Soul searching with the angriest man in Brooklyn

I'm sat on a 8 hour plane journey pondering what life currently holds. I'm going to St Lucia! Never have I felt that I needed a holiday as much as this. To sit and do nothing for a while and turn off.

I changed job a few months ago. I'm now a project manager. And I feel like I haven't stopped thinking. And I've gained 3 more grey hairs.... I went to Japan for work for 2 weeks, Germany more times than I can count right now and lost a friend, who was taken too early. 

Although this is a holiday...it's also to attend another photography workshop with Joe McNally. This time more advanced to learn about lighting and using it! Can't wait to learn more from who I think is the most awesome photographer around, but to see the beach. A proper beach with Caribbean sun and idealistic surroundings...Not Bournemouth, which is the last beach I went to! 

Anyway so I look through the films on the plane and sit reading each review before take off.... It passed the time! And I noticed Robin Williams name on a film I hadn't heard of. Then realised actually I had... It's the last film he made. The angriest man in Brooklyn, about an unhappy man who finds out he has 90 minutes to live. I haven't been able to watch any Robin Williams film recently because it makes me sad. I'm angry that such a respected man went through such a rough time. I can feel his pain. And I wish he had just stopped and realised what he was doing and what effect he would have on so many people, with the positive influence he spread which he couldn't find within himself. 

This film made me think.... Yes, even more than normal! But more about him than anything. He was pretty tough to be able to act that film, when inside he was torn apart. If only he could have seen the outcome. One of his lines from the film was "If I die this year, my headstone will say 19XX - 2014. The dash in the middle of that is the most important thing". So true Robin... 

It's a good film though, for people who think too much like I do. I also found out who Mila Kunis was. Intriguingly beautiful girl that!

So... I intend to get to St lucia in a few hours and sit on the beach and do absolutely nothing. I have 2.5 days to myself before the workshop starts so I think I need to do a bit of soul searching in that time! Step back and realise what's important and what isn't and prevent anymore grey hairs :) 

5 years of Photography

Have you ever been so in awe of someones work that it affects you emotionally?

I heard a quote last week which was:

"When you see someones photograph and it inspires you and affects you emotionally, you change..."

These words resonated with me massively. They were said in a classroom by Joe McNally, a photographer that astounds me. I had no experience of that feeling until I attended a weeks workshop with this photographer in Vienna/Prague.
5 years ago, a link was sent to me showing me this photographers website. I was instantly inspired and wanted to get out take photographs with my old 2nd hand Nikon D70. I looked up his workshops which were based in NYC but the 28 year old me couldn't justify the cost, and I've never been good at saving money so it would take me ages to save up and get out there... Instead I would have to take courses in the UK held by unknown photographers and learn by myself... So i spent the next 5 years with a camera in my hand. Taking pictures of friends, friends kids', parties, events, objects in my room, anything I could.
Constantly frustrated that I can see amazing photographs in my mind, but when it comes to transferring that through my camera, it never turns out the way I want it to.

One night, after photographing a friends hen do, my little old D70 got knocked to the floor, smashing the LCD and causing a CF error... Nikon quoted about £300 to fix it... That's more than the camera itself... Luckily my friend happened to be selling his D300 so I snapped that up so that I could continue taking photos.
A few years ago, I changed job which meant I was now travelling the world with work. I say travelling, but it was more work than travel. I didn't get to see much of the countries, of which I would have liked. Other cultures, dress, language, people, fascinate me. But unfortunately, all I saw was my aeroplane seat, a hotel room and a garage with a bunch of mechanics. It didn't matter what country we were in, the set up was the same each time. We could have been in the most amazing place, but my view was still of cars, white garage walls and not often enough, the backs of my eyelids.
This put a hasty stop on my photography. I bought a Nikon J1 for portability and so that I could occasionally take some snaps of a cool restaurant, food, my hotel room or a Chinese backdoor market or  cowboy boot store that I may have been visiting that week.

In the middle of 2013, my job changed again where I could be in one place and have time to do my own thing again. The D300 came out of the dust and the J1 is now in its place.
I've spent the last year trying to get back into taking photographs, trying to decide how I can turn my job into something I would love to wake up and do each day, to live out my passions rather than have to wait for weekends to shoot in my garden, the park or 1000miles around France looking for interesting places.

I got into derelict photography. Finding derelict buildings, which look like someone has walked out of their house some day in 1950 to go to work, never to return. This amazes me. How a house or a building can be left with all its contents for so long. It's great for me, I find it fascinating. But I wander around these places imagining what it must have been like, dreaming up scenes and images of how I imagined it looked like.  As always, never being able to capture the shot that I can see in my head.

At the beginning of the year my friend asked if I wanted to go to the Photography Show at Birmingham NEC. Yes! Sounded cool. So we bought tickets. Looking into the line up, I saw a name I recognised. A talk with Joe McNally. "Hey, thats the amazing photographer I'd heard of 5 years ago". I had to go.
This is the day that all hell broke loose in my head.

Listening to Joe speak about his photographs was not only inspiring but I was amazed at how what this guy was doing, is exactly what I wanted to be doing. I don't want to set up a website with my photos from parties and weddings and promote myself as a Pro photographer. I want to do something different. People have often said "so, what photography do you want to go into?" and I haven't been able to answer, except to say; "Well, I haven't got an answer. I like to turn boring things into something interesting. I guess thats not a market..."And Joe answered this for me. He is a generalist. He takes on anything without a question. Just goes and does it. Gets given an assignment and shoots the most creative and inspirational photos from something that could otherwise be seen as normal.

After the workshop, I sat looking at his website again and noticed that "Workshops" section again. Hesitantly I clicked it, hoping there'd be a workshop I could attend. Maybe a one day course in lighting or something in London? I might be able to scrape my pennies together and go on that? Damn, there was one of these, but it had completed last week. I'd missed it. No more UK workshops on the schedule. Then I noticed Vienna and Prague... Well, that isn't too far away.... I e-mailed the organiser, Liza, who was a lovely friendly animated character by e-mail. She replied saying that she had had 1 person drop out, so they luckily had 1 space free... Uh oh... What to do now...
The price of the course was a lot higher than what I am used to paying for, but this was Joe McNally. I wasn't paying some random so-called pro photographer to show me how to take photographs, that sometimes I'd thought I could take better myself...
After a day of thinking and trying to talk myself out of it because I couldn't afford it, and somehow I had mailed back and said "How do I sign up?", paid the money and booked the flights.

And the next thing I knew I was on a plane to Vienna...

Where is time going?

It's April... 2014... I have no idea where the last 4 months has gone... I have been keeping myself so busy, I haven't noticed life whizzing past me at the speed of light.
I don't think I have recovered from the pressure you are under when racing. I don't know how to relax. To just stop still and do nothing. I get antsy and get up and do something, even though I feel like I don't have the energy to. I need to learn how to stop still...

A lot has been going on. Since December, I have been in a play at the local theatre. First time i've been on a stage and had to say lines. In fact, i've been in two. One was a radio recording called Downcast Abbey, which we recorded on stage in front of an audience. The 2nd was a play called 84 Charing Cross Road, based on a book by Helene Hanff.

I guess I like to be challenged. I do stupid things that scare me. We spent a few months rehearsing for 84, and rehearsals were fine. Although i had a tough job learning lines. In the midst of that we had 1 rehearsal for Downcast Abbey. I was totally fine with it... until 30 seconds before the curtains opened, when my legs went to jelly and I wanted to run off stage, never to set foot on a stage again. I got through it, but this scared me even more for the upcoming play... I had far more lines in 84 and we had to remember movement as well as lines... I was so scared of being so rubbish and disappointing my fellow thespians.
Anyhoo, got through that one as well. And I can now say I have been in a play :) As for whether I'll do it again... I might stick to photographing them instead of being in them...

On to photos... I had to go to Germany for work a few weeks ago. As I was already there, I decided to take a few extra days and go and explore Berlin to take photos and see the history. Berlin is an awesome place.  I don't think I have ever walked so much. I tried to fit as many sights as I could into 2 days. Managed a fair few! :)

I am currently in Prague, where I've just been on a week long photography workshop which started off in Vienna. It is the best thing I have ever done. It was also taken by my favourite photographer, Joe McNally. His work astounds me. I first heard of him when I first got into photography about 5 years ago, when I took a few photos here and there. I remember looking at his workshops back then, wishing I could afford to go one in the States... The time finally came... more on that in my next blog.

Right now, I am absolutely shattered.. time to go to sleep so I can get on a plane tomorrow and get home, learn how to chill out for 5 minutes and then get back on it again!

Crisis over!

I have completed my shifts at Crisis for this year. I only did 3 but it was a great insight into another world. I intend to do it again next year.

I met some lovely people...I didn't expect to feel quite so sad to leave these guys, knowing I have a home to go to and they don't.

We did some more karaoke yesterday. We had a young volunteer with an amazing voice who started it up and a few of the guests came to join in. Even if they didn't know the song their improvisation skills were awesome! 

I wrote out some certificates for everyone who participated over the days I was there and I did not expect the response I got. I was expecting people to say "what's this? I don't want this rubbish"... But instead they treated their certificates like I'd given them gold. I did also give them gold coins, but they were unfortunately only chocolate! They were so proud to receive them. A few of them said they'd never received anything like it before and they were so happy. Another went round telling the others to get a plastic folder to put them in so they could keep it forever and show all their friends. I'm touched that a piece of paper could put such big smiles on their faces. I wrote them all personal messages on their certificates so I hope they take notice of what I said and realise they are amazing and can achieve anything they want. If they want to....

I was amazed to see how well our debate class, creative writing and drama lesson went. There's so much talent amongst these people. They just need to build some confidence to show it. One of the girls gave out a notebook as a prize for creative writing. The receiver treasured it and showed us the next day how proud he was of his new book and had already written poems into it. He says he is going to write his life story and experiences in it. I'd love to read that. 

I spoke to a lovely bubbly girl who was brought up just near me. She refused to ask for help. She thinks the government won't help her and she shouldn't get benefits. She sees the people around her on drugs and thinks they get all the help and is too scared to be housed as in the past it's only brought bad experiencesand she doesn't want to be led on the wrong path. She was so paranoid about everything. I guess living with a constant eye open makes you like that. Considering she said all this, you'd have never have guessed. She was a beautiful bubbly girl who I bet could achieve so much. 

I felt angry that she was such a lovely girl but wasn't getting any help, so I persuaded her to come with me to the advice office and get some help. Even if it was only for a little while, so she could fulfill her dream of getting a boat with her boyfriend. I hope they helped her somehow...and I hope this time next year the two of them are living happily on the river :) 

Some stories shocked me. I see so many people on benefits, with kids, buying xboxes, crack, wasting money, yet most of the people I spoke to who actually want to try, get nothing. I wish I understood how our government works. 

Saying goodbye was pretty hard. My usual act would be to avoid it and slip away silently. But this time I found each and every guest I'd talked to a lot and said goodbye and wished them well. It was so hard knowing they were all going to have to leave the next day and have nowhere to go... 

One told me it wasn't goodbye because he knew he was going to see me again someday. He was my karaoke king and resident DJ. He was awesome. 

I hope I do see them again... But I hope it's because we will be working together at Crisis next year. 

My mindset has changed. 

Who cares if I'm not perfect...I try... Although it's never good enough, maybe it is... 

I feel more confident. Why shouldn't I strike up conversation with random people and be myself. What is it about myself that I have to hide away... I'm me... I need to start realising who I am...

I'm sitting in Starbucks at Waterloo, writing this.... And I noticed a little girl watching me for a long time so I said hi. 5 mins later I had 2 little girls crowding me, asking me what I'm doing, where I'm going... 

I think their father was quite embarrassed.

I've never had that before. 

Told me her favourite Xmas present was toothpaste.... Random

Chris, David, Melvin, Nuala, Jay, Jess, Rob, Taylor, Isa and many others....I hope someday you read this or I see you again so that I can tell you all that you also helped me... Xx 

What a crisis!

It's Christmas... A time for giving and eating... In my eyes. I've eaten too much over the last year so I decided not to sit on my ass and stuff my face but to go and do something useful. 

So at 6:30am on Xmas morning I got in my car and drove to London Bridge to start my day as Entertainment Organiser for Crisis at Christmas. A centre for the homeless which opens all over London over the Xmas period. My friend told me about it a few years ago and I've wanted to take part for a while... I just never gave up my stuffing, sausage meat and gravy...until now.

So I arrived at the centre, completely out of my comfort zone, worried about what I'd volunteered to do. I'm not exactly the most confident of people...so facing a load of new people and having to entertain people who don't have homes to go to... How do I do that?!!! With my scintillating conversation and outgoing bubbly personality...ermmm I think not. 

One of the reasons I wanted to do this is because of the above. Challenging myself to do something I'm not comfortable with is only going to help me.... So being forced to randomly talk to people I'd never thought to talk to before, striking up conversations with people from all walks of life was challenging but a great eye opener. 

So....my first hour consisted of being daunted. If that's not a real word, it is now. Taking in what was going on around me.... People hanging around, watching TV, sitting, pondering, staring, talking.... I stood on the sideline for a bit and watched. My thoughts were "how am I going to entertain these people".... I had no idea what so ever. But hang on, before that, I'm going to have to engage with them to get them to come with me to be entertained... That means going over and speaking...about what... Totally out of my comfort zone .... Totally. 

Thankfully there was another volunteer who knew what she was doing. She told me how things work there and I realised I've got to stop sitting on the sideline and do something... So I started making posters to show what activities we had planned for the day. A volunteer singer/guitarist, Bingo, Jewellery making and Karaoke. Sitting making the posters a few passers by stopped to see what we were doing. "Are you creative? Come and help me!" I said, and from then on my comfort zone barrier slipped away as guests helped to make posters and chatted. These people may be homeless but why am I so intimidated. They are a human being just like me. No different. I realised, although I don't judge, I was intimidated by people, stereotyping homeless, to what I've experienced before. Usually drunk people hanging around in groups, sometimes shouting out. But so what. Everyone has a right to express their opinion. It may not be right but who cares. As long as you're not hurting someone. You know what, today on my 2nd shift. I was one of the group. I sat outside in a circle with 5 homeless guests, chatting...and realised, I'm sitting in a group that I was once intimidated by. I imagined seeing myself if I walked past, in that situation. I never thought I would see that. My stereotype or rather my intimidation was wrong. I sat with 5 others today, having a laugh, finding out about the past and present, arranging to do karaoke together...just like anyone else would. What a strange situation to find myself in. I got nicknamed "eyes" because I have 'Chinese' eyes and got hugged for chatting and having normal conversation. 

I can't really describe my thoughts right now as it's still processing. Once I've finished my shifts I'll try to put my thoughts into words...

The rest of the days went on with organising activities/entertainment for the guests. In the food area, we started karaoke. The guests watched us dubiously at first. And there's me, who won't sing in front of anyone, draw attention to myself at any cost...singing and dancing to try to get the guys up with us. 

A few of the guys edged toward us, sitting in front of us singing quietly under their breaths. So I handed them the mic... "Nooooo" they protested. Clutching the mics, 10 mins later their lovely voices got louder. 20 mins later they were standing up. 30 mins later we had 4 guests singing and dancing. It was so lovely to see smiles on their faces, enjoying themselves. I stepped away at one point and watched from afar. My thoughts were lost with emotion. I wish I could do something to give these guys better lives. To have a home to go to and make something of their lives. Which I, and they, know they can. 

I made my karaoke star an origami balloon today with "X the Karaoke king" written on it. I was happy to see he sat with it in front of him for most of the day :) Tomorrow I'm going to find him for a duet of Angels.

I'm tired now... I have one more shift tomorrow and although at times I've been dubious about going to Crisis, I'll miss seeing some of the great people I've met. I'd love to know how they all get on and hope Crisis helped them to see that they are amazing people just like everyone else and they CAN do anything they want....

I'll write more when my last shifts done... Hopefully before my next shift next Xmas :) 

Fulfilling a light dream

I've been trawling the internet for weeks looking for where to go on holiday next. A hot country? An interesting city? Visit Santa? And I finally decided to check off one on my travel list and decided on Iceland. I searched Reyjavik high and low for a good deal in which I wouldn't end up in a cheap b&b (when I say cheap, I guess I mean tacky...as nothing's cheap in Iceland) with a nightclub in the basement and tourists flooding the place. 

I kept searching and kept losing patience at how many options there were. I decided to ring the company who sorted out my Burma flights who have the most exceptional service I've ever experienced from a travel company. It's Dial-A-Flight, by the way. 

They suggested a holiday to a place in the middle of nowhere in South Iceland. Specifically for Northern lights, which is why I want to go Iceland. 

The hotel has outdoor hot tubs and surrounded by lakes, mountains and glaciers. It looks amazing. Although the price deterred me a bit...you only live once! 

I just hope I actually manage to capture some northern lights. Watching them from a hot tub sounds pretty amazing to me! And hopefully I can make some snow angels and snowmen too :) 

It's been weird not travelling this year. I can't say I miss it.... But I do miss visiting random places I've never been to before. Working in an office environment, although not quite the normal office, is quite a change. I have to sit still for long periods of time! Not easy for someone like me... I've been used to bounding around the world, constantly being busy and physically active. 

Now I eat cake and play with servers. 

Anyway I am too excited about going away again in December. I can't wait. It always excites me to go to a new place and I usually look for the unusual. I am still searching the net for random things that can be done while in Iceland. I have 5 days to fit as much chilling, light searching and snow playing in :) 

Bring on December! 

An inspirational star

A few weeks ago I got an email from my local cinema - one that has sofas and wine coolers and you can order food to your sofa. It's amazing! Recommend it if you have one near you - Everyman cinemas. Anyway before I go off on a tangent.... The email was an advert for a preview for a new film called Hawking. I had no idea what it was and saw that the evening also included a Q&A with a Professor Hawking. Professor Stephen Hawking. 

At school, science for me consisted of going to classes and playing with bunsen burners and chemicals and generally not paying much attention. I'm not a sciency maths person... I'm an English, art, PE person. Anyway, when I saw this I had to go. The story of a man who talks through a computer. That's pretty much all I knew about him. 

The film started and we were shown the life of Professor Hawking. Afterwards a satellite Q&A hosted by that annoying dude who hosts edgy documentaries and used to do the news. 

He annoyed me as when Mary Hawking was up to talk, he'd ask her questions and without giving her time to answer would interrupt and carry on talking. We're not here to listen to you host man...

Then the ultimate fail... Stephen Hawkings turn to be on stage came and it was like they didn't know he was coming. He was sat about 2 feet left from the host the entire time, but he was asked to go around the stage to the other side and they struggled for about 10 minutes trying to squeeze Stephen along the front and onto the stage. At which point I tweeted the host saying "can you not just turn your chair around and go to Stephen?!!" He sat and watched all this going on like a helpless character. It was an embarrassing scene. 

Anyway, my thoughts have been immersed by what I saw last night. I am totally amazed at the strength and character of this 71 year old man, who was told he had 2 years to live at the age of 20. 

He is a true inspiration. His voice is heard by him moving a muscle in his cheek to select letters and words on the screen which is then read out by the computer. He does this at a rate of 1 word every 3 seconds. Can you imagine having to do that? It takes me 3 seconds to think of a word sometimes! 

He has achieved so much in his life so far, despite having an awful illness. If I were in his shoes, I feel I would have given up. Having this enormous brain trapped in a slowly deteriorating body to the point now where only a few muscles remain working. 

It makes me ashamed of how i have acted sometimes. I have been in a place before where I didn't know how to carry on with life anymore. Compared to this amazing man, I'm ashamed to have even had those thoughts. He has inspired me to find determination and overcome anything. 

Not only is Professor Hawking an intelligent man who discovered the black hole theory and lots of other universy things that are way beyond my brain capacity, his humour and wittiness shows through and his personality can be seen through his eyes and expression. It saddens me that such a man has had to suffer this disability, but his attitude is inspiring.

I hope he lives a long time and continues to inspire other people and I hope things can be developed in order to make his life easier. I also hope he fulfils his dream of getting to space. 

"We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet"

Stephen Hawking