Photography: 41 weeks

The entire photo set can be found on Flickr HERE. I still can't figure out how to put a slideshow on Blogger.

I have so many stories to write and so many blog posts to catch up on, and, at some point over the next few weeks, I will get to them all, but in the meantime I am spending my time staring at my daughter in awe, taking photos of her, breastfeeding, trying to entertain her and then trying to get a few hours of sleep whenever I can. It's amazing, all of it, motherhood, being part of creating this wonderfully perfect little being, and still feels pretty surreal in all the reality of it.

From week 11 of my pregnancy, right through to just before I hit week 41 (and the reason there is no photo for that week will be explained when I write Luna's birth story) I took a photo of my growing baby bump. It makes me laugh now to think that back in the weeks 13 and 15 and 16 I really thought that I was HUGE and that everyone could tell I was pregnant. Looking back at the photos, it wasn't until I was in the 20th week that you could really start telling if you didn't know me.

Once I hit the third trimester I knew I was going to get big, but it wasn't until I got to week 38 that I actually started feeling uncomfortable... I still roll out of bed like I had to in those weeks, forgetting that I don't need to do that anymore! It's kind of crazy to think that my daughter actually fit inside my belly only 3 weeks ago, and was comfortable there... I can't imagine being curled up like that and not being able to stretch out!

Music: Mogwai at Webster Hall, NYC, June 15th 2012

I spent the beginning of last year listening to Mogwai's last studio album, Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will, while I was trying to figure my life out. Then I spent the last few months of the year listening to their last EP, Earth Divisions, while trying to work out the next steps in my life. It seems to be a pattern in my life, since the late 90's, listening to Mogwai while reflecting on the meaning of life. Or maybe something a little less grandiose than that. Reflecting on what on earth I was doing with myself right at that moment in time and why I had chosen this instead of that.
For me, listening to Mogwai has always been like going for a long walk, where you start off in a quiet, countryside area and then find yourself suddenly standing in the middle of a square packed with people and noise and lights with your feet are stuck to the ground, looking around with wide eyes, not knowing where to go. Until, all of a sudden you are pulled up in the air by an invisible force, and fly over the crowds back to a peaceful calm in a different place, where the journey starts again.
Basically a slow build up of music, bit by bit, layer upon layer, gaining momentum until all you can do is feel it flowing through your entire body. Yes, I seriously love Mogwai.

I didn't think I would actually get to see them on this tour, with the multiple cancellations and the being broke issue and all of that. But I have a fabulous best friend who took me as his plus one, which also meant that we got the best place to sit and watch the show at Webster Hall, right above the stage, where I could just lean on the barrier and absorb the music and float off to different places my mind decided to conjure up. There is not much else to say apart from the fact that I had goosebumps half of the time, and spent the rest of it floating somewhere above Webster Hall, during all of it feeling that I was literally in the music. Not just a part of it, but right inside it. I've been waiting to see them again for so long now, and it was so worth it, just to be there and to see them perform again. Live music is mostly always excellent, but there are some bands that just take it a step further on stage and Mogwai is one of them. Excellent setlist too - a real collection of different pieces from over the years.

I have to say, over the past 9 months I haven't been to anywhere near as many live shows as I usually do, but the ones I have been to have been pretty brilliant, and all thanks to the wonderful friends I have here (Portishead, The Cure, The Kills, Spiritualized and Mogwai).

Setlist:
Yes! I Am A Long Way From Home
White Noise
I Know You Are But What Am I?
San Pedro
Mexican Grand Prix
Stanley Kubrick
Stop Coming To My House
Cody
Ex-Cowboy
How to Be a Werewolf
2 Rights Make 1 Wrong
Ratts of the Capital

Encore:
Rano Pano
I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead
We're No Here

Light

Light, a set on Flickr.

I suppose it sounds silly if I say "I miss the sun", but in all reality, it isn't. I really mean that I miss watching the sun. Setting my alarm to wake up at 5am, and waiting for the sun to come up over the bay, wearing layers of leggings and legwarmers and sweaters and gloves to bear the freezing wind. Or rushing to find the best sunset angle over the water. Or catching the golden orange colour coming in through my living room window and rushing up to the roof to capture those last rays on camera. Even, and I am loathe to actually mention this one, watching the summer sun set over the city from my old desk on the 40th floor.
I've been focusing so much on taking black and white random portraits recently that I forgot the sun. I put the above together from photos take over the past two years with a bunch of different cameras... DSLR (Canon) and film SLRs (both Canon AE-1, one from the late 70's, one from the early 80's). I think it's time to find the sun in other places and to capture it again and again every time it inspires me. Or something along those lines.

There is one of the moon in there. Just because everything should have some sort of balance, somehow.

Stark & Light

Stark & Light, a set on Flickr.

A random, but not so random collection of images I have captured over the last year. Some taken with the Canon Rebel DSLR, others with the Canon AE-1 film camera, some with my phone. Just a collection of darkness and light, of words captured and feelings portrayed.