Tuesday, January 13

Steve, Lucy and 'Stella

I aspire to such photography, in this case Steve and Lucy's holiday greeting. It tells a story of something, no doubt, and despite the silliness is completely cool. On my own picture-taking: sadly the film apparatuses gather dust replaced (of course) by digital with its ease and this blog. The Old School developing took a considerable investment of time, several courses and a patient eye to reach the point where I could competently enter a dark-room and burn an image then work with a bunch of chemicals to produce something... beautiful, at least to me. No thrill quite compares to the first faint impression that forms on an otherwise pure glassy paper - followed by a final image as crystal clear as seeing the thing with thine eye. B&W is a tough passion without other time demands and whilst the Shakespeares offer a most excellent subject matter they and Sonnet are probably happy to have me around the week ends - at least, mostly. For now, I have chucked the hobby into a basket - along with tennis, War & Peace, surfing and other to-do's - that I will master whenever.

Eitan on his poem, which he fails to bring home to memorise over the holidays: "I had one good thought: as long as I am not chosen to go first.. .."

Madeleine struggles with subtracting '2s'; indignantly: "But only yesterday I was doing 1s!"

We have a discussion about Eitan's hero Ronaldo and I encourage the kids to shout out descriptive words.
Me: Strong, powerful, fleet-footed!
Eitan: Muscular, clever, burly, forceful!
Madeleine: Cheesy!