New Year in July!

If you're in Melbourne, check out the 'Fireworks-in-July' Finale @ Docklands, this Friday July 29th!

Entertainment starts at 6:30pm, and the fireworks start at 7pm sharp!

This short video clip is from last Friday, when we took my youngest brother down for a look on his second night in town. It was taken with my camera, sans tripod, so it's a tad shaky, and not perfect - but hopefully,

Blinding Light

hessian + carapace + overexposure = interesting combination

For a larger image, check it out at my website here!

Oprah-bashing Tourism Australia

  It would appear that certain Australian commentators are suffering through a ‘winter of discontent’ at the moment. Fueled by too much coffee, not enough vitamin d, and a terrible lack of perspective, they are sitting at desks trawling through the last six months of news, snuffling out old articles that raise their ire enough that they can start gnashing their teeth over. This week, it would appear that it’s Tourism Australia’s turn to (again) feel their discontented wrath.  Tourism Australia has copped it a lot in the last twelve months, and some people like to keep flogging. This time, the ‘outrage’ is centred on Tourism Australia paying $5 million to lure talk show host Oprah Winfrey and her studio audience here, to advertise and raise Australia’s tourist profile late last year. Apparently, this demonstrates Tourism Australia’s complete incompetence as a marketing body. Of course, this was debated at the time it occurred, but here it comes again. Why? Ah, because six months on, commentators have 'cleverly' constructed, oops, I mean, 'discovered' 'proof'. 

Saturday Morning Memories...

Another small joke to kick-start Saturday morning....

IT's funny what you remember. This joke sticks with me, because I heard it from my youngest brother - when he was still about four or five! He was old enough to obviously appreciate that a good joke got a positive reaction (we may not be funny, as far as other people are concerned, but I think everyone in our family thinks they have a sense of humour!), but I'm pretty sure he didn't realise why we all laughed. Unless I should now be thinking of him as an eighteen year-old comedic genius(!)...

Anyhoo, here's his joke - it always makes me snicker...

"Why didn't the skeleton cross the road?"

Weekend Funny

So cute that you almost feel sorry for IE.... but then, you remember IE6! Scrap the sentimentality right there! Cute sketch from shoze.blogspot.com, though. Does anyone here have a favourite browser? I'm a Firefox kinda gal, with leanings towards Opera - for now. Gotta keep your options open!

Have a great weekend!

Fear of White, Pt. 3

I liked the idea that the white page is 'chaos' (have I read too many comic books?), but what stuck with me was the image of the calligrapher being on a journey. It was an idea that filled me with possibility, rather than dread. I'd always focussed on the end point, of what I was trying to say, and how I was trying to say it. The concept of exploring while I was writing was exciting. The concept that writing was an echo of that journey, also eased the focus on perfection. Echoes are not perfect replications, each is unique.

Without boring you with all of the flow diagrams, and doodles that ensued, with a bit more work, things fell into place. I took actions, based on the principles I'd learned about: self-

Fear of White, Pt. 2

In essence, wabi-sabi is the Japanese philosophy and art of finding beauty in imperfection, and profundity in nature, and of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. Wabi-sabi is an aesthetic which embraces principles such as, asymmetry, asperity (roughness or irregularity), simplicity, economy, austerity, and an appreciation of the inherent integrity of natural objects and processes. The author, Leonard Koren, describes wabi-sabi as an aesthetic which at its core, finds beauty in the "imperfect, impermanent and incomplete"* - the rusted gate, the shadow of a tree across a path, smile lines at the eyes, indicating the passage of time.

There is a lot I like about wabi-sabi, although it may require a leap to understand how the philosophy could help resolve a case of writer’s block. Maybe you’ll have to take my word for it. Maybe it has something to do with the connections my mind makes(!). At any rate, as I read more about it, the acceptance of imperfection struck a chord with

Fear of White, Pt. 1

Okay, so here’s something you might have already figured out about me - I love writing. I’ve always loved to write. I’m fascinated and captivated by the written word, language, communication. From a young age, creating stories for myself and my younger brother (especially of our own fantastic adventures), was my favourite pastime. As I grew up, the writing grew too, and I was successful at it.

But, here’s something you might not know - for quite a long period, I wrangled with a very personal, 'fear of white'. Being confronted with a sheet of blank, white paper made me anxious. Or rather, the prospect of writing on it did. Not all writing eluded me, just anything personal. I never lost the ability to write or edit for others. In fact, once the fear set in, I found it much more gratifying to invest my energy in helping other people  to realise their own written ‘voices’ and stories, than worry about where mine had disappeared to. Writing for other

Carapace

Ta da! Today I'm very excited to announce and unveil a new direction for Visual Prose, with the addition of original mixed media works . You can check out a selection of these pieces in the new mixed media image gallery, within the lightbox here.

I'm particularly excited by the "carapace" life cast forms, available as wall art. I create each carapace as a unique, one-of-a-kind piece. Examples in the gallery range from those constructed from fibres and threads, to plaster, cloth and concrete (such as the carapace above), and are available in a range of finishes.

Texture

I love my dog, but like a lot of animals, he's a little camera-shy. In fact, every time I get the camera out, he moves in the completely opposite direction. Worse, he'll move around as fast as possible, so there's no hope of a sharply focussed image. However, just this once, he fixated on a bird behind me, as I fixated on him. In a medium length shot, you miss the detail of his white and black fur. Close up, I think you get a good idea. I love the clarity of his eye, the growing pattern of his furry brow. Those white eyelashes - what a dag!

To see full size versions of images in this photoblog, head to the full Visual Prose website!

Catch & Release

Sometimes, things fall into your lap - literally!

This shot is a photo of a temporary housemate of ours, rather unimaginatively dubbed "Skinky", just before he was released back out into 'the wild'. Skinky, funnily enough, is a skink(!). And, he literally fell into my short-term care. I was out for a walk with our dog, next to a creek, and while I was watching a bird flying low, across our path, Skinky fell from the bird's mouth just a metre or so in front of us. I couldn't believe it!

While I was still standing there, amazed (probably with my mouth unattractively wide open!), Neo (the dog) lurched forward, and made a beeline for what had dropped. Holding onto him, I ineveitably lurched too, and almost stepped on it. It took an angst-filled moment or two to get Neo away from this quarry, which he was also keen on as a potential protein (yuck!), and see what exactly the bird had 'lost'. After a little hooplah, there in the long grass, rolled into a ball, with a bloody nubbin where his tail had been moments earlier, was a very sick looking skink. I think we were both in shock, and for a moment, neither of us was moving!

Le Tour 2011

Ever since setting up camp in Australia, I always know it's my birthday month - when I find myself doing long kilometres on the couch for three weeks, watching "Le Tour"! I guess that's one of the drawbacks of being hitched to an ex-professional cyclist - sooner or later, some of that passion will undoubtedly rub off on you. No matter how hard you might fight it, one day you find yourself camped out on a hot, windy stretch of roadside for hours, waiting expectantly for a bunch of colourful, lycra-clad thighs to speed past, waiting for that split second glimpse of a Cadel Evans, Thor Hushovd, or Fabian Cancellara. You find youself nervous with excitement at the prospect of actually capturing a shot of one or two of

Nightfall

One of the awesome things about a period of heavy winter rain, can be the break in the sky just after it's finished. It also helps having a driver that will pull the car over safely on a busy highway, while you clamber out into a very fresh wind to try and capture the moment, before it evaporates. Dark shadows, lowering clouds, cascading light... skies, the light, the colours, all so different at this time of year.

This scene is from the highway between Ballarat and The Grampians, country Victoria, as we were trying to get to a Grampian's campsite before it was completely dark - or, raining again!

Morning Webs...

I haven't met the spider who's awesome work this is - but, I think it deserves a medal. Especially when this is just a small section of the entire work. All in all, this series of webs were strung from paling to paling along the three metre length of our front gate. Quite a feat in one night, and not bad workmanship, considering that they had been subjected to an hour or so of hard winter rain at dawn!

Sitting just below eye-level, they had my attention straight away, shining in the cool morning light. Having just finished a run, I thought twice about going for the camera - moments earlier, I'd been thinking about heading to a good, hot shower. But, something about this small scene caught my full attention. The amount of work was incredible, not to mention the intricacies. The rain had moved on, and the wind was picking up. I knew that