Underneath the surface

Some towns were barely touched by the "boomiest" boom Ireland never had. Today a small dog, waiting for his master to return from the match, is alone amongst empty shops, messy paint jobs and abandoned petrol pumps. 

Some buildings change hands every few months; go from being a sweet shop to being a cafe, and back again. But other shop windows remain empty, like vacant faces where there should be a smile.

The lens is loving the wabi-sabi of it, the cracks in the doorways, the nostalgia of childhood memories. But there is quiet desperation here too, and for many people a calm exterior belies furious fast paddling below the surface.




Also check out the latest gallery of black and white nature photography

Midlife and the great unknown

In the middle of the road of my life I awoke in a dark wood, where the true way was wholly lost.

Dante Alighieri



David Whyte has a great image in his audio set,  Midlife and the Great Unknown. He describes the moment when you are at the end of a project or when you have settled your affairs. You finally tidy up the house, make a cup of coffee and sit down to enjoy the peace and achievement. Maybe you've been looking forward to reading your favourite book, turning up the music full volume, putting your feet up? I am here at last you might think to yourself. I have finally arrived. (I may not be remembering this fully accurately as it's many years since I devoured this little gem of wisdom, but it went something like this.) 

Anyway in that moment there is a feeling of deep relaxation, completion and a huge sigh of relief! As you put your feet up to sink into that precious moment of being, a knock comes to the door.......This to David is the essence of mid-life; just as we think we have it sussed, a new spanner is thrown into the works. All we can know for sure is that every stage, event, project, dream is transient and that an unscheduled knock at the door is always looming. 

Some how this image soothed me in a period of wondering what I would do for the rest of my days. I was probably coming up to 50, and having that "who am I, what am I" mid life crisis. This unsettling feeling gripped me, but I had some illusion that it would pass as I got older. 

Ha! Fat chance! Why? Because it keeps on happening! Just as I think I might have a handle on the Great Unknown,  I find that everything has changed, I need to go in some new direction, and I am without a clue yet again.  

My day job involves a flimsy year to year contract and has done all my life. I've never actually had one of those permanent and pensionable jobs. I've been privileged to work in the social sector where there is such scope for good work and relationships with good people. To continue to be paid to do it, most of the time, has been lucky for sure. 

But it has never been secure and I have become used to the flotsam and jetsam flow of work, the tide coming in and going out. At this age I am wondering (yes again) if I might steal a moment or two to put the kettle on and put my feet up? I seem to be craving it. Yes I am still drawn towards that illusive state of peace and tranquility, a closing of the front door behind me..... 

And although I know it won't last, I wonder would it ever at least just begin?

Where does creativity come from?

The highest goal one can achieve is amazement. ~ Goethe

My first design experiments involved selecting snails along a narrow garden path. Lining them up in rows, I would talk kindly and invite them to take part in games. I would be their big sister, telling them stories and giving them names like Germaine and Margaret. Blended with rose petals and pebbles, they would become part of spiralling collages and patterns.  

Snails were the closest thing I had to a proper pet until we got our dog Timmy. After Timmy was "sent to live on a farm" we got a tortoise which went to sleep for the winter and never woke up. But the snails were always there and Pooka Snails, the large ones with protruding horns, were always my favourite. 

I began a half day at school at three and a half. In the afternoons I would sit on the path, school bag on my back, practicing my letters and reciting to those snails. Here were the foundations of my dream life; finding a quiet space for an inner world, connecting with nature, spending time mulling over the mysteries.

When you are looking at the random play and explorations of a very young child you are peeking into her soul, her love of what comes naturally. For some it will be climbing trees, for others kicking a ball, for the quiet few it will be escaping into imaginary worlds and talking to snails. 

Blogging and the things that make us more alive

No artist is pleased… There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive.......

Martha Graham

Photoblogging has brought me deep into the world of light and mystery, ordinary everyday beauty, friendship across the world and back on a path to writing. It's been every week now for almost 5 years.    

This year was my fourth to be in the final of the annual Irish Blog Awards. Each time it has sent me on a bit of a wobble, something that I don't enjoy. Don't get me wrong, I love sharing what I create with you. But judging and competing? It reminds me too much of waiting outside the door of the Oral Irish Exam in the Leaving Cert; sets my poor nerves on edge!

Building a space to be creative is why I blog. I get to own and nurture my own artistic apprenticeship. I can share with you out of love and vocation, and still be the one who benefits most of all from the whole process. I gain the satisfaction, connection, learning, progression and pleasure from the work I do. I can barely even call what I do here work, it's actually a lot more like play.....

So I did in fact win the Silver Award for photography in the Blog Awards. Thank you to all of you who supported and voted for me through the early stages and those who judged and organised the event. 

And a special shout out to all the finalists, nominees, and bloggers everywhere who are part of this creative Irish Blogging Community doing what "keeps us marching and makes us more alive".

If you love the veils of early morning fog visit the Mist Gallery 

Tiny dewy rainbows

Today I'm re-posting these tiny dewy rainbows from 2012.

Would you like to join me in a moment of reflection? While we both take a slow deep breath?

And while we continue to breathe, here are some explorations of contemplative photography practice

And while I was breathing deeply I won Silver in the Blog Awards for photography Yay!!!!

We are terrified, and we are brave #dayofthegirl

"We are terrified, and we are brave. "

Elizabeth Gilbert

Am I the photographer who writes? Am I the writer who takes pictures? Almost 5 years ago I began to blog. Writing would have to be part of it, but I would never, ever call myself a writer.....I would be a photo blogger.....

The first steps were so terrifying that I blogged anonymously. In 2012 I was invited to host the @Ireland twitter account and decided I would have to come out of my shell. Gradually I became comfortable with the tag "blogger," won a couple of awards for the photography and happily continued. 

From the age of about four I had filled lined copybooks with stories (about sad things mostly) illustrated with colouring pencil drawings. Brene Browne says that about 80% of adults have a shaming story from their past of which 50% are about their creativity. Well I too have mine, about "writing" but it happened much later during my teen-age years.

I had written a school essay about a young poet I had a crush on. (He grew up to be the real deal but that's neither here nor there.) I quoted what I thought was a wonderful line about Dylan Thomas in this essay, "as happy as the grass is green." To this day I'm not sure whether Dylan Thomas, my poet with the long hair or my 16 year old self actually said that??? Anyway when the essays were given back I was a sick with anticipation. I had gushed, I had strayed from the text we were given, I had shown something of my vulnerability. 

Our English Teacher used to stand on the podium, open each essay, bark a result and mutter a short comment. When she came to mine, she didn't open it or comment. She threw the copy book at me spitting one word, "Trite!" The strongest possible message that I needed to shut up the fledgeling voice which somehow through innocence had gotten loose. 

Later she took me aside and gave me a lecture about doing well in the exam and sticking to the tried and tested formulae. I don't think any of this was done out of meanness at all. It was done out of fear for my future. A girl needed to hide her feelings, know how to protect herself from silly notions and get enough of an education to be employable. 

You might think that the Art Teacher was a bit more encouraging as I ended up going to Art College? Strange thing is, I often saw other girls being undermined or "shamed" in similar ways about their art work. By the time I left school I felt both abandoned and free. There was a complete lack of support but there was also a lack of expectation.   

For some reason, I never fully gave up on that precious space where I mooched with paint, a camera or even words. Thanks to my English Teacher I moved into the visual world, and thanks to blogging there is now a space to reclaim my love of language too.

Best of both worlds; a brave photographer who writes AND a terrified writer who takes pictures.......

11th October was International Day of the Girl Child  #dayofthegirl which reminded me of how precious creativity can be to a young girl. 

You can preview my little book on the creative path here

For even more on creativity delve into the brilliant Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert 

And special thanks to the Woodland Girl

There is human time and there is wild time

There is human time and there is wild time.......

Clarissa Linkola Estes

This morning it's wild time. A slow motion sunrise, where nature's spinners have draped everything in layers of lace. 

Barely present. Fragile and momentary. 

Later when the day fully arrives, dew drops are blow dried from the faces of leaves. Webs disappear into the foliage and this sleepy photographer is re-absorbed into the human world.

Back in human time I'm reading Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets and Philosophers by Leonard Koren.  

"Wabi-sabi (a Japanese philosophy) is a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. It is a beauty of things modest and humble. It is a beauty of things unconventional."

I remember when I started this blog my tagline was "celebrating the ordinary and the everyday in a place where nothing much happens."  I must be a wabi-sabi photographer (of an Irish rural variety maybe?) as every page of this carefully crafted book feels like a comfortable old pair of slippers.......

So I am re-inspired to sink into the elusive and the mysterious. To believe again that beauty can be coaxed out of ugliness. That in the wild time and the human time there is always space for perfect imperfection. 

More about Contemplative Photography here

Out of the shadows

We feel most alive in the presence of the Beautiful for it meets the needs of our soul.

John O Donohue

It wasn't a great summer; grey skies, too much rain, cold seas. But for a couple of days the golden sun lit up our lives and we all came out of the shadows.

Photographers call it the "golden hour".  It's that time of the day, early or late, when light slides in at an angle casting lanky silhouettes and tinting the world with warmth. When you study light and peer endlessly through a lens, you are drawn to this like a moth to a flame.

But the best part? In the gloaming, back doors, front doors, windows and hearts are opened to the light. Glasses of wine and cups of coffee are brought down to the shore. Youngsters are chatting, perched on the low walls, barbecues are set and smoking. Our small community is united by staring into the light show of an evening sky.

This golden life force, our sun, makes us smile, feeds our souls and entices us out of the shadows. And this is even more true for photographers!

Wild honeysuckle is the thing

"If you don't love things in particular, you cannot love the world, because the world doesn't exist except in individual things"

Thomas Moore

The ditches are a jumble of briars, a tangle of weeds, a mess of curling browning leaves. They cascade onto the lane, in the subdued light of early autumn. 

A heady scent draws you into the middle of a phenomenon. The wild honeysuckle is budding, flowering and fruiting all at once. In the darkening days of autumn this climber is still in it's stride, an exotic reminder of life cycles. 

The young ones on the lane have returned to school, a trio of thrushes are practicing their skills at the top of a tree, the now enormous cattle are munching the EU grass.

And wild honeysuckle is the thing today; absorbing, beautiful, tender.

More life cycles of flowers here in the Petals Gallery

And if you have a minute, you can still vote for Foxglove Lane in the Blog Awards here 

Thank you!