WPC: The Road Taken – The Calm Raft

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Sometimes the road taken is not what you expect. What’s ahead is unknown and scary and possibly not what you actually planned, expected, wanted or feared. So just go out there and do stuff, whatever that stuff is, and see where the road takes you.

imgp3854This shot was taken in Croatia, back in 2006, with my old point-n-shoot Pentax Optio WPi (its current whereabouts are unknown but might be lost at sea). It was tweaked a bit in Lightroom to match my memory of the experience. My memory does seem to feature a lot of slightly oversaturated images these days. Might need to look into that.

Anyway, what was supposed to be awesome river rafting with meter high waves and fast-moving currents turned out quite differently. It was very late in the season so it was less wild river rafting and more a chilly, slightly-drunken cruise. In my head, I had imagined a ferocious torrent of water taking me on a death-defying journey, but alas. Still, it was a great day out enjoying the water, taking the occasional snap and chatting with our local guides.

During the cruise, I was told that the local government was erecting hydroelectric dams on the river, which according to Wikipedia has unfortunately happened since. The natural beauty of the area was a great experience and having it partially submerged part of the year is a loss to everyone.

In any case, the road taken can be full of unknowns and insecurities and that’s ok. Living a safe life without any unknowns seems like a waste of time and effort. This was worth it, even if I didn’t get some damn waves that day.

This post is in response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: The Road Taken

If you like my work, why don’t you follow this blog or my Flickr page and share this post, or have a look at some of my other work here or here. 

WPC: Graceful – Batman in a Tutu

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Anything can be graceful given the right circumstances.

Whether it’s a ballet dancer gliding effortlessly across the stage or a man dressed a bat soaring over the rooftops of a gothically themed urban landscape, the spectacles could be considered graceful. So I combined those ideas with my hobby, added a touch of Lightroom to the mix and voila!

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At some point, I will need to learn how to edit out his little support column. For a shot taken in my living room with a laptop as background source and a phone as a light, I’m pretty satisfied with the result. Who knows, I might do a series of shots at some point. 🙂

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This post is in response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: Graceful

If you like my work, why don’t you follow this blog or my Flickr page and share this post, or have a look at some of my other work here or here. 

WPC: Ambience – Tree Orbs

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Just a short post this week. A chilly foggy evening in gorgeous, if perpetually clogged with tourists, Brugge. The cold air gave the place a feeling of home, the refreshing coconut beer(s) I had consumed prior to taking this photo may have had some effect as well. The ambience is quite palpable, even if the picture is not one of my best. Lovely trip with good friends.

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This post is in response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: Ambience

If you like my work, why don’t you follow this blog or my Flickr page and share this post, or have a look at some of my other work here or here. 

WPC: Names – Temporary

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Names are temporary things. They are concepts that remain fluid and malleable and will ultimately be forgotten as language moves on. We imbue them with great meaning and pride and try to celebrate them with rituals and totems, and then we forget. The long for the history books, if lucky, and then gets left behind. As a society, we will forget the majority of them, what they meant and why they were here and that’s ok. It’s a reminder of how temporary our stay here really is.

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These images were shot in Parc de Bruxelles right after I arrived in Brussels. It was a nice sunny day playing around with my camera, exploring a place I would get to call home for a short while. This particular sign, Bois Reserve aux Jeux D’enfants (I think), caught my eye. Clearly showing the signs of weather and age, the rust and decay quite evident, it is still beautiful.

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Don’t worry too much about forgetting a name or two. Just remember why it was important for as long as you can and tell others. It’s our only kind of limited immortality.

This post is in response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: Names

If you like my work, why don’t you follow this blog or my Flickr page and share this post, or have a look at some of my other work here or here. 

5 Reasons to Read – The Invisible Library

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theinvisiblelibraryI’m kinda tired of fantasy. Not that they have all gone bad nor that the genre has any issues or anything like that. I just feel done with it these days, done and bored and annoyed by it. Then somebody mean and thoughtful and gorgeous and intent on taking away my spare time gave me The Invisible Library, by Genevieve Cogman, and I was hooked, hooked I say you. So hooked that it made my recommended list, which is something I keep inside my head for when people ask me silly questions like ‘I don’t know any good books, do you?’ or ‘Can I ask you about your relationship to Jesus?’, you know… the usual stuff one encounters in day to day conversation. The Amazon blurb really does live up to its hype that “Soon, she’s up to her eyebrows in a heady mix of danger, clues and secret societies. Yet failure is not an option – the nature of reality itself is at stake.“

5 Reasons to Read: The Invisible Library

The book just happens to include:

  •  … a dimension hopping secret agent/spy/thief/librarian person, that is part of an organisation that (appears) to exists solely to collect and protect the most important books (of course, that would be most books but who am I to argue). As a professed bibliophile, I am completely hooked.
  • … dragons and fae and magic and airships and our experience is not an all-knowing one where all these wonders are normalised, but one mediated through the main character Irene, whose personality and choices manage to get on both my good and bad sides.
  • … funny internal (and external) dialogue that grounds the characters decisions (and indecision) in the most human of all traits; to massively overthink everything and to doubt the selected course of action. Irene is a real person and acts like a real person should or would or could. And then chats about it. It’s wonderful and fun and distracting within the book itself.  
  • … excellent world building that allows for actions to have actual personal consequences, explanations for why certain events do or don’t have consequences, why we recognise it and why it’s exotic or foreign. It’s explained in-world why we feel at home and why we should get excited about this particular reality.
  • … recognisable literary characters which feel like clear homages to their literary lineage without becoming boring, nor does it feel like rehashing or reusing the work of others. The story reads like it’s written by a true lover of books. Since the book is set in an alternate reality London, the potential for future encounters are broad and exciting indeed.

If I should fault it for anything, its the lack of a proper big baddie. The big baddie feels flat and vindictive for no reason (yet), but within the context of a first book suffices to bring about a sense of threat and drama that works without being overplayed or underplayed. The other “real” enemies in the book (no spoilers, I promise) feel fleshed out and very immediate so I can forgive the big bad for staying in the wings for now. I have book two ready to go anyway. It’s my Christmas read. And book three popped onto my Kindle a week ago, so its about time. So as long as your can accept that book one is an origin story, I would highly recommend The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman.

But what do you think? Is The Invisible Library as trite as most fantasy and I’m just a little bit deluded? I might be deluded anyway, I mean who really knows. Let me know!

If you like my work, why don’t you follow this blog or have a look at some of my other work here or here. 

WPC: New Horizon – Explore

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The horizon or future is an unknown quantity to some extent. Sure everyone knows that their future both short and long term will involve taxes, chocolate and eventually death, but until then everything can change. Priorities can shift, partners can change and the source of your next paycheck could be a mystery just two months from now. All you can do is choose what is best for you and hope everything works out. So my future involves yet another country and with it more chances to explore. Explore places and people, getting my hands dirty with my craft and finding more secrets.

dscf2145-2So why is there a picture of a balloon horse? Because I didn’t expect it to peek out at me like that. I still have a little exploration left in me for Brussels. Who knows what the future brings? Probably more floating horses or hopefully something a little less psychedelic. Below are a few other shots from Brussels this Christmas. Had to experiment a bit with night photography and long exposures. Most suffered from “people-unwittingly-shaking-the-gorram-tripod” syndrome, but at least one was pretty cool. Enjoy!

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This post is in response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: New Horizon

If you like my work, why don’t you follow this blog or my Flickr page and share this post, or have a look at some of my other work here or here. 

WPC: It’s Not This Time of Year Without… – Peberkager

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As an expat, this time of year is always a bit weird. I don’t often go home for Christmas, so celebrations are almost always muted and off-set by the impressions of the culture I am in. So there is little of hold on to when I am not at home. Except for peberkager, or pepperkaker, or pepper cakes, a type of cake that I associate fully with Christmas. Sure, you can go to IKEA and pick up some during June (you monster) or bake them yourself in March (you heathen), but for me it’s Christmas. And if there isn’t an IKEA nearby, I will have them shipped directly to my doorstep.

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And sure, there aren’t like my mum used to make them when I was a child, and sure these are produced in a factory and available all year, and sure the Christmas version is actually pebernødder (pepper nuts) so technically I should be photographing pebernødder but I did not have those available so stop judging me!

But they are what I associate with this time of year. And they make me happy. And make me wish I could go home every year to see my family and friends. But I can’t, so I’ll drown my sorrows in cinnamony goodness until I can.

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Want to try one? Go to IKEA. They’re are ok. Not too bad. If not, try making this one. The recipe looks great and you get to try some Scandinavian Christmas cuisine. What’s not to like. 🙂

This post is in response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: It’s Not This Time of Year Without…

If you like my work, why don’t you follow this blog or my Flickr page and share this post, or have a look at some of my other work here or here. 

WPC: Magic – Geek Shrine

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Magic is a fickle thing. As children, magic is everywhere. It’s in clouds above and the insects below and the life we experience in-between. We then grow up and everything becomes ordinary and we forget the magic we saw floating by on a Saturday afternoon in May. It’s a special kind of sad, but its life. So when magic reappears in your life, the magic of people, coming together around an idea or a cause, sharing a moment in time, that’s the adult kind of magic and that is much harder to trivialise and forget.

On Torchwood, Ianto died and I was crushed. It was emotional, heart wrenching, painful to watch, and even harder to accept. It seemed to create a bond between people, strong enough to create his Shrine in Wales, where the show was filmed. So why not take the Doctor(s) to see it.

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This probably won’t be my last Lego themed picture but felt it relevant for this response. Was originally posted on my Flickr after a trip to Wales. Go there to see (a lot) more Lego themed photos.

This post is in response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: Magic