Project 366 - Day 7...

7/366

Bread I baked this morning

(found it hard to choose between this or a duck!)



Project 366 - Day 6...

6/366

 

Whitley Bay beach this morning...

- I'm afraid that a lot of the 366 photos will probably be of the sea!...

 

Project366 video: day 6/366: Beach

 

6-366

 

 

Project 366 - Day 5...

5/366

in Holywell Dene

I especially love the reflection of the sky in the pond :)



Project 366, Day 5: In the woods... (video)

5-366

I tried to film a flock of long-tailed tits, but most of them had flown away. They can still be heard, faintly...

Nice Moments...



Well, I'm enjoying 2012 so far!...

 Last year had lots of good times too, but the year flew by so quickly... It feels as if a whirlwind of good times entered my life at the start of the year, and bestowed good things into my life throughout the year, and then the year was over all of a sudden, and I want to somehow be able to preserve the memories for ever...

I've got lots of photos scattered around in various folders on my laptop, and various rolls of film waiting to be developed, but it might have been an idea to do something a bit more concrete, so I think that this year I'll do more blogs - well the project366 should definitely help preserve memorable times in 2012...

Sometimes it's just a nice moment, rather than a big event, that makes life that bit more special... Like yesterday, for instance... a spontaneous walk on Tynemouth beach, including a spontaneous breakfast in the cafe on the beach. See pictures above...  

Project 366 - Day 4...

4/366

Sunrise this morning...

 

Project 366, Day 4 (video): On the beach

4-366

(This video was taken yesterday, 3rd Jan, but I forgot to take one for day 4!)

Project 366, Day 3 (video): staring at the sea...

 3-366  A short clip of the sea... I loved the clouds and changing light in the sky, and the spray on the tops of the waves, and the reflections continously being uncovered then hidden, as the sea flowed in and out... 

Project 366 - Day 3...

3/366

Surfer, Tynemouth, UK

This isn't the best photo I took today, but I like the way the surfer emerges from the waves, with the spray looking quite ethereal and misty along the tops of the waves.  I like the way that movement has been captured in one shot...



footprints...

I couldn't resist taking a photo of these footprints on my walk this morning!

Symbol in the sand...

another photo from my walk this morning...

Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.

Rumi

Slightly strange moment of the day...

When I was having a walk this morning, it was rather strange to come across this tin of dog biscuits - presumably left there for dogs to help themselves to...

Project 366 - Day 2...

2/366

St Mary's Lighthouse ~ #Project366 ~ 2/366

Apologies for the fact that it's sideways! For some reason I can't rotate it. If you'd like to see this upright I've also posted it here (click on the word 'here')

Project 366 - Day 2 ... (video)

2-366 video

 

 

 

Being pensive on the beach... (project366 video, Day1)

Me and Iona had a lovely walk on the beach yesterday. We took loads of photos as we usually do, but we also made a few short little videos, including this one of my eyes...

 Video 1-366 

I'm not sure how long this will last, but I'll try to post a shortish (mainly under 2 mins) video every day this year...

Happy New Year! Welcome to Project 366 - Day 1 !

Hello! Happy New Year!

Well, a new year has begun, and I'm starting another project - time will tell how long I manage to stick to it! Another photo challenge - this time I've decided to take a photo each day this year and upload it to my blog. I'll maybe add it to flickr as well, but I don't want to be having to post it to too many different places, or that will make it too complicated, and it will be straying too far from the simplicity of the project that is so appealing- one photo, once a day, for one year...

Here is today's photo:

Whitley Bay Beach ~ #Project366 ~ 1/366

If you're on Twitter, there are lots of other people also doing this - look for #project366

If you decide to join in, post a link as a comment!

In an Iridescent Time...

Poet Ruth Stone (above) died last month, aged 96. I love her description (below) of what happened when she could feel a poem coming on, and can relate to that myself a bit...

Elizabeth Gilbert tells a story about Ruth Stone's writing style and inspiration, which Ruth had shared with her:

'As [Stone] was growing up in rural Virginia, she would be out, working in the fields and she would feel and hear a poem coming at her from over the landscape. It was like a thunderous train of air and it would come barrelling down at her over the landscape. And when she felt it coming...cause it would shake the earth under her feet, she knew she had only one thing to do at that point. That was to, in her words, "run like hell" to the house as she would be chased by this poem.

The whole deal was that she had to get to a piece of paper fast enough so that when it thundered through her, she could collect it and grab it on the page. Other times she wouldn't be fast enough, so she would be running and running, and she wouldn't get to the house, and the poem would barrel through her and she would miss it, and it would "continue on across the landscape looking for another poet".

And then there were these times, there were moments where she would almost miss it. She is running to the house and is looking for the paper and the poem passes through her. She grabs a pencil just as it's going through her and she would reach out with her other hand and she would catch it. She would catch the poem by its tail and she would pull it backwards into her body as she was transcribing on the page. In those instances, the poem would come up on the page perfect and intact, but backwards, from the last word to the first.'

Here are a couple of her poems, below:

Always on the Train
Writing poems about writing poems
is like rolling bales of hay in Texas.
Nothing but the horizon to stop you.
But consider the railroad's edge of metal trash;
bird perches, miles of telephone wires.
What is so innocent as grazing cattle?
If you think about it, it turns into words.
Trash is so cheerful; flying up
like grasshoppers in front of the reaper.
The dust devil whirls it aloft; bronze candy wrappers,
squares of clear plastic--windows on a house of air.
Below the weedy edge in last year's mat,
red and silver beer cans.
In bits blown equally everywhere,
the gaiety of flying paper
and the black high flung patterns of flocking birds.

by Ruth Stone

Mantra
When I am sad
I sing, remembering
the redwing blackbird’s clack.
Then I want no thing
except to turn time back
to what I had
before love made me sad.

When I forget to weep,
I hear the peeping tree toads
creeping up the bark.
Love lies asleep
and dreams that everything
is in its golden net;
and I am caught there, too,
when I forget.

by Ruth Stone

(many of her poems convey a haunting feeling of loss and bittersweetness; they are“love poems, all written to a dead man”; written after her husband ended his life, leaving her to bring up three daughters on her own)...

through the window...

I love watching the rain...



Today...