grey looking clouds and we decided to go to Beacon Fell which is a lovely naturey place near where we live, basically its a big hill with lots of trees and the kids love it.  Gina and her daughter joined us on this adventure into the wild and much fun followed, take two mad women,  and three daredevil tree climbing kids and you are guaranteed a laugh.  On the way to the summit we came across the BIGGEST snake in the world, albeit a wooden carved one but this was the first of our victims for photography fun!

Next the kids desperately wanted to explore in the trees so off they went, and here they appeared, haha 

Off for more rummaging in the woods we found a lovely carved cat, no idea who does these but they are fabulous

miouw!!

It was threatening rain by now so we hurried up through the trees, talk of the lion man and the bogey monster had the kids scurrying quickly onwards haha (kids talk not adults hehe) and as we saw the opening at the end of the trees I had to get this shot

We finished off with a picnic and ice cream and headed home, kids shattered, Gina and myself even more shattered yet planning the next days activities!!

Wednesday arrives with a flurry of excitement once again as the sun is shining, this means today it most certainly is BEACH DAY... hurrahhhhhh!!!

Should it be Blackpool? noooooo none of that tat for us, today we are heading to St Annes, (the old peoples bit of the coast) its quiet and there are no stalls for kids to want things from, another picnic and sandcastles galore, Kate became a sand mermaid and we had fun with the frisbee, the weather was brilliant and for a few hours we played in the sand and sunned ourselves :)

the girls :)

and the boy :)

This Easter holiday has rocked, the weather has been awesome and the kids even more awesome, we ended the day with a swim, my kids are learning however were not scared to jump in and go under which was the best news !!

Final thing of the day was a kebab and a beer !! need I say more ...

Ooh la la !! My Paris

It seems like such a long time since I wrote on here, yet its only a week or so, so much has happened in the past few days I dont seem to have had a minute to breathe. 

Let me tell you about my exciting week,

it started a couple of months ago when I was asked to accompany some students on a trip to Paris... oooh how fantastic, so Monday morning bright and early saw me boarding the train and heading down to Londinium to catch the Eurostar.  Ive been to Paris once before and couldnt wait to get back there, so, passport check, money check, camera check and students BIG check!!

We arrived in Paris late afternoon to overcast skies, which is actually PERFECT for pic taking in gay Pareeee woop!  We were booked into the Paris Pointe Rivoli Hotel which at first glance you would walk straight past, just a small door between two coffee shops with a small hotel sign above the door, but behind that door lies the most lovely and delightfully unique hotel, down a long and narrow corridor to reception the hotel looks tiny, but once up the most winding spiral staircase it opens out into a U shape and off the narrow corridors you find the most wonderful modern and very beautiful rooms. My room was decorated in black and white with lovely decor, "ooh la laaa" said Kate when I told her about my zebra crossing striped floor, "take pics mummy"

If you are ever in Paris this is a lovely place to stay, the owners were brilliant even with 15 students partying in one of the upstairs suites. 


Just around the corner about 20 mins walk we visited Notre Dame, what a building, interesting and with the overcast skies a storm brewing it made it even more imposing, I missed this last time I went and it was good to see it this time, you could almost imagine Quasimodo in the bell tower !!!

We headed back to the hotel with the thunder rumbling and the rain pouring, lightning flashes lit up the sky, and it was blinking brilliant!! Just around the corner the heavens opened and the hilarious sight of students running for shelter, fantastic, the small pathetic umbrella really doing nothing to protect them from the now torrential rain... laugh? Hell yes it was totally the funniest thing to see!

Just before the skies opened I managed to grab a quick shot before hurriedly wrapping my cam up in my scarf

The waiters were laughing as we all sheltered until the main of it had passed, then we made the last mad dash back to the hotel to change ready to go and take a look at another iconic place in Paris, The Moulin Rouge.  Weeks ago, we were asked by a student, 'can we go in?' err no its very expensive and you have to book, 'oh, I thought it was just like a erm strip joint' ... how fantastic to refer to the Moulin Rouge as 'just a strip joint' !!

It was packed outside here and once you have seen the flashing lights and the windmill there isnt much to see really, apart from the window where Ewan McGregor spent his time typing for the film.

Off for paninins and crepes before the trek up the hill to see the oustanding Sacre-Coeur, to call it a Catholic Church would be so very wrong, as we walked up the narrow winding roads and saw the first glimpse of the building it takes your breath away, so beautiful its hard to put into words.  We ventured inside to find a service in progress, truly a moment which touched most of us who were there, the inside of the building is positively stunning, some of the kids lit candles and after a few moments we left, feeling we had seen something special and touching but also a little like we were intruding on a very personal experience. 

After such a wonderfully somber experience I was really disappointed to be accosted by some mad French dude who seemed to want to accompany me wherever I was going!! After a quick escape from him I headed back to the group and we started the trek back to the hotel once again.  It seemed all the weirdos were homing in on me that night, when suddenly after dropping back a little I found myself confronted by street sellers who suddenly managed to have my hand tied up and I was convinced they were after my camera, it was a little scary and I did panic a bit but luckily a quick 'help meeeeeee' to the other tutors and I was rescued!!!!

Back at the hotel again, now began the door watch, basically making sure students dont sneak out, we had desperados beer and chilled for an hour or so until it was all quiet.

And that, was day one!! fantastical day had by all and how much did we pack in!!

More later when I have a little more time!!

dentaltasticness

hurrah!!!
finally it seems my suffering is over; had my stitches out today, I was late as I got stuck in traffic, so I ended up seeing the private dentist not the nhs one, he was very lovely and also has treated me to go back and have a clean and polish for free too... I sound like a car getting ready for a valet vroooooooom!!!!

It does feel like this dental saga has been going on for ever, Im glad its over, although it will be like losing an old friend, the constant visits to the dentist have been a big part of my life so far this year, and they will be missed........................NOT!!!!!!!!

Let me introduce this fantastic alternate view to you, mouth pinhole;





Justin Quinell has taken some mouthwateringly lovely ( ha see what I did there) images using a mouthcam, a minature pinhole camera which you can fit inside your mouth, some of these are really cool indeed check it out Quinell

I have just 2 days now until my Paris trip, I have bought new stuff and am as excited as a box of frogs, or should that be as mad as a box of frogs? ah well ...

Coof, Bootchyfliff and poopyplip!!

How fantastic, this evening so far has gone well, earlier I discovered the wonderfulness of tv streaming of desperate housewives meaning I am now several episodes ahead woooo!!

And now, wise words from the boy wonder, I have been introduced to coof (a sound a pigeon makes when you kick it), bootchyfliff (the small lumps of fluff that are discovered inside the bellybutton) and poopyplip (someone with an irrational fear of molluscs) How on earth we got onto this conversation is beyond me, but apparantly these were all new words added to the dictionary in 2004.  Who actually decides whether or not words get included? And how long would a word have to be around before it was considered for inclusion?

Ostrichised ... try looking for this in the Collins English, I doubt you will find it, however jump online and search the controversial urban dictionary and there you will find this word.  A word added by my good friend of the south who drives a vee after I had said it to him and explained my meaning of it. It will probably be the only ever word I have written to get some kind of recognition and so for that I am proud!

Looking at words and how we use and interpret them obviously leads me to just one photographer, Barbara Kruger, Im sure her individual postmodern approach to feminism, consumerism and other such ideals is easily recognised by most.



art21 / Barbara Kruger


Cool stuff huh, "I shop therefore I am"

fridge raiders, chocolate mouse and wotsits !!

Oh yes Wednesday again, time for processed chicken snacks for dinner sat at a temporary desk in the staff room!

Wednesday afternoons means no dinner just a random snack of some strangeness from the local shop, recently I have been venturing out in the car to MacDonalds, but today I have rediscovered the dreadful but nom chicken fridge raiders, possibly the most disgusting invention ever but I kinda like them.  Even more of a treat today was the fact they had chocolate mousse in stock too mmm.

  This blog is not going to be about food, my facebook status has enough references to food in it usually, I think recently this is because I havent been able to eat what I wanted due to mouth issues and so food has constantly been top of the agenda.
 and so this leads me to say, every wondered about food photography? its a nasty business, you would never eat anything that has been photographed !!

foodstuff film

oh god!! this is getting more dire by the day, however next week should bring some interesting entries as am off to Paris for a couple of days with work... wooooo!!

zombies at lunchtime?

What fun!!

Today I skipped lunch to take photographs at work of the students who are being filmed for one of the courses, and of course with the current trend of interest by teenagers in vampires and zombies, it had to feature one of those subjects in the theme...

So leaving the sports hall to let them film a scene I was greeted by a corridor of Zombies, its actually quite alarming to face this;

The fight scene was just as much fun with the rivals facing each other ready for the big showdown, totally brilliant work by all involved and I cant wait to see the film when its finished.

So that was lunchtime and was awesome!!

What is it about Zombies though that people find so fascinating, some of these kids were so into into it, some real violence showing through there...

I guess I couldnt leave this post without leaving a link to that fabbest of fabarooni Zombie films, 28 Days Later Danny Boyles, 28 days later

Dont have nightmares!!

special monkey walking, hey?!

The most rubbish blog entry so far, its a bit late and I have been at work for 12 hours today so finding time for this has been difficult.

I took my studio lighting kit with me to work today for one of the students, its pretty cool to see what they can come up with using just one of the three lights I took in.  Ive always shied away from doing too many portrait shots as it scares me!! I have one friend who I photograph regularly and that is it really, but I do like to see photographs which are lit really well,  one photographer in particular I really like is Drew Gardner I first came across his work when I was at uni and fell in love with his beautifully lit work.


  

Drew Gardner

So here I am chilling on the sofa, the boy wonder was asleep for a while after rehearsals for a play, but has just woken up with dead legs; causing him to walk in that special monkey like way you do when you have dead legs... special monkey walking, hey?

sunday sunday

Lifes a beach so they say! Today if it hadn't been for the pain in my face life would most certainly have been a beach...


Sundays were meant for lazing, although I do believe lazing in bed until only an hour before it starts to go dark again might be taking it to the extreme!! I suddenly find myself with just 15 minutes to spare before picking small ones up from grandparents where they have been all weekend, my weekend seems to have blurred into a mess of internet, sleep and the taking of painkillers :(


No fantastic discoveries of fabulous photography by me today, as todays offering is something by yours truly,  as we are on a beach theme, heres a photograph of the beach near me, (well half an hour from me) I was playing with the infrared filter which is built in to the camera, as I have no editing stuff at the moment its forced me to play with in camera editing, its kinda cool and i like it

And now I have run out of time, small ones will be wondering where I am if I dont rush, work work, busy busy, chop chop, bang bang... then home for chinese NOM!!

zimmerpods!

Today was a weird day, the rain fell from the sky as I ventured off my sofa of sickness to buy more medication. 
I may not have looked at any photography today, in fact all I looked at was the tv which until ten minutes ago was stuck on the awful cbeebies, and on my brief venture out the rain falling down and the depressed faces of people on the bus.
Not driving into town was a blessing as it was packed, but it also gives you time to see what is around you, I never noticed how lovely the front of the prison of all places looks, like an old castle, its quite cool.  Talking of prisons my house is currently like one, I spent most of the day yesterday hiding behind closed curtains in my front room from the hooded up streetrats hanging out on the front.  I couldn't imagine having nothing better to do than sit on the front wall of a neighbours house "smoking a weed'.  Each to their own i suppose, and as I have now got onto the subject of prisons I have chance to show you the fabulous work of my favourite photographer, Donovan Wylie; his book on the maze prison is brilliant, the way he looks at the space and how it affected how he photographed it is awesome, I totally love it

 

the maze

Talking to my good friend pinkalicious today we were pondering on whether we will still be taking photographs when we are old, this came about after a conversation about marriage of all things, how will we manage when our fingers are too arthritic to hold a camera?  Pink suggests we buy a remote and a tripod with wheels, fantastic I reply... ZIMMERPODS!!

in between reality

This morning I find myself struggling to focus, how bizarre, not really ... minor mouth surgery seems to have had some strange effect on me.  Possibly the after effects of anesthetic, anyway after a night of sleep disturbed by pain and hovering helicopters (the police, no doubt searching for streetrats) I feel a little bit like I am living in between reality, everything this morning seems a little off balance, myself included :(


Alejandro Chaskielberg in his set the High Tide focus's on creating images with a slight distortion of reality, by using clever lighting and editing techniques he has produced a set of interesting and unusual photographs, as I am feeling in between reality this morning I thought I could share these with you ...


  

you can see his work featured at burn magazine, here .burnmagazine/alejandro-chaskielberg

Im off now for a hot date with the sofa and to watch cheesy american soaps, enjoy your day

off with the fairies?

My mum always says Im off with the fairies, or head in the clouds, dolly daydream is what she used to say when I was a child, sometime I wish my head was in the clouds; imagine the sites you could see!

Off with the fairies, as a believer I think it would be awesome to 'be off with them'.  Imagine what fun Elsie Wright and Frances Griffin would have had creating the now famous Cottingly Fairies photographs.  How amazing to actually fool so many people into believing they were real.  Thats the thing with photography, you never know what is real and what is not, of course at one time a photograph was to be believed as the truth, however, as photography progressed so did the ability to alter and create images and manipulate the viewer into believing what they saw was real.

My first tutor in photography was a great believer in the fake Apollo moon landing photographs, he had a book which was full of the images, and asked questions about the images which when looked at could make you believe they were indeed fake.  I was reminded of this today when I found a link to 50 years of space photographs, check them out for yourself here 50 years of space and of course I couldn't mention any of this without including a link to a non believers site cosmic apollo  brilliant stuff.

So is it wrong to have a belief in something that is more than likely fake?  Imagine if I didnt, would I still be the same person? Imagination goes a long way ...

grey grey grey

Today is a grey day. The sky is grey, the mood is grey, its all about the grey!
So I thought I would look at the online print auction Blackpool & the Fylde College are holding. I graduated from there last year and I know how hard it is organise and raise the funds, the students will be having party nights, raffles, sponsored whatevers to try and raise money to fund their end of year exhibition. So much work on top of all their uni work, so lets give them a hand hey?

You can visit their online auction site at 18percentgrey.org.uk  there isnt much on there as yet, however bookmark it as guaranteed they will have some fab artwork and books going up for grabs over the coming weeks.
 


You can check out some of the images from last years grads here fy1

What next for me today? A late start means I am running behind and should really get off here, the smell of the daffodils in my front room has lifted the grey mood and Im thinking crumpets are sounding good for brekkie.....nom!

Cheese & Onion Crisps

For the first time in at least 4 weeks I have eaten cheese and onion crisps and man they tasted good! Due to more horrible mouth surgery being brought forward I felt it was necessary to try and quench the craving now as it will be god knows how long before I can try crisps again :(

We arrived home to be greeted by streetrats; small children of a Ferrel variety who seem to thrive near where we live.  After a hasty dash to the house we escaped the immediate danger of having to deal with them and arrived alive and safe in the front room... phew!

Work was most definitely a good place today, although taking extra strong painkillers may not have been the best idea.  PAris will be here soon hurrah and fun and games taking teens on a sightseeing trip... oh GOD I have lost my mind! I think the extra strong painkillers should have been kept for then.

My youngest has a fascination with flying and seems to believe I am a real fairy and can fly, this is a wonderful part of children's imagination and so I was particularly pleased to find some cool photography by Tom Pope which portrays the idea of perfecting the most perfect fantasy; that of flight,




 

tom pope

the sun is shining, the weather is sweet. Makes me want to move my dancing feet.

I dont actually want to dance, however, I would like some motivation to get up and that song popped into my head!!

I was awakened this morning by the sound of small ones arguing, hmmm what now? Its becoming a regular alarm in my house, this sound of children bickering, usually its about who has tormented who, which child reached the tv remote first etc etc but this morning cream eggs were the topic of argument.  It would be an acceptable subject if they were arguing over one being left, but no this involved an argument over the remaining two and whose they were...


Anyway this morning I was searching for some ideas for my class when I came across Kevin Newarks set of work, Protoplasm, I like the idea of using waste and rubbish to create art so have added a link to his work  kevin newark/ culture24



Time to leave for work is looming and I am still on here... at least the arguing has stopped to be replaced by the strains of 'the most marvelous, magical mouse machine'
a personal childhood favorite of mine simply for that song!

"fiddlesticks and flapdoodle" _ Professor Yaffle 1974

Pterodactyl's in my class?!!

I thought my first blog entry would be something sensible and serious, but no as usual the train of thought was sidetracked.


Yesterday as we know was mothers day, we celebrated by munching on nomtastic Mexican food, my daughter was excited to be there and danced the whole time, this was a bit messy but she is cute so its all good. 

Monday afternoons are generally spent catching up on marking and planning sessions, however todays 2 hours of calm turned into an hour of calm and an hour of crazy times.  How did my afternoon get overtaken by students making pterodactyl noises causing me to collapse in fits of laughter? My mouth now hurts from laughing so much.

So now heres a sensible question, if you had a film made about your life, what would it be called? I asked my son what my film would be called yesterday, he replied "errrr I don't know help me, I need advice" I wasn't sure if he was asking for advice about the question, or giving me a title for my film, so based on that, I guess it would make a good title for my film.