This is the view I see  everyday while I sit at my desk and type away. As the boat windows are below street level I can glance up and see people coming and going with their bikes, chatting, etc. All the while I sip my tea and get back to the words on my screen. The words are getting plentiful now, I’m on a roll. And rolls are good.

I shall not digress, but I just wanted to stop in and say hi.

xx

PS I did digress a little though, and posted in the library what I’m reading now, it’s a really good book.

PPS For Amsterdammers, there is an upcoming event organised by a friend of mine. It’s called swap and the city where you can exchange your perfectly good items that you never wear for fabulous fashion finds. There are heaps of fun things organised for the afternoon too. Sounds pretty cool, read more about it here. It’s on November 29 from 2-5pm so gets your tickets soon if you plan to go!

…illuminates my working space. It’s time to make a cup of tea and get started. I wonder what today will bring?

…eventful. And included a beautiful night ride along the ij river, a late supper of dim sum, a stroll around the spiegelkwartier gazing at glorious antiques, afternoon tea, and sweet sweet music, live,  as the sun set, in my little boat living room.

Oh, and my hair caught on fire in a cafe, with thanks to a table candle. Thankfully I saw the flames reflected in french boy’s suddenly wide eyes the second it happened and managed to grab it with my bare hands to pat it out. For the whole night all I could smell was burnt hair.

How was your weekend?

…is streaming through the kitchen windows, casting a creamy, golden light across the ceiling, and dark shadows throughout the interior. Dark shadows that hide the mess and mayhem that is my home at the moment. I had a lovely restful weekend which was almost entirely computer-free. It was a little bit wonderful.

And here are all the houseboat polaroids together. I hope you’ve enjoyed my polaroid week! And I know, I was going to tell you my polaroid story, but for some reason, I don’t feel like telling a story so much with words this week, just with images. Also, as my facebook buddies have known, I’ve been awfully sick the last few days with yet another flu. I have a looming deadline and this flu is the last thing I need to impede my progress. But these things happen for a reason no doubt,  it made me take forced rest. I hope I’ll be better by next week as I’m going to try my hardest to rest the next two days as best I can.

Have a lovely lovely weekend mes chers amis, thanks for stopping by and leaving so many wonderful comments. See you Monday, hopefully as healthy and full of energy as ever.

xx

This is possibly my favourite polaroid from the series. The window was open which lets in the sparkly light I speak of so often, and you can see it’s shimmering presence on the fabric drop, on the right. I’d love to animate this polaroid, and make the light dance like it does in the boat.

…it soothes, it inspires, it speaks the feelings inside me that have no words. This is a something I have never taken for granted, and when I hear myself play I sometimes wonder where the music comes from, and how do I play? Sometimes I have no idea how my fingers seem to find the right notes at the right time. Music is pure magic, non?

As you know my little floating home is quite small, so every corner is used to it’s maximum potential while I’m working from home. This is what my dining table looks like on a typical weekday – covered in photographs, drawings and papers needing my immediate attention, tea cup at the ready, and clothes drying on the clothes rack, catching the breeze off the canal. Yes it’s a small space to work and live in, but to me it’s got alot of heart, and that’s all I need to get inspired.

Here are two polaroids of one of my little shelf vignettes on le petit bateau. The shelf is right under a window,  and I often marvel at the sunlight as it hits the display at different times of day. These polaroids were taken just before dusk.

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I love how polaroids are so emotive. From a technical perspective they are often soft/out of focus, often under or over exposed, and so often marked by dust once they come out of the camera. And it’s all these qualities that make the images on a polaroid so beautiful, raw and real. It’s what I always strive for in my digital photography – imperfection.

You may have noticed already that I love including shots in my work that are a little soft, a little under exposed, a little dusty. This is because I try to capture the atmosphere, rather than the object itself. When I walk into a space that I am to photograph, the first thing I am touched by is the light and how it affects various corners of the room. I look for beautiful objects but I try to capture how these objects make me feel, not what they look like, or what they should look like. I like to create a story of images from a space that makes you, the viewer,  feel as though you have walked through the space with me and by the time the story of images is complete, you have been touched by all that has inspired me too. You can see what the object or space is, but also how it makes you feel. That is always, always my goal – thank you for the inspiration, polaroid.