After a hiatus, I'm back..

It was a big decision, close up shop and start again, or just keep right on going and tweak as I work out what I want to do?

I chose to tweak and see how things turn out. If they don't, then close this baby down I will. Who needs this floating if no one reads right? Right? I can hear a distinct echo out there, I'll pretend I don't for now.

Over 2 years has passed since I was last here with you. In that time I was preparing for a new baby and welcoming said baby and then getting my head around having said baby in the house.  Now? Now I'm working out how I fit into my new life as a stay at home mum and previous librarian. I have several hobbies, have taken up sewing now and am continuing to knit.  I always seem to be dabbling in other various craft activities but that'll  need to stop soon unless I can somehow make money. I only resigned a short time ago so I have time to work myself and my family out, however part of it is about working out who I now am, now that I'm not a librarian I mean.

After over 15 years in the industry, I called it quits to stay home with our baby.  Right when there seems to be a lot (and I mean a LOT) of discussion about good mums vs. other mums, can mums have it all, does working mean having it all, if you stay home with your baby are you giving up on having it all manner of things work and staying home and mum and parent related.  The decisions you make are hard enough without having all this blowing about in the background. Period.

I get quite angry and frustrated listening to all of this. There is discussion on some social site or morning news or other avenue talking about the pros and cons, always with people saying in the end 'why is it up for discussion?' and 'this doesn't happen to men'.  I just want to put my piece in (except feel that wading in is just adding fuel to any fire and quite frankly, my point of view kind of goes against doing what I'd like in this instance!) and say, stop talking about it then. Just stop. And then no one will have anything to discuss about it, no one will feel as pressured to put their view forward and get stamped on later for doing so. It won't be a newsworthy item. Just let people make their decisions based on what is best for them….who cares what the reasons are? They're usually private and up to each family. I know I have family who don't understand why I'm doing what I'm doing, especially as financially it may be difficult for a time. Our reasons are our own and our child is only young for a short time and like everything we've decided to do up till now, it may be a bit different to what you're doing, but it works for us.

As someone who is easily pressured, swayed by others minor opinions and quite frankly an anxiety ridden sheep I'd really prefer not to discuss it too much as I second guess our choices. And I shouldn't have to. I should be able to feel confident and comfortable and enjoy our decision. Mainly my fault I know, but my genuine wish is that people start to be a little more open to other people and the way they live. Maybe a pipe dream? Perhaps that is how other people deal with the different-ness of others, by discussing them and they way they live? In which case I take it all back and continue discussing…in the meantime, I'm working on confidence and accepting my own decisions a little more :)

So, hopefully you'll hang around while I/we find our way forward and as I find out my place in my family and in the world sans-library job.  More on that next time…

Its all gonna be ok!

Fiona

Daily Images...

I'm not sure if I've mentioned, but I entered with allll my other challenges one that involves me taking a photograph a day.  I've found it 'challenging' though not so bad as some of the themed ones.  They both push your mind in different ways.

Photo a Day is a continuous slog, a daily reminder to take a photograph of something that if possible, signifies what I've done during my day, sums it up.
Friday Photos and Paint the Moons 'Let's Do 52' are theme based and so each week I'll try and set up a photo if I can or take more time than I'd have with the Photo a Day to look at exposure, ISO, aperture etc. etc.  I have to say though I do work on those things, but there are many days that a snapshot is all I'll get.

Anyway, I'll post a photo or two occasionally to this main page that I've submitted to the photo a day challenge.

Also, I should give a nod to the fact that its Easter (or Passover if you're Jewish) at the moment and a very religious time - or chocolate filled depending on your leaning and/or faith.

The break we've had from work during the Easter period has been great...its given me a chance to catch up on some of my editing, playing and photo taking.  Amid visits from my family and a scrumptious dinner with my friends it has turned out to be a rather full weekend.  I've found I caught up with some Facebook stuff, some Flickr work and now adding another post and photograph here.

As I've caught up with friends new and old, its a good time to acknowledge all the inspiration and support we or I in this instance, receive from our friends and family :) I especially, am very lucky that I have people around me who are interested in photography and I'm part of an online community on Facebook with Paint the Moon and the people on there are so helpful, so giving and so supportive.

So if you're one of the people I speak to about photography at all, I thank you :) If I've spoken to you, you've given me feedback or commented on images I've loaded somewhere then I do want to say thank you for taking the time, being available and for your gift :)

Picture It!

As yet I haven't caught myself up to date with posts and images here on my blog but I have been going through and sorting my photos, thats a start :)

In the interim, I saw this Epiphanie post on Facebook with a chance to win one of their gorgeous bags...who wouldn't want to win one I have to ask? Anyway, my entry is below...variation on some of the other umbrella/parasol pictures I took recently.

Enjoy.

I entered the Epiphanie Camera Bags Picture It photo contest. http://bit.ly/xN3Pqc

Well, it's been a while...

Again, so long between posts its really quite scary. I think I've spent so much time dedicating myself to photography, origami and other things this year I seem to have forgotten my poor old blog, which was really the impetus for many of these things.  It was the turning point in my online social presence.

I'm enjoying the social atmosphere on Flickr, though like some other people I've come across, I sometimes yearn for constructive criticism to help me out.  People are so nice.  I do understand though, I'm one of the nice ones. Unless you know someone personally or something 'REALLY' stands out, its hard to say, "wellll, I feel that you've oversharpened just a little and could have whitened that area up a touch"..because who am I to judge? I'm self taught, I don't follow all the rules and my images are very mediocre.  Its all personal opinion really, thats all it ever is unless you're a professional...and even then I assume part of what they say when they're passing opinion is personal mixed in with technical knowledge.

Even after saying all that, I really have learnt a lot already and its only something like, day 069/366 (because thats how I think now that I'm participating in a photo a day challenge) :) And people still find ways sometimes of saying things that make you re-think an image or when you look at what others have done you think, WOW, I should try 'new' angles sometimes as opposed to the regular or not be so consumed with shallow depth of field...which I CANNOT get enough of :)

This image was taken for one of the challenges I'm participating in but I've now started up an NQR or Not Quite Right set in Flickr.  They're images that I processed, took for a challenge but one of the other images won out in the end by a whisker. I took this image after seeing other people highlighting elements of an image, using rule of thirds and as I mentioned previously, I LOVE BOKEH! 

So, with hopes that I'm not away for so long next time and that perhaps with a long weekend looming in Australia, I'll be able to get this blog up to date with some of my images :))
Please take a look at my Flickr account if you're interested to see everything as not everything will be posted here.

Cheers

xx

All Natural - Wk 1 005/366

http://catchingthelightandthemoment.blogspot.com.au/p/lets-do-52.html

All Natural - Wk 1 005/366, a photo by fionamahomed on Flickr.

Well, I'm a littttllle bit behind on my posting both for the blog and even for my images. I need to catch up.
Thought I'd do this one as a trial and see if I could load through Flickr to get my back up to speed.
N., my dad, my brother and I went to the Den of Nargun, a beautiful place of Indigenous significance in East Gippsland. So much to see and this gorgeous spider (which we later watched catching a moth and spinning him into the web) was one of them.

And because I can't move this post to where it should be, then I've created a link :(

Meeting the Challenge...

Today marks day 2 of the new year and day 2 of my challenges.  We'll see how I'm going on day 16 or more!
So far the only daily challenge I have is my reading challenge/s (which haven't completely been confirmed yet) and my Origami challenge.  This one seems to be turning into a photo a day as well, but its only day two.  I can see potential is all.

This evening I submitted my photos for the two '52 week' challenges I'm participating in.  Let's Do 52 with Paint the Moon and Friday Photo 2012 both on Flickr.  I need to either submit these with space between or find a better way to post them, but for now, the photos are below.

I also seem to be having trouble still with putting my Flickr images in this blog so will have to manually insert. Once I have it ironed out I'll paste the link :)

Infinity - Beginnings - FP2012

Love - Beginnings - FP2012

002 - Penguin - Origami-A-Day

Challenges - FP2012 and Let's Do 52

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to you and your family and hope your 2012 is a safe, memorable and blessed one.

I’ve made a couple of resolutions this year, my first time ever making resolutions.  I’ve always thought them a little silly and why wouldn’t you just change things or do new things when you want to??  Despite my best efforts and despite that fact that New Year’s Eve is often an odd time for me I am constantly ‘romanced’ by the newness of New Years Eve and the ‘romance’ of the thought of a brand new year about to begin full of promise, full of mystery and full of a second chance if you will.

This year has been no different with a very full and BIG 2011 I felt I needed to make some resolutions, although they’re more like challenges to help me get through.  My challenges are all about getting the most out of my year and living it to the full, participating rather than sitting back watching and complaining rather than what I see some ‘resolutions’ being about, changing yourself and trying to be a better person.  I try to be a better person all the time, I try to be a better version of myself, especially after I’ve done something that isn’t the best me.

So…this year I’m fully engaged with my two blogs, although if I was really smart I’d have just created one and I’ll probably end up merging them.  I know I should have created pages but I’m an indecisive sort of person and I like the two things I’ve started, I like the different look of each of the blogs and I wasn’t sure how it would work, considering one is fairly focussed on my reading challenges, love of books etc and this one is dedicated to my journey with photography.  They’ll merge, I know they will and this post will probably be on both of them 

The remainder of my challenges are below…stick around and see how I go with them.

•  participate in a reading challenge
• be more social on twitter and good reads/library thing [links to the right  ]
• participate in a photography challenge [or two, i've signed up for two and seem to have created a new photo a day for myself, well it hasn't happened yet but I see it happening and think it will be cool!]
• complete a unit of my study…if i don’t finish soon it will deflate me!
• complete my origami calendar

I know there are a lot, and boy it will be a big year of challenges and doing and participating! The challenges will require me to participate and be social and put myself out there.

So, if you’re doing any challenges or creating resolutions, I hope you do well and would love to hear about them.  I’ll of course post updates to these on here.  Again, wishing I only had the one blog, but I sooo love the names of my blogs…I can decide later, right? I don’t have a following so maybe thats what I’ll need to do.

January 1 2012 - Dove