January 1st, 2017

1/365

אהבה

In Hebrew, אהבה (read from right to left), pronounced ahava, means love. אני אוהבת אותך, pronounced ani ohevet otcha, means I love you, from a female to a male.

January 2nd, 2017

2/365

Satin and Ribbon

It has been something like four years since I have done any pointe work due to problems with my ankles and toes, but clearly, I am insane as I have told myself that this year I am going to work on getting my pointe work up to scratch for the performance in May.

January 3rd, 2017

3/365

Old Flames

I wrote out a load of pages of Alice in Wonderland in Italian and then set fire to them. I think I had a little too much fun with the burning... 

January 4th, 2017

4/365

Wilted

A bouquet of dead, wilted roses that really need disposing of, but I did not want to get rid of them until I had photographed them.

January 5th, 2017

5/365

Pop of Colour

One of the many mugs of coloured pens that I have sat on my desk. 

January 6th, 2017

6/365

Oh, Buttons, if only I could go to the ball...

A rummage through mum's button tin. I do not think I have a single relative whose house does not contain at least one tin of buttons. Tins of buttons are so satisfying.

January 7th, 2017

7/365

Musical Notes

My flute sat on top of one of my favourite music books. It is Time Pieces for Flute Volume 1, and the piece that the flute is covering is Brother Come and Dance With Me, by Humperdinck, which I played for one of my exams a few years ago now, and even though I can play much more complex things now, I love to go back to the short, simple pieces now and then

January 8th, 2017

8/365

Towards the Light

Light painting with Christmas lights. It was supposed to be a self-portrait, but I did not like any of the ones with my face it them. 

January 9th, 2017

9/365

A Game of Cards

January 10th, 2017

10/365

A Book is a Dream We Hold in Our Hands - Neil Gaiman

I do not know if I like this or not, but after a long day, it is the best I have managed. What I really want now is to sit down and read, without having to think about tomorrow, only the characters on the page. Coincidently, this resembles closely what the world looks like without my glasses.

The book is Alice Through the Looking Glass.

January 11th, 2017

11/365

Pen and Paper

Today has not been a great day. I am tired, and I got home late, and I have no motivation to do anything today. This did not turn out how I wanted it to, but I do not know how I actually wanted it to turn out. 

January 12th, 2017

12/365

Minolta 7000

Wow. I am uploading this at quarter to 11. Another shattering day again today. I do not think I have any energy left today. 

The camera. It is a Minolta 7000 with a 35mm prime lens. There are other lenses too, but this is my favourite. 

It used to be my dad's, and now it is mine, and I love it. I only wish I got more opportunities to use it. 

And yes, I realise the lens hood is on backwards - I am exhausted, I was physically too tired to take the lens hood off, for most of them I had not even taken the lens cap off, it was only this one.

January 13th, 2017

13/365

Bundle Up

We had snow today! A full two hours, and it was coming down quite heavy at points. But the ground was wet and the temperature was warm, and even though it settled on the grass and on the roofs, it had melted within a couple of hours. But that was enough to get me really excited. I love snow, and we have had none for the past 3 years, and I have been waiting and waiting, and when they predicted snow the other day I got very, very excited. Although we did not have the three inches of settled snow that was predicted, we are predicted more on Sunday. It was exciting. And so today's picture is of my hat and one of my sweaters. All my lovely warm, woollen clothing. 

January 14th, 2017

14/365

A Whole Rainbow of Colour

Cheerful coloured pencils to match my cheerful (yet tired) mood. 

January 15th, 2017

15/365

A Technological World

We live in a technological world. A world that I sometimes do not understand, and a world that both isolates us and brings us out of our shells. It promotes instant gratification, and yet it tests our patience at times. 

January 16th, 2017

16/365

Cheers

We have made it through just over 4% of the year. Not much, really, in the long run, but it is half a month. 

I have absolutely no idea why I took a photo of a champagne flute being lit up by candles. I was originally going to do the flame of a lighter, but I did not like the fact that my thumbs and fingers are chubby and looked even more so at the angle I took the photo at. I remembered an article from somewhere about photographing candles and using glasses for interesting reflections, and I know that our champagne flutes have interesting facets and thought it would make for an interesting picture. 

I cannot discern a distinct focal point, but I almost like it that way.

January 17th, 2017

17/365

221B

I have just realised that this should be August 9th's photo. Oh, well, I shall have to do something else for that. 

My copy of the London A-Z and an old pair of my glasses. I had tried the first ones with my current glasses, but I am practically blind without them and could not see through the viewfinder, so even with autofocus I did not know where I was actually focusing. I wonder if I had used manual where the focus would have been. 

For those not closely acquainted with London (or Sherlock Holmes), 221B Baker Street is the address of the fictional private detective Sherlock Holmes, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. There have been many incarnations of Sherlock Holmes, one of the most recent (and the one I was watching as I took this photo) is the BBC series Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch. Fun fact; Benedict Cumberbatch has heterochromia, a condition leading to his eyes being different colours. 
I am a treasure trove of trivia. 

January 18th, 

18/365

Alice

Any guess on my favourite book? This pile is barely a quarter of my collection of copies of Alice in Wonderland.

I swear I took more than 4 photos when I took this, but when I downloaded them off the camera, it said I had only taken four. I was certain I had taken at least nine. 
Hmmm. I am going to have to look into that. Not tonight though... I am too tired. If it is a problem with the camera, I am going to have to find the money for a new camera, which I need anyway, but... I think that in itself is going to take a lot of time...

January 19th, 2017

19/365

Self Depreciation

I am in a rather cynical, rather pessimistic ("not so much glass half empty as glass smashed on the floor" outlook, as my chemistry teacher said today) mood, and I am really, really exhausted. I have hardly stopped until now, as I sit and type this. 

On a slightly more positive note, or negative, depending upon how one looks upon it, I got a new hard drive today (curiously enough, nowhere on the box does the word hard drive appear) because I ran out of storage with yesterday's photos. That is a disaster, as I always download my photos onto my dad's Windows machine (not that I condone the use of Windows, I really, really do not) because, although the Windows Photos app is absolutely useless, it works marginally better than the iOS Photos app (I detest the app, and my Mac will only download photos to that, even though I have tried many, many different things) and then I copy them onto a memory stick or hard drive, which is then connected to my Mac for post processing and uploading. It is complicated and takes me about half an hour, but I have a routine now and it works for my technologically incompetent brain. I now have a terabyte of storage, making me very, very happy indeed, since I got through 16GB of storage since the beginning of January. 

I realise I have said absolutely nothing about the photo. It is my typewriter, and I love it to bits - I type things like a journal of major events throughout the year (it has had a lot of use last year, what with all of the deaths and political...dilemmas) and other things that need to be recorded and I can spend my time with. 

The quote is from the book 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' by Stephen Chbosky, an amazing book (the film was not so great, but okay), not on the level of Alice in Wonderland, but still really, really good. I would recommend reading it if you have not - it is not overly long, I think I read it in about two hours whilst laying in the park on a sunny day a couple of years ago with a friend. 

January 20th, 2017

20/365

I am ill and do not have the energy to photograph anything meaningful. So I photographed a sketch of Alice from the Disney cartoon that I did a while ago whilst planning out a set of Alice in Wonderland themed tea cup, saucer, plate and teapot. 

January 21st, 2017

21/365

After a long day...

We went out for dinner tonight, Mum, Dad and I, and I still had not photographed anything for today, even with all of Dad's "helpful" comments and suggestions throughout the day. I had taken my camera along and started photographing the flowers on our table, and then Dad's glass of San Miguel, before turning the camera on him himself. The lighting in the restaurant is really quite great, and we were more or less the only ones there, allowing us to be as loud as we wanted with our laughter.  

We were discussing our faces, and I said how much I loved his, hated mine and due to the fact that I look so much like Mum, did not like hers either since it reminded me of me (she has known that since I was young and always complained about it). He said that he did not like his own face, but liked mine and Mum's. My argument in favour of his face was that it is the one that I have known since I was a baby. His is the face that would sing to me to get me to sleep, and read me Alice in Wonderland, and tell me bad science jokes and teach me the periodic table and photography. I could not imagine him looking like anyone else. It is a face that I search for in crowds when I am lost, and the face that I search for in car parks and train stations when I am coming home. 

I had forgotten after almost a month of not doing any portraiture just how much I love photographing people. 

After going through all of the photos take of them tonight, both Mum and Dad agreed this was the best. I agreed that it was in my top three.

January 22nd, 2017

22/365

Arts and Crafts

My fingers are so painful right now. I have been folding pipe cleaners into rows of arches about half an inch tall in order to prepare them for making Leaning Towers of Pisa out of postal tubes and pipe cleaners with the local Brownies pack tomorrow. It involves squeezing the wire between two fingers, and I have been doing it for a large proportion of the day.

January 23rd, 2017

23/365

Birds of a Feather

Making Venetian Masks and Leaning Towers of Pisa with the local Brownie pack. Usually, helping there stresses me out, but today, after what has been quite a rough day, with me bursting out in anger even more frequently than usual, it actually calmed me down. 

The past few weeks when I have been able to go along, I have been taking my camera to document for their scrapbook that one of the leaders makes, and I have finally got around to sending the photos to her, but they all seem to love my camera, and have great fun messing about and pulling funny faces. 

January 24th, 2017

24/365

XXIV/CCCLXV

I have had a really good day today, which surprised me as I woke up in a bad mood, expecting the worst. In fact, my day was so good that I completely forgot about today's photo until about half an hour ago. I had gotten the slate out for something else and decided to wipe the shopping list that is normally written on it off and have some fun with the chalk. Only problem was, I had not idea what to write. It is a good thing I had my Roman Numerals drilled into me from an early age, else I would not have had anything to do at all for today. 

January 25th, 2017

25/365

Olive Branch

It has been a long, tiring day. But, to round it all off, making pizza! I swear I could eat a whole jar of olives right now (I have done it before). 

I am not overly happy with the focus on this one. It is focused on the reflection below the central olive and not on the olive itself. 

January 26th, 2017

26/365

It Must be Thursday...

"...Said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer. 'I never could get the hang of Thursdays'."

Dear old Douglas Addams. One of the best books, and a quote recited every Thursday morning. 

Thursdays are such exhausting days. I do not feel like I stop until about half nine, and then I have to get on with any work due in the next day. 

January 27th, 2017

27/265

Life is like a box of chocolates

I have been side tracked from uploading these photos four times this evening, the latest of the side tracking being to make volcanoes out of balsamic vinegar, sodium bicarbonate, citric acid, red powder paint and washing up liquid (trials can be seen on my Instagram, link in my profile). 

Anyway, it has been a long day, and I needed photos of chocolate for a challenge. So I took photos of chocolate - they were birthday presents for my mum.

January 28th, 2017

28/365

Tulle

Rehearsals on pointe today and my toes and ankles are killing me. Too many turns and bourrées in the past two weeks. 
And we got the skirts of our costumes. White tulle. I hate wearing white. I hate tulle (it is not nice for turns and jumps, it gets caught and tangled). I am dreading the white leotard to go with it. I spent the morning complaining about it.

January 29th, 2017

29/365

Primary

The only paint we ever used at primary school was powder paint. I remember one year, a boy in my class was carrying his tray of red, yellow, blue, white and black across the classroom, and he sneezed and the carpet was technicolour for the rest of the year. I went back to visit the school a couple of years ago and there is still the stain from the accident with the powder paint. 

January 30th, 2017

30/365

Paint

I have used the same colours as yesterday, but this time in acrylic paint. I am not exactly happy with this one, but I am getting too tired to care tonight. We shall also ignore the hideous noise seen when zoomed in. 

January 31st, 2017

31/365

Strings

We have made it through a month! One twelfth of a year! Only 334 photos left. 

Shall we have a backstory to the photo? To be honest, there is not really a backstory to it. I have been listening to a lot of guitar music today, John Williams sort of stuff, and so I asked my brother if I could borrow his guitar for my photo. I was quite surprised that he allowed it. He has not had lessons for years, but he still plays it on occasion. I reckon it probably needs tuning, and I know it needs cleaning, but it still makes an okay sound.