24. les bleus

jenny: have a fabuloso w/e à Bruxelles avec le BF - and not too bowed down with weighty rucksack; click away ces bleus.....

meanwhile.....I walked round our watery nature reserve yesterday morning, camera in (very cold) hand, in the vain hope of some early frosty sunshine.....with a slight stretch of the imagination I do have a couple of reflections that may have the faintest hint of (albeit greyish) blue about them; today appears to be a little more promising (I see gold on branches!) so I may just leap into the shower and hoof it down the hill.....

my walk turned out to be quite fruitful!

hope your w/e ditto

toni: stop it already!!!! true, beautiful BLUE... i have a teeny tiny speck of cobalt [on this grey grim day...] on a café sugar packet. sigh. to be uploaded soonest!

jenny: it was a long walk.....

got a few more today (an even longer walk, but much greyer, this one) so I might even edit my collage; I am enjoying heading out with my camera, sniffing out something in particular - I feel it's making me look at things differently.  I found some false teeth pinned to the top of a fence post on today's walk; sadly though, not even a hint of blue about them

what do you fancy doing for next week?  god, is it too early to pour a glass of wine?  late lunch perhaps?

toni: d'you want to choose - with intent or without volition? [sugar wrapper = pathetic, but got some decent 'writing on a building' - [was this one of our 'on standbys?' - thought so, but not sure?!]...

am still in [grey] belgium + agree about 'viewing the world with more care' via challenges. meanwhile, went to brussels flea market this morning + got beautiful heavy swirling glass lamp-base + super-girly metal chandelier featuring many hand-painted flowers..BF commented he 'knew where i was going with it' - but this was clearly <not> in his direction! 

and no, abs not TOO EARLY for wine - have already partaken in my afternoonly pastis...

jenny: it's perfect - mine seem all brash now.....

as for next week, had earlier thought of number 68 (which it turns out we've done) and as a back-up 69 - and that just happens to be 'notice the impact of advertisements in a landscape or cityscape.....that sound OK to you?

PS time, I think, for my second glass of wine!

toni: ... only your second glass?

23. a moment in an inconsequential sequence

toni: Hope all ok. I have a (kind of) pic. Will upload tomorrow... but might not be super-early, as embarking on a first; going to local art cinema, to watch a movie at 10am. It feels so wrong, yet kind of outré and right too. Insulation from the world. Any joy, pix-wise for you?

jenny: no joy - have not picked up camera since task set - or actually I have - took it on an ever-hopeful walk but did not press shutter once.....have it in classroom with me so maybe something will happen.....

toni: If nothing 'happens' today, would you like to roll on till next weekend...? Hope today not too Don't Like Monday

jenny: I was rather hoping you would suggest that - I have high(er!) hopes for the end of the week as we are off to the UK (oh the excitement!)  We leave right after work Wednesday (am hoping to get away by 13.00 but a meeting at 12.30 may put a spoke in the works) in order to get to le tunnel by around ten pm - and hopefully to arrive chez notre fils sometime not too long after minuit.  Bit of a whistle-stop tour as we leave again at the crack of before dawn on Sunday.....but worth it for my Waitrose order (already placed!) a delivery of books from Amazon, some boots from John Lewis, my painting (!) and - oh yes - a hug from my boy!  PS Today far too Monday-like…..  PPS I rather aspire to a pic like this one (in comments) taken by one of my contacts http://www.flickr.com/photos/26286848@N02/6897387037/

toni: was thinking all pics really, meet this brief, non? a moment in an inconsequential sequence...? i hope you have a wonderful trip - and unification with YOUR painting...i like your flickr pic inspiration - mine was taken saturday. my youngest daughter, dog [kertesz] and i met up with my middle daughter; it was a <good> day - we walked two miles around the ashdown forest. on the way home, i bought a bright, golden bunch of narcissi, from 'the florist in the forest'. they also could have been my pic - a bunch of scented-hope and sunshine...

toni: here's my oojamaflip... hope you've had a wonderful [and lucrative [for your soul at least!]] trip... lemme know if you want me to prod my finger iporn choice-wards in an inappropriate way, on account of you being On The Road [and possibly wanting a challenge]... <please> don't stress about any monday upload deadlines... just get back safely [with the whole of waitrose intact...]  ps have used up entire square bracket allowance for one month, in ONE email

toni: well… of course… it would have helped if i'd attached the pic...

hope you arrive home ok

jenny: arrived home an hour or so ago (after a 4.45am start!) boot - and back seat - laden with Waitrose, paintings, M&S, books (but sadly not my boots which once again refused to allow Cinderella to squeeze her delicate tootsies in). had good - if manic – time; I even got to the charity shop - that of the knitted knativity - where by chance I met the woman whose mother makes them - and I have paid my meagre ten pounds deposit.....I may even get a donkey!!!  photo (not of donkey) coming separately.  LOVE your idea; how many takes was it until perfection?  assume daughter in biddable mood!  it made me SMILE for which I thank you (and her!)  I almost got arrested trying for my pic - was in Reading's Oracle centre wafting my 'gear' about when two very youthful (and exceedingly pimply) security 'guards' asked me if I knew it was forbidden to take photos - well, of course I didn't - I mean, I ask you!  apparently (I asked!) it is even not allowed to take pics of the reflections in the River Kennet (from an Oracle-owned bridge; was, afterwards, sorely tempted to jump and click - or do they lay claim to the very air we breathe?)  anyway had at least 30 snaps under my belt by the time they stopped me (but not, ironically, any that fitted the week's brief).  I eventually snapped mine from car park on the way out (haha - also Oracle property).  Here then is my (quite possibly illegal) offering.....

[Husband off on Tuesday to Spain; maybe I will get to blogging after that?  have not yet even thought about my school blog (and why should I huh?) and now I HAVE to get my fuzzy head around what on earth I will do with my class for all those hours demain.....as well as how on earth I will squeeze all those Waitrose curries into an already full freezer…..]

toni: Completely, utterly illegally BEAUTIFUL... more to say, but might be Thursday before I say it - new working hours = days and eves tues + weds... AND you have a down-payment on a nativity (+/- donkey)... life's looking illicitly good, non? (after all, tomorrow is not a Monday...)  PS do we have a next [this?] week's challenge? would you like me to choose? hope you are enjoying fruits of waitrose enhanced purdah...

jenny: oh gosh; yes, will you?  and tomoz I will get those pics posted!  hoping for something nice and straightforward for next week's challenge; a not-too-challenging challenge

toni: I am going to hand pick it, in a non-challenging way.  Needs must.  No.5: 'find something blue'.  KERCHING! job done...

22. elementary my dear

[ j: do we have a challenge for the coming week?

t: Oh merde!  We do!  But am at work and iporn book in (icy!) bedroom (only currently visited in nano-seconds prior to sleeping)... do you want to go off-piste and choose?

j: what are you doing at work at this time of night?  happy to choose.....have book within arm's reach!  husband (who, btw just suggested 9, which is ‘look for odd combinations of elements’) is in the throes of planning (currently at ‘reading-out-menus’ stage) a gastronomic few days in Lyon.....it’s half term next week (maybe where you are too)

ps have no voice other than mere squeak; makes controlling a bunch of 5-year-old hooligans a touch tricky! 

pps am wondering if Lyon has familiar monument for fresh view; it does have a park with a couple of giraffes and an elephant but not sure I am up to forming some kind of bond with their keepers.....

ppps am definitely counting chickens!  or ostriches!

t: NINE! let's do nine!  Are we ok with 9?  Mail me, early bird stylee, if you wish me to choose alternatively tomoz.  Am happy with 9.

ps Just to be clear.  Counselling work = working late (but actually, drinking wine in a bar with chum, post-work = this late) jeez my room is freezing; -3 and no radiators. And no sign of oil. Doh.

j: 9 is fine haha a rhyme (update on possible Lyon trip.....now rather less possible as apparently huge dump of snow scheduled for next week = better to remain near base than venture off somewhere) ]

so - in spite of the week’s brief being to look for odd combinations of elements, for some bizarre reason, meatballs (more precisely the lack thereof) seemed to figure prominently…..

t: I have not fulfilled brief…Nowhere NEAR... am visiting IKEA tomorrow... and am (misguidedly?) hopeful?!

j: IKEA?  That definitely sounds like a plan! Good Luck!!  (we have one a mere twenty minutes away; when I was visiting hospital regularly and being driven there by my husband, his 'treat' afterwards was to go to IKEA for a plate of meatballs!) 

t: to be honest, meatballs are the motivation for tomorrow's visit too!

…

t: I did not achieve…Daughter blew me out. No IKEA. No meatballs. No 'owt. Tomorrow she is to be frogmarched to photographic nirvana. Just not quite sure where that is...

…

t: I have an idea for a picture…but it involves a long drive and waiting for a high tide (15.21, I checked...)... and the presence of a least one boat.  Hmmmm.  So sorry not to have achieved by yesterday, it was my place of work's annual conference, Sat - organised by yours truly... so last week a bit chaotic.  Happy Valentine's day + where are you?  Did you make it away?  The BF is a non-believer, so stroppily I sent neither card, nor token of love.  Only to discover this morning that he has made a complete u-turn... ooops...

j: blah - all a load of hot air regarding few days away.....

I LOVE that you have ideas for your photos - whereas I take a load and then peer at them from all angles to see if there is the faintest possibility of interpreting the brief to fit the pic.....can't wait for 15.22.....

<3 Valentine's Day???  not that you'd notice.....husband currently writing stroppy letter to Orange (he has a penchant for writing stroppy letters) 

but the sun is shining, the snow is sparkling and He has been persuaded that it might be nice to run down by the frozen lakes where I shall wander avec mon appareil photo in the hope that something elemental might happen.....

PS Xkcd valentine dilemma 

PPS sorry about your lack of meatballs

t: Xkcd = EXACTLY my life, quote for quote.  Oh! How I laughed!  High tide delivered... just not any boats.  A milk bottle used as a vase in pub, will be in dropbox tomorrow (just got in from work).  Hope the day delivered something good for you.

j: I offer you - a car in the Rhone.....

[t: i WANT to see 'car in rhone' - which i feel trumps, any any attempts that might have been made elsewhere...!]

 

j: a discarded jam jar frozen into pond…..

and, just for fun, two elements.....although not especially odd ones!

t: thanks for these - got called into work today, so spanner in works re photo scheduling.  Just home.  Plan to walk dog, clear head, feed child... and then be creative!

(lovely in the teeny window of visibility in the back of my camera. more than slightly disappointing in laptop screen view. sigh.)

am also feeling all 'teeth gnashing' about work this week - is supposed to be 2 x 4hrs per week, yet it's taking up so much time that there is no space for creativity... and yet, feel need for creativity to make time worthwhile.

have new printer.  am going to try to print bottle.  blur will look ok on absorbent, arty  paper, me hopes...

21. something old, something new

juxtapose; to place side by side, especially for comparison or contrast

j: am thinking…..new snow on old leaves

or maybe a slice of (new) ice on a frozen lake.....

or even (an old body of) water underneath a slice of newly-formed ice.....

ps - brrr it's minus 12 right here right now

t: was also thinking 'new' catkins on 'old' trees... and um, 'new' trees near 'old' trees... and yes! new season's snow on old season's seedhead…..

so equally creative in my pursuit... will upload tomorrow - got back from photo walk, bent down to stroke dog and whacked head on metal edge of door lock. cue surprising amounts of blood and now feeling quite icky...

(ps lovely, lovely photos of yours today - partic the dreamy leaf echoed in snow...)

got bored lying on sofa with no-one to impress with injury...

j: the trees.....I LOVE the trees

t: ah, thank you. I did do a little snow-flurry of a hop when I saw those trees! Still waiting for oil delivery here though (saved £3.47, by not being in a hurry for delivery... which I wasn't, ten days ago, when placed order. Gnash) so am like Victorian scullery-maid, dragging in logs and coal for fires. Bah

j: and on top of all that, tomorrow is Monday.....

t: Am hoping Monday cancelled due to Too Much Snow. Ha.

j: here it's now minus 13.....but sadly work cosy and warm and no sign that they might send us all home again

t: Snow melted here, too :-(

20. there’s a hole in my bcket

t: this week we must 'fill up a bucket of water to reveal your reflection'. I think I punched holes in all tin buckets, in order to plant well-drained tulips in them...!

j: know any Dutch boys?

t: :–)     !!!!!!!

BTW... was that a 'yes' to the challenge? (subject to Dutch boy availability)

j: I'll have you know that MY buckets aren't leaky!  We're posh here!

PS - how closely related to a bucket does this bucket of water need to be?  I'm wondering about the village horse trough (or actually a neighbouring village's; ours is filled with soil and blubs, waiting for spring)..…

PPS - have just sed Google dictionary to look p bcket - lots of scope there for 'interpretation’!

PPPS - (the U key on my compter fell off yesterday; I now have to try and hit a tiny plastic 'knob'; I keep missing of corse.  have to try and by a new one; can only get in America - was wondering about trying to swap it with z or something I don't need to se as much, bt may end up with no keys left.....)

decidedly NOT a good effort this week; not even a tiny glimpse of sun
attempted cleverness in water trough which was dismal failure
ended up going down into a ditch and taking pics of the bubbles in a stream
got a wet foot for my pains
and not much else
how about you?

t: … ah! but at least you have BEAUTY in your shot... I have but a frizz-haired moi, reflected from a bridge over the (very slow!) river teise... no light, no horse-trough... no now't (not really sure where that apostrophe goes...)... so, herewith, pic taken via 'creative' use of mobile phone...

j: BEAUTY????? well, my frizz was newly washed and scraped back, still wet, into an elastic thingy; right now it has escaped and is at least as wild as (if not more so than) yours! I had my feet one on either side of the stream bed, hence the akimbo stance.....(btw, did you notice sp in goat’s eye of last week?)

t: ah... well... the... aherm, 'straddle' of the shot [you athletic woman, you] had eluded me until seen up beautifully large... and interesting, how somehow, the ‘you’ captured in the bubble is not dissimilar to the ‘you’ in the goat's eye.... 

j: next week it's 59; juxtapose something old and something new…..

19. going deceptively large

T: Please could you bail out self and refresh - What was the EXACT challenge again? ... is it big things extracted to abstract state?

J: is "minimize the view of a seemingly complex scene"

J: have been angling for lunch out at a place that we reach by driving underneath a wonderfully complicated bit of French road engineering.....but sadly my request fell on deaf ears

PS and anyway, the brief being 'seemingly' complex rather than actually complex.....is it perhaps rather like 'estate agent speak' when they talk about a house being deceptively large?

T: Will upload (rather lame) photo tomorrow... ricoh definitely dying. Sniff.

PS antwerp the Liverpool of flanders. True.  (saw peter lindbergh show at photo museum there. Made me want to take more portraits. Just need a few supermodels to experiment with.) MeaNwhile, in reality, am tempted by more immediate, lower-brow, photobox 'pic on a Thornton's choc box' concept...

T: antwerp brickwork

J: ooh - that's VERY exciting, in an optically illusory way!

meanwhile, mine is a seemingly complex fence, rendered.....well, you decide!

(I also have an apparently complex rainbow minimized to a blur of pink…..

a tree [possibly even a forest] reduced to a mere speck of moss…..

and an 'attention aux enfants' sign reduced to part of one letter…..

[the letter T since you ask] - and am now having albeit restorative cup of Earl Grey when what I really need is a glass of wine.....)

18. all lined up

on taking notice of people or objects aligned with lines on the ground…..

as I was pondering whether or not footprints count as ‘objects’ (more of which later) in popped this decidedly bouncy email:

“had planning to mail you for an assignment extension - living out in 't sticks, there is little opportunity to find straight-line-ness, and i'm off to a print workshop at the de la warr pavilion [ http://www.dlwp.com/  ] on monday, so was hopeful to conjure up something there... but i've been taking my compact ricoh on every dog walk...and lo! this morning, i found myself ambling by a very shadow-strewn farm gate……

pic in dropbox now.  i say pic, as camera seemed to die on me mid-multi-attempts... all settings freezing and refusing to write to memory :-(

i loved that camera…..”

in response – one ‘word’ I think says it all: *

meanwhile, back to my tussles with my conscience about being overly ‘creative’ with the brief (or to be more accurate, to my not having read the brief quite carefully enough).  I had originally had high hopes of this…..

where doggy paw prints (perhaps not strictly speaking ‘objects’ but ‘aligned’ they definitely are) trot alongside the lines of the sled they were pulling (with a few herringbone cross-country ski tracks for good measure) and also of this…..

which probably also breaks the ‘aligned’ rule

a day later, in a different snowy location, there was this…..

where the line of the shadow of the barbed wire is echoed by a line of birdie footprints – which I don’t mind admitting I didn’t actually see when I took the photo

so you see, if footprints don’t count as objects, then I am kind of screwed…..