time flieth

I have been very absent, but very present at the same time. 

Since the last post (Vancouver, last summer), I have travelled to Nice, and Ventimiglia (I have a decades-old soft spot for Ventimiglia)...

and we spent several weeks in Thailand...

one week of which with twelve of the loveliest, HAPPIEST elephants ever... 

and then: Laos, which I will never forget...

and, last week, Andalucía. It was a short, spur-of-the-moment visit. And wondrous.

Which all goes to say: I am here, but happily scarce. There is such a world out there.

lovely treachery

After 6+ years of shooting only film, I succumbed.

I travel too much - and too light - to weigh myself down with one or more of my analog cameras; my favourite "proper" cameras are always the heavy ones. And I always fret about the film in tropical climates. And my scanners are ailing.

I asked a few of my treasured contacts for their opinions. I wandered through my Flickr favourites. (I have avoided Flickr otherwise, but that's another story altogether.) And this OM-D E-M5 was the conclusion I arrived at.

I wanted true colours and I wanted as sublime a DOF rendition as I could get. I got both, and was lucky to find one second-hand. With the 45mm lens: a jewel.

I feel like a traitor, but a happy traitor despite.

when the saints

Spring is in the air.
Hallelujah.

a tenth of a century

A year ago today, my husband and I were battling jet-lag after a joyous month rambling around beautiful Cambodia.

Ten years ago today, I posted my first pictures and words here, in this place that has been so important to me.

{A decade: imagine.}

I appreciate you times ten.

in with the new

I could not leave 2012 without giving that solitary post a bit of companionship, and without wishing the few people who have not given up on me a very very happy 2013!

same old rice

"The colour of my soul is iron-grey and sad bats wheel about the steeple of my dreams."
- Claude Debussy (French composer, 1862-1918)

Well. Not quite. But getting used to the grey, the chill, the detached quiet is taking me longer than it usually does.
I miss Cambodia.

and nothing there but delights

we were very taken with the formal gardens at wolterton hall; they had a quiet, unassuming grandness, a shy splendour, a joyous symmetry. passing through the
outer doorway and catching a first glimpse of their fineness felt rather like discovering hidden treasure.

and the hall itself? well, we got stuck in the compulsory tour, and photography wasn't exactly encouraged, but there was beauty within the walls, too.

best foot forward

were i to take myself a bit too seriously, i might refer to this serendipitous pink as a decisive moment, but really, it was simply very good luck.

triple dip

there is a bicycle at the top of the dune: smile number one.
the bicycle is red: smile number two. because red rocks.
the tide, on the other side of the dune, is high and rising: smile number three.

a hat trick. my day is made.

at long last

it has taken me a few years - the havoc wreaked by the hack and the lack of backup
seemed insurmountable - but i have spent the last three days giving here some first aid and some much-needed tlc.
some happened-upon old back-ups turned out to contain many of the first photographs,
so i finally reinstated almost all of the early pictures (save a dozen that are probably
lost forever). the anxiety that overcame me at the mere thought of all the empty
images has lifted.
this feels like home again.
and i tackled the spam comments (that's 778 on one entry) that had me so frustrated that i couldn't even face moderating any more.
*
thank you for sticking with me.
i am grateful. and happy.

o hark, o hear

travel is discovery, and travel is rediscovery, and both touch deep.

i have photographed this cliffside house at happisburgh before, but every encounter
sees it sadly closer to its tumble into the sea.

hip, hip...

hooray, for me, today, even though i stopped celebrating my birthday a few years ago, when i stopped counting the fleeting years.

above, the vaulted sky

it's time to get this show back on the road.

or, at least, it's time to try.

the world's a forest

when we travel, we wander a lot, absorbing local sights, and sounds, and smells.
every now and then, though, something needs to be accomplished, and that something, this particular day in singapore, was the purchase of bus tickets to melaka.

we got lost, of course, and - in a side street - happened upon this.
staying on path can be so overrated.

the rising of the morn

"Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark."

- Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Poet, Playwright and Essayist, 1861-1941)

we thought they'd never end

I took ballet lessons as a wee pony-tailed-spindly-legged lass, and, when my hour was over, I pirouetted myself downstairs to Lattimer's Drugstore and perched myself on a stool till my Mum or my Dad picked me up to take me home. I was given 35 cents to buy a soda or a sundae while I waited, and I remember spinning, alone, to the hiss of the fountain, in my leotard and my ballerinas, on scarlet leatherette, and feeling very Grown Up indeed.
I thought of this, decades later, in Penang, when I saw these fluted coupes: my mind jeté'd back to then, when "chocolate" or "butterscotch" was pretty much the most important decision I had to make.

so, so semiprecious

I've almost finished writing tripadvisor reviews of all the guest houses and hotels we stayed at during our month away. Only two remain: this one

(the beautiful Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion in Georgetown/Penang), and our final-night splurge, the fabulous Pan Pacific in Singapore...which still, in all its glory - and with a buffet breakfast the sumptuous likes of which I have never seen - cost less than a mediocre 3* hotel in Amsterdam on a weekend night.

Yes, I'm still in a nostalgic state of mind, and this is still Southeast Asia. Hey, it's still Penang, even. Bear with me.

een lentesymphonietje

Sophie is so beautiful that all the pictures taken that afternoon at Schiphol are stunning.*

I just know, though, that she is going to see them and sigh, and drat that errant lock of hair and that ever-so-slightly crooked necklace.

The young lady is a perfectionist; I hope they please her despite.

*well, except for the ones shot on Retro 80s: I optimistically loaded the GW with it and then the day turned very dim, and then I neglected to slow the shutter speed down, so those are a wee.bit.underexposed..

i guess that's why they call it

The Cameron Highlands is a kind of Malaysian Escape to the Country : temperate climates, stunning panoramas, and decidedly non-tropical vegetation, like roses, and strawberries, and tea.

And morning glories.

stilted redux

The Clan Jetties in Penang reminded me very much of Tai O on Lantau Island (HK) - much smaller, of course, and more urban - but reaching the latter involved the kind of bus ride that gives me nightmares for months, and reaching the former involved a leisurely morning stroll through irresistible Georgetown.