A MINUTES SILENCE

For a week my house has been a hive of activity, a hub of humanity and the breeding ground of a very edgy yabbie named Edgar.
I've yet to achieve what I set out to at the begining of the week. Its hard, almost impossible to take the kind of dark, emotion laden pictures that I am craving to create when you have an 11 year old boy residing with you who won't understand the finer points of imagery or my self healing attempt to erase my tumultuous recent past through the digital film medium.
Having to resort to taking prettified pictures all week has left me on a downer when I have visions of human bondage, slasher films and grave digging running through an over activity imagination that has been denied its creative outlet.
Is this what the term "tortured artist"means?
Right now I have a minutes blessed silence in the house, and its killing me. Another glorious beautiful day stunted by inactivity. The resident model is still snoring away in bed. One photo session on the beach at the begining of the week seems to be the limit of her activity. Pretty pictures yes, stunning images i got but its time to pay the rent, and rent paying in my house usually involves posing.
Thwarted, I wonder what I shall do with a day that stretches with promise with no pay off.
Is it time to phone a friend, or simply seize models off the street?
Kidnap is looking less felony like right now.
I was once content to simply stand and be the model, be the subject of someone elses creativity, now I have the desire to create, if only I could clone myself and keep the clone for those days when I have inspiration but no participation.
I'm frustrated, lets see where the day takes me.

A MOMENTARY LAPSE IN REASONING

Ok so its been a while hasn't it.
I've been concentrating on working out whether I am a). Totally deranged, b) somewhat depressed, c) In posession of a killer personality disorder or d) all of the above.
The verdict is in. After seeing the doc this morning he has told me that not only is he happy with my progress but that I now only have to go see him when i have a need of it. That in fact I am merely bohemian and artistic in my personality and there's nothing wrong with that.
Of course the whole not sleeping issues hasn't ever been addressed but I have found a novel way around that - after dinner rum and cokes, knocks me on my arse for seven odd hours.
I have decided with absolutely no regret to axe any thoughts of welfare or going back to it unless its fun, creative, artistic and not a drain on my well being.
Not to mention I won't ever put myself through the torture of suicide shifts and endless afternoon shifts again, its day work only for this little black duck.
I've learnt quite a bit during the course of my therapy. I am who I am to quote from Vic the Groover, I'm a bohemian gypsy photographer sort, not given to the conformity of boring cardigans and brown hairdo's. I'm Kate, I'm shoeless, but rarely sockless.
Without a clue some of the time but always with a cutting edge idea for the next photo quest. Blood splattered bride is my latest obsession, the real story behind the happily never after.
So here I am back among the bloggers, my personal quest, to complete a full month of everyday posts.
Hold me to it.

WHY DO GREAT IDEA'S OCCUR IN SHITTY WEATHER?

Its past midnight. You wake up and just know without a doubt that an image would look great done like this. Problem is apart from it being midnight you happen to be stuck in storm season and just know that your models will inevitably be sooky la la's about dipping their perfectly polished toes in arctic feeling water.
Frustration sets in.
You could of course leave the idea on the story board and try it in warmer weather but with warm weather comes tourists who will all head to your location on the day of a shoot. Its a guarenteed piss off factor.
If you are shooting silk and satin you ideally don't want close ups of goose pimpled bluish hypothermia flesh. Nor do you want your models figure obliterated by them wearing long johns or steamer suits.
I've been looking at grey skies for six weeks now and I am officially over it.
Someone needs to dial up a few sunny days before summer. By summer fuel prices will be so high in this country that only the super rich will be able to afford to drive. And lets face it, the bus sucks.
My morning prayer has become a sarcastic rendition of "Dear God, Judging by the weather you seem to be depressed. Take a pill, call a friend get some help and snap the hell out of it."
Last night I had one of those light bulb moments whilst trawling through my archives. I drove out into a rainy night to do a little location scouting. Something I prefer to do on foot but given the weather I won't chance a cold this year. No one likes a photographer who uses the sneezing to achieve soft focus filtering.
I've awoken to yet another shitty miserable day. I'm off to shoot my locations and plan my upcoming bridezilla goes nuts shoot - basically wedding dress hell and hijinks.
So here's me, rugged up like a big brown bear off to shoot the wide grey yonder.
Someone send me some sun.
Your mission should you choose to accept it - Bridezilla shots - The craziest place or situation you can think of for a wedding dress shoot.

THE PERFECT PORTRAIT

I've come to the conclusion that I far prefer candid shots to the set up family portrait style of photography. I do both these days, studio sittings and casual portraiture. The life seems to be sapped out of a family portrait by the whole idea that this picture will be framed and displayed for "other people" to see. Therefore everyone MUST be on their best behaviour in their good clothes even if that image is so far removed from their everyday lives.
On the weekend I was down doing such a photograph. The two older chidlren had been out all night and were somewhat worse for wear during the shoot. The youngest was a fidget butt who had an attention span of about ten seconds.
The mother asked for a formal seated family shot and looking through the lens I could see that this family was grinning and bearing it. It wasn't fun and it wasn't them at all.
Personally I would have preferred to shoot them in a more relaxed candid setting. But given that the children were less than receptive to the idea it didn't work out that way and so I snapped away and dismissed them with the minimum of shots and set up.
Luckily I get to resit this family in a few weeks time. I'll get the shots that I want then.

Some days when I am out shooting scenery I get lucky and a random human being wanders into my shot. Two rapid snaps of this woman and I was done and back to the scenery. It wasn't until I downloaded the shots that I realised how much this worked. So much for hours of set up and pre planning. Candid seems to be where I'm getting better. Candid seems to produce the emotion that I am after in a shot. Candid works for me.
So I have set myself a challenge. To continue to do the formal portrait but inject a studio sitting with life and vitality. No pixie photos for this little black duck. And then learn how to sell the non obvious better shot to a family. As a child I remember the family getting dressed and trooping off to get the standard family photo for the wall. Horrid backdrops, utterly unrealistic, no life in the subjects. Cookie cutter smiles or your grounded so behave. No though of capturing the real relationships of the people that are being put through their paces. In a word Yuck.
So, todays question is this. Tell me about your favourite family snap be it formal portrait or candid capture. Why do you like it, I want to know?

WHATS YOUR IDEA OF SENSUALITY?

I've been asked to do a lingere shoot.
To me a lingerie shoot should celebrate a woman, make her feel special.
I asked the husband whoose idea it was what his thoughts and expectations were of the coming shoot. What sort of photos did he have in mind.
His answer - sensual but slutty.
Ummmm, ok. Define that please.
Slutty but not something that she will be embarrassed to look at. Tits, arse and face.
I'm not sure how many women wish to be defined by the word slutty, even if its shot in soft light so it mimics sensual.
What defines sensuality in a nude portrait? What defines slutty? Where is that fine line? Does it exist or is it all down to one persons perception?
I wasn't even thinking of doing nude portraits until he dropped that pearl of artistic critcique into my lap today.
To me, a nude portraits can be sensual, it can be art. But not full frontal in your face nudity. Thats the sort of photos they make those compact digital camera's for. Snap away with abandon in your bedroom but please don't call it sensual.
I sat and thought about it.
What represents sensual to me? What do I do when a client has a half baked idea? What happens when the clients husband seems to be the driving force behind a shoot that is supposed to make her feel good but may turn into a regret? What happens if she likes the results but he doesn't feel they are slutty enough?
And back to the question - what is slutty? What is sensual?
What are your thoughts?

NOW HEAR THIS...........

Doctor smarty pants has diagnosed me as having crappy attitude syndrome which sort of amuses me because I wonder what he would make of Old K on a bad day. I am apparently also negative, aggressive, a glass is half empty sort of person. I explained that I usually only drink half glasses anyway. For homework I need to go away and workout why my life is a shitty crapfest and why it is all my fault and not someone elses.
Right now my meds are causing me to want to peel the skin off my face as it feels like bugs are crawling under my skin.
And he wonders why I might be displaying the traits of crappy attitude syndrome.
On the home front Vic the Groover has lost her bounce and is rattling around like a minature nazi grumbling about the rudeness of unborn relatives. I keep telling her to be serene and realise that babies come when they are ready and not before without scalpel intervention. Labour and long labour is a wonderful thing in my eyes. If these women who will one day graduate to blocking supermarket aisles with their impossible prams don't suffer during child birth well they got off far to easy and deserve an ADHD child with a chucky complex.
Hmmmm, that sounded like a few words from my mental illness talking.
Hubby has a new mobile phone and for the last few days I have been subjected to every ringtone on teh planet. Yes Dive you'd be having a coniption fit by now. I have warned Hubby that this type of behaviour is not acceptable at all.
Right now Hubby and his Number 2 wife Vic the Groover are sitting on the lounge exchanging ring tones.
This does not help my crappy attitude syndrome at all.
So what will help?
Dressing the the ungirly groover in lingerie to practice for a shoot I have coming up.
And yes i will blog the results.
Revenge is sweet when your a cranky old cow.
Mooooooo.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN?

What happens when you wait with tingling anticipation all week to destroy a mid 80"s wedding dress on a pristine stretch of Aussie beach?
You get excited despite the evil zombie tablets.
What happens when you wake up to a shitty day, no sun, smattering rain, clouds that are to damn lazy to configure in any artistically pleasing way?
You think about kicking the dog, you think about going back to bed.
Or you do this. Drive a few kilometres and do a bit of bushwalking to capture this.

BACK WITH AN ALL NEW DILEMMA.

So, as you can see I haven't fallen into the abyss of blog abandonment.
I'm having an "I don't give a shit"hair month lately hence the wild swirling mass in the picture taken by Gayman when he came to visit a few weeks ago, or was it last week? Time seems to slip away from me at the moment. Days slide into more days and weeks pass.
The problem with major scale depression seems to be a lack of motivation, communication, inspiration and for me at the present time, a lack of transportation. This means no early insomnia morning jaunts to capture a sunrise.
Grrrrr.
This also means that my latest flight of fancy has to be meticulously planned and i am a spontaneous kind of girl.
I have in my possession one of those sad beruffled, sequined, beaded disasters of a 1990's wedding dress. We're talking Dynasty meets Princess Di.
I'll never wear it, in fact i'm amazed that I ever considered wearing it for my called off mid nineties marriage attempt.
I recalled that it was sitting bunched up in obscurity in a wardrobe and decided that since "trashing the dress"has become a frontier of photography that I might just put the poor thing to good use and grab myself a model and location and photograph said trashing of the dress.
I have the location scouted, I have the shots all layed out in diagrams and sketches BUT its gettiing it all together that is proving a problem.
I come across so many people who say "I hate having my photograph taken" that I am begining to think the world see's itself as far to ugly and far to serious to contemplate having any real fun. They fail to remember that in the digital age, if they really don't like the results then the delete button is a mere finger stroke away. Gone forever. Simple as that.
I'm quite used to having a camera pointed in my direction. Mr Cellophane cured me of the scowling face in front of a camera simply by always having one in his hand until I got so used to it that I don't take any notice of it anymore.
But what do you do when you are shooting a person who thinks they are the ugliest creature on earth? NOT photogenic, always look "terrible in photos? I ask them to look at the photos that have been taken of them. A pattern usually appears. Defensiveness at a camera pointed at them will make them shrink into themselves, shoulders hunched and that look of "fuck off" appears on an otherwise pleasant face.
Anyone would think I was pointing a gun at them. If I were to point a gun at them at least I would get some gorgeous shots of fear and human vulnerability. But no, I get Quasimodo saying cheese. Which is great if you happen to be the casting director for the Addams family but if you are trying to capture a person whose name isn't Gomez then all you get is a tense person dying to get away from you.
And here's the thing about saying "Cheese" - it makes your chin pointed, your mouth into something akin to those clowns at the show that you feed balls into, your eyes squint up. Say it to yourself now and notice what it does to your face.
Not very pleasant or natural is it?
So back to the wedding trashing topic. The modelI have in mind is yet to be convinced. Absolutely beautifdul face but at an age where she doesn't like her picture being taken. She is stunning and would really make the shots I want to take. I could always settle for less and use a different model but I'm set in my ways and there is a certain look I am wanting to achive with this shoot. Perhaps if i bribe her with McDonalds or chocolate.
Vic and I were at the beach yesterday doing some sand modelling and there was a wedding party present. I watched for maybe ten seconds, naff smiley pretty shots, so not my genre at all. However because the bride feels like a princess you get the shots with a minimum of fuss.
So the lesson to be learnt is make the subject of your shot feel relaxed, special, pampered, whatever it takes to make them forget that there is a camera present.
Easier said than done.

DO I?

• Do I intend to come back to blogging? Yes as a matter of fact I do.
• Do I feel better since seeing doctor smarty pants and starting on a new course of meds? No as a matter of fact I have the worlds driest mouth and throat and could happily sit with the hose on full throttle and aimed straight down my throat. And this from a non swallower.
• Do I visit you all reguarly? Yes I do but I'm in stealth mode.
• Do I need sleep? When don't I?
• Do I have a caffiene addiction? Yes I do.
• Do I intend to fix the colour fucked mess my blog is in? Yep. Its pissing me off to.

I LOVE YOU A MILLION YELLOW ROSES

I remember summers spent tripping through the jungle of your garden. Stopping to smell roses planted by my great grandmother. Clad in fabrics of times gone by. Of days spent flopped on the bench on the verandah waiting for the ice cream lady who's bells could be heard streets away. Waiting for ice cream before lunch because you said that we had been good and deserved desert before lunch.
I remember boiled eggs and milk jugs and admonishments about hand washing.
I remember laying in bed on sunday mornings (soaking you called it) counting to sixty to watch the new fangled digital clock flip over yet another number.
I remember the way you shrank in your seat when you took me to see Beverly Hills Cop. You agreed that it was a good film but the blackman had a foul mouth.
I remember snuggling next to you on winter nights, content as you read me endless requests for Pookie stories.
I remember your watch, a finicky little piece of gold that you had to wind and then shake gently back and forth to get it going.
I remember you sitting in the kitchen calmly requesting me to put your earrings in. I remember trying not to make it hurt as pushed the post through such fragile old ears, almost having to repierce the holes. And you never flinched once.
I remember a letter the postman brought me when i was just a little girl longing for pierced ears myself. Mum had said I couldn't have my ears pierced until you got yours done. And so some time in your seventies you had them pierced just for me.
I remember saturday afternoons sitting on the floor watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers dance across the screen. With you in your chiar with the round cushion in your back and grandfather asleep on the lounge.
I remember you were never alseep or napping, you were just catching forty winks.
I remember spring time wars against grubs in the garden. You really didn't like grubs, they were the enemy.
I remember waltzes while ironing and how you came to like my pub rock musical noise.
I remember the last christmas I spent with you, how you were still you but you seemed to be fading away.
Iadmit I never had the courage to see you in the nursing home. That I was gutless when it came to your last years. That I was busy or sick. That I couldn't take my beloved not recognising me. I made it about how I felt when it should have been about you who gave me so much during my life. Who was my mainstay, my talisman. Who's home was always open to me, my refuge, my shelter, my familiarity.
Its gone now, my most secure place of the past. Other people live there, walking up creeky halls never knowing the significance of the creaks. Not understanding that a certain creak in the middle of the night meant that you were up because your leg was hurting.
They don't know about a night long ago when you got up to go to the bathroom and discovered 80 balloons blown up and stuck on the walls of the kitchen. They don't know about the piece of old film reel that you had in a drawer. They don't know about the family that lived there, about the grandfather who was the very first love of my life. They don't know about the room at the end of the hall were great grandfather slept. They don't know that you once told me there was nothing to be frightened of in that big cold empty room. They don't know that the front door was seldom used, that access was always a matter of going to the side door. They'll never know about you telling off an impertinant postman who told you that the mailbox was in the wrong spot. It had always been there and thats where it would stay thank you very much.
They don't know about the woman who's house it was. And they are the poorer for it.
And the world is a poorer place because you're gone from it.
I love you a million yellow roses. xoxox

SUNRISE

Yesterday was round 2 of Kate vs The Psych.

I hadn't been able to sleep at all, and by 5am I was wide awake and I just knew were I to fall asleep I'd never get to my appointment on time. So instead I went out to shoot the sunset over Nobby's beach.

I've seen many sunrises while sleep deprived but never experienced one like this. Beautiful, awe inspiring and its given me a reason why people get up so bloody early.

The psych ended up winning round two of operation pigeon hole and label, giving me a course of anti depressants.

Among the many side effects is the delightful notion of non pregnant breasts suddenly starting to possibly lactate, weigh gain, sleeplesness and headaches.

I can see how lactating breasts would be beneficial and happy making to a former bulimic infertile insomniac with a history of cluster headaches. If this should occur I fully intend to smack the psych around the head with his framed fancy certificates.

I REALLY don't like him much at the moment.

SNAPPERS ANGST

I've been toying with the idea of exhibiting some of my photos in an online album.

Plenty of people are doing it and I have been spending the past few weeks immersed in other peoples galleries of work.

Its daunting. I'm often awestruck by another persons work. By their unique point of view, their perspective or what they can do with camera in hand. Capturing an angle I wouldn't have thought of or a situation that never occured to me as being photogenic.

Then again I've been chasing photogenic cobwebs lately. Literally. Spiders webs are proving interesting photographically but I've yet to take THE shot.

In perusing the best of the best you begin to wonder is my work up to standard, will anyone be interested? Your best work suddenly pales in comparison.

Out come the archives, and your left wondering why you ever picked up a camera. Everything seems somehow ordinary. And then you see the work of someone who has been blessed enough to have travelled and your own home grown images sink even further under an overly critical eye. How can a simple people shot compare to elephants on the Serengetti?
Suddenly you see your work as primative. But when I looked back I saw how far I'd come. How my style and angles and composition had changed in the last two years. I'm not great but I'm not bad either. People remain my passion and I swore I'd never be any good at landscape but its begining to pull me in, goading me to take a shot, try to see from eyes not jaded by familiarity.

I REALLY WANT TO KNOW?????

Do nuns, the really religious penguin dressing kind, play the organ at vespers or do they have some non nun do it for them?
When you test eggs for freshness, are they supposed to float to the top or sink to the bottom?
And why do we do this if we don't know?
Why don't architects design houses with adequate esky/cooler storage? There is never a proper place to keep them.
Why do bad chefs keep telling Gordon Ramsey that he doesn't know what he is talking about?
Why do we celebrate ANZAC Day and say "Lest we forget" and lay wreaths at dawn and the walk away from the memorial and forget for the next 364 days?
Why do negro americans still call themselves african americans when none of them go to africa?
Why do we only discover the brilliance of an artist after they are dead?
Why is it so fucking hard to load jalbum?
Why are emo's so sad when they all hang out in massive social groups?
Why am I sitting here listening to Vic who is trawling the net to find out if the Pope has a blog?
Why does the ethnic channel run a program called "the secret to happiness" at 1:30am? Are they keeping it a secret because they don't want people to be happy. Apparently they have the secret to orgasms as well. Bastards.

FURTHER MUSINGS FROM THE WEATHER CHANNEL

I went to battle with my wardrobe and managed to hang everything up, put everything away and even give away those few things that have no hope of ever fitting me again.
As I sat there surrounded by the ghosts of my former personality it struck me how much my former profession had changed me.
When I first started in welfare I was bright eyed and optomisitic. My how things have change din four years. With my very first pay check I decided that since I was working in the world of ugly and yuck that I would reward myself every pay day with something frivolous and pretty. Nothing extravagant, I wasn't nursing a yearning for the crown jewels but jewelry was what I landed upon as a reward for slogging through another fortnight of human misery and mismanagement. I found a shop that sold quirky necklaces, made out of old buttons and bits and pieces. Every fortnight I'd go and investigate and buy myself something pretty.
The problem was that you can't wear pretty while working with youth who will use your necklace to strangle you.
For a while I dutifully stripped off everything pretty whilst on my shifts. Plain jeans that could be washed in boiling hot water and disinfectant and a plain t shirt that could be thrown in the bin after every shift. Yep some of the kids I worked with were that bad. Some days I'd come home and climb into a shower fully clothed.
I redyed my hair a brilliant shade of fuck you pink, if I couldn't wear pretty I'd carry it around with me in some form. But the powers that be decided that I needed to conform. That brown sensible hair was much preferred.
Slowly this industry took away all that was positive and pretty.
If my work life had been satisfying, if management had actually ran the programs that they boasted about, if life hadn't been a series of shifts where you went to bed and didn't sleep, and didn't eat and weren't stuck in a drafty dodgy house that wore you down because as a casual support worker you found there was no support on offer, well maybe I wouldn't be going through a major scale depression right now.
Going through my volumous closet today I saw the relics of my past self.
I came across the one piece of lingere that I will keep until I die, the guarenteed make them cum in the pants piece of pretty that my tits defiantly won't fit into anymore.
I found the Craig shirt. A black see through sequined little number that makes me feel ten years younger.
And there on its hanger is the Cinderella dress. Last worn at my brother in laws wedding. The one dress that I'd live in, that I'd be happy doing dishes in because its pretty.
I have a see through over blouse, a cute green little thing that I wear over a singlet. Nothing wrong or slutty about it. But my former boss decided that it was wrong to wear it because the male clients may be aroused by the thought of the top. Honestly its such utter rubbish but I stopped wearing it.
And as my former occupation stripped away the layers of originality that made up me, eroded my confidence, made me a plastic parody of what conformity wanted me to wear I stopped wearing these things altogether. I stopped caring what I looked like. And I didn't even realise it was happening.
On my travels in the last few weeks I found and fell in love with a pink pashmina. Pretty and impractical as you really can't work in it or drive whilst wearing it but I brought it anyway.
Out came all of my jewelry today, the stuff I had taken off and put away and forgot about.
Now I'm wondering should I go back, can i go back to wearing the clothes that really make me feel good or will they feel foreign on me now?
Will the gorgeous leopard print boots still give me that fuck you attitude? That attitude that makes you want to crawl sensuously acrosss the floor when ever you put them on or will they just feel silly now? Like a costume?
Can the old Kate re emerge?

DROWNING IN WEATHER

Another day of another month of another year and I wake up to grey skies and rain. Now I don't mind a few rainy days, apparently water is good for the planet so I let the occasional rain day slide, its my way of being a greenie. But it feels like it has been raining for years here.
Sucessive rain days lead you to doing things that you would put off on a more sunny day. And after so many cold cruel wet days I am forced finally to tackle the big mess.
The big mess is the carnival of clothes that have rehoused themselves around my bedroom. I had a shitty moment a few weeks ago and packed all of my clothes. Then decided on the balance that running away from home was too much bother and the clothes in question have been having a vacation all over my room.
I go back to school next tuesday and don't fancy the 7am "oh shit what to wear" question so its come to this. The weather gods are forcing me to clean up my room.
Confronting your entire wardrobe at once is something best done on a sunny day with the windows open, a vodka in hand and a joint.
Yep wacky weed I figure, is the only way to fold and hang all of those gorgeous clothes that you brought and can never wear because two seconds after you got it home your tits enlarged. This happens alot. I try something on and it fits beautifully. I take it home and hang it up. When I go to wear it my tits have enlarged to the button popping point of no return. By this time I've usually lost the damn receipt so I am stuck with yet another material creation perfect for a girl not sporting a double d chest of drawers on her chest.
Note to all women wishing for bigger boobs - stop wishing right now, one day God will grant you impossibly big boobs and you'll never have another thing to wear again - ever. Bra's will never again be pretty, they'll be industrial sized practical when you are really yearning for victoria's secret pretty. Shirts will be skimpy across the chest and volumous everywhere else. I have a major collection of gorgeous shirts that just don't fit.
Anyone wanna start a "my tits screwed me over" shirt exchange program?
Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your blouses!
Once I get through all of the blouses I'll confront the shoe nest.
Being a bit of a Carrie Bradshaw when it comes to shoes, I have a mountain of them and naturally I stick to wearing one tatty pair of white tennis shoes. Boots in particular are my weakness. Storage is becoming a problem. The solution is simple, divest myself of shoes I don't wear. Simple, easy, space saving. NOT ON YOUR NELLY. I may not have worn shoes for a while but I won't ever give them up. Not even the suede cowboy boots that pinch my ankles and really fucking hurt to walk in.
So I'm off, armed with my Trinny and Susannah bibles which tell me to purge and throw away. I'll ignore them naturally but if anyone wants me you'll find me narnia bound wading through my wardrobe.