Black dog nights
Aug. 16th, 2005 11:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peck72Again I'm having one of those nights when my brain is running like a
steam fly-wheel when all my body wants to do is go to sleep cause I've
got to be up at 6.15 to go to work. I'll put this behind cuts because
it seems unfair to inflict all this on unsuspecting friends and readers.
The past couple of weeks have been a real case of up one minute and down the next. As I said last time work has been real hectic with lots of overtime (including turning up for a 6 hour shift and doing 10, which meant I got to my friends birthday party with just enough energy to keep my eyes open, then two days later coming in for a an 8 hour shift and doing 12) and having to cover for sick colleagues (at one point half the department was off sick, and there are only 8 of us). On top of this, the teething troubles with the new centre are carrying on a lot longer than I expected. These run from lots of stupid little things seemingly designed to just to increase peoples stress and irritability level to really big things like the brand new, half million pound, all singing and dancing computer system really not being as good as it was cracked up to be and so it falling to our department (already overworked) to have to make the system work just so we can stay operational. This had been a bad week.
But then, on the Sunday between my 10 and 12 hour shifts, my church held their annual Funday on a Sunday in the local park. It was the first time I'd been involved with this (I've only been coming to the church for just under a year) and when I heard they needed photographers to get pics of the day I volunteered with a great amount of trepidation. My nerves on the day where so much that I couldn't finish my lunch (an unprecidented event, belive me). It was a long day too, I turned up there not long after 1 in the afternoon and left as it was turning 7, I took somewhere in the region of 300 pictures on both film and digital and loved every minute of it. It was a great feeling to think that I was taking pictures not just because I enjoy it but because they would be used for publicity for the local churches, for next years funday and for any number of things. I don't usually take 'people' pictures because a) they don't usually let me and b) because I'm concerned about people getting the wrong idea and beating me up, so I tend to stick with landscapey type things. But here I had a reason to be taking them and it has a whole different energy to it,something I really liked. There is the idea of stalking the shot, watching things playing out in front of the lens and than snapping at the decisive moment to catch the picture you've been waiting for. Or talking to people and getting them to look into your lens for just that second while you capture something of them.
As I say, one great day in the middle of the week from hell.
Then a weeks leave, thankfully booked well in advance, to go down to Aberystwyth with Anna while she worked at a conference there. Fortunately she only had to work in the afternoons which gave us both time to wind down and relax together in the mornings and evenings. This really was needed by both of us. First though we travelled part way on the Sunday and stopped overnight in Dollgellau, where Anna had lots of childhood holidays. Before we left we had time to go for a walk and found the house she and her family had stayed at. So a good little nostalgia fix was had.The rest of the week we had really good weather up till the Saturday and I was able to do some more photography, this time of the landscapey variety. I also ran across two books by/about Henri Cartier Bresson, who is the nearest thing I have to a photographic hero, and I discovered an exhibition in the nearby Uni for the photographer Bill Brandt who took wonderful black and white pictures in the repotage style as well as portraits. It was a more picturefull week than I had expected.We then visited the site of many of my childhood holidays on the return journey while we stayed with realatives in North Wales.So, last Sunday evening we both felt well rested and refreshed and ready for the adventure that is work. Now it's Tuesday night and I'm wondering what happened?
If you don't want to read my little rant (and I wouldn't blame you) then please at least take a look at the pics behind the links. I'd really like to know peoples opinions.
I really don't know how to get my brain to calm down enough for sleep but I think it's getting there. I'll link in a number of pictures and then I think I'll call it a night. There is much more running around in my head that I can't pin down and express. Some of it I don't want to, cause I know letting those thoughts have too much processor time isn't healthy and some I want to but I'm afraid they'll disintegrate and collapse like fairy wings if I start to pay them attention. Please excuse my moaning, it's late at night and the black dogs winning.
But first a little thing, google the words 'jcb song' and take a listen, this is a cool song that nearly brought a tear to my eye driving home today when I remembered going out on deliveries with my dad as a kid (just in case it's name is a british thing, a jcb is a large tractor like mechanical digger).
Night all, sleep well.
The past couple of weeks have been a real case of up one minute and down the next. As I said last time work has been real hectic with lots of overtime (including turning up for a 6 hour shift and doing 10, which meant I got to my friends birthday party with just enough energy to keep my eyes open, then two days later coming in for a an 8 hour shift and doing 12) and having to cover for sick colleagues (at one point half the department was off sick, and there are only 8 of us). On top of this, the teething troubles with the new centre are carrying on a lot longer than I expected. These run from lots of stupid little things seemingly designed to just to increase peoples stress and irritability level to really big things like the brand new, half million pound, all singing and dancing computer system really not being as good as it was cracked up to be and so it falling to our department (already overworked) to have to make the system work just so we can stay operational. This had been a bad week.
But then, on the Sunday between my 10 and 12 hour shifts, my church held their annual Funday on a Sunday in the local park. It was the first time I'd been involved with this (I've only been coming to the church for just under a year) and when I heard they needed photographers to get pics of the day I volunteered with a great amount of trepidation. My nerves on the day where so much that I couldn't finish my lunch (an unprecidented event, belive me). It was a long day too, I turned up there not long after 1 in the afternoon and left as it was turning 7, I took somewhere in the region of 300 pictures on both film and digital and loved every minute of it. It was a great feeling to think that I was taking pictures not just because I enjoy it but because they would be used for publicity for the local churches, for next years funday and for any number of things. I don't usually take 'people' pictures because a) they don't usually let me and b) because I'm concerned about people getting the wrong idea and beating me up, so I tend to stick with landscapey type things. But here I had a reason to be taking them and it has a whole different energy to it,something I really liked. There is the idea of stalking the shot, watching things playing out in front of the lens and than snapping at the decisive moment to catch the picture you've been waiting for. Or talking to people and getting them to look into your lens for just that second while you capture something of them.
As I say, one great day in the middle of the week from hell.
Then a weeks leave, thankfully booked well in advance, to go down to Aberystwyth with Anna while she worked at a conference there. Fortunately she only had to work in the afternoons which gave us both time to wind down and relax together in the mornings and evenings. This really was needed by both of us. First though we travelled part way on the Sunday and stopped overnight in Dollgellau, where Anna had lots of childhood holidays. Before we left we had time to go for a walk and found the house she and her family had stayed at. So a good little nostalgia fix was had.The rest of the week we had really good weather up till the Saturday and I was able to do some more photography, this time of the landscapey variety. I also ran across two books by/about Henri Cartier Bresson, who is the nearest thing I have to a photographic hero, and I discovered an exhibition in the nearby Uni for the photographer Bill Brandt who took wonderful black and white pictures in the repotage style as well as portraits. It was a more picturefull week than I had expected.We then visited the site of many of my childhood holidays on the return journey while we stayed with realatives in North Wales.So, last Sunday evening we both felt well rested and refreshed and ready for the adventure that is work. Now it's Tuesday night and I'm wondering what happened?
If you don't want to read my little rant (and I wouldn't blame you) then please at least take a look at the pics behind the links. I'd really like to know peoples opinions.
I really don't know how to get my brain to calm down enough for sleep but I think it's getting there. I'll link in a number of pictures and then I think I'll call it a night. There is much more running around in my head that I can't pin down and express. Some of it I don't want to, cause I know letting those thoughts have too much processor time isn't healthy and some I want to but I'm afraid they'll disintegrate and collapse like fairy wings if I start to pay them attention. Please excuse my moaning, it's late at night and the black dogs winning.
But first a little thing, google the words 'jcb song' and take a listen, this is a cool song that nearly brought a tear to my eye driving home today when I remembered going out on deliveries with my dad as a kid (just in case it's name is a british thing, a jcb is a large tractor like mechanical digger).
Night all, sleep well.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Re: nice photos.
Date: 2005-08-18 08:53 pm (UTC)Re: nice photos.
Date: 2005-08-19 09:12 am (UTC)Andy