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ardysez

~ surrender to yourself

ardysez

Tag Archives: Waterlogue app

supporting my habits

25 Wednesday Nov 2015

Posted by Ardys in 365 Photo Challenge, Creativity, Inspiration

≈ 25 Comments

Tags

365photochallenge, Better than Before, Change, Gretchen Rubin, Habits, self improvement, Waterlogue app

I’m getting to the pointy end of the 365 Photo Challenge. I have passed day 330. Wow. And yet…and yet…success does not seem guaranteed, but probable. I am feeling the pressure of constraints I have put on myself to try and keep improving my photography, and learn, and to maintain a relatively high quality in the photos I use. No lazy snapshots. This is the University of Life.

Most of my photos have been taken around my immediate environment of Alice Springs but also, of course on our travels. Most, I take on my morning walks. Until a couple of weeks ago when it rained, the extreme dry conditions made everything look tired and dusty, and my inspiration languished a little too. The rain was a relief, but things are already dry again, causing me to have to look carefully to find the moments to capture. But this time, the end is in sight.

Landscape on Alice Springs Golf course edited in Waterlogue

Landscape on Alice Springs Golf course edited in Waterlogue

For the first months of this project, I wondered ‘Why is it I have been able to step into this challenge and get so far into it?’ As often happens, a book came into my field of awareness that addresses that very question. A couple of months ago I gave into Better than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives by Gretchen Rubin. Even though I had told myself I was not going to buy any more self improvement books, this one especially piqued my interest. I ‘caved’ and bought it to read on our recent trip. At first I was just curious to discover why it is that at various times in life I have made a decision to do something and then just done it. Other times, not so much. Gretchen is a meticulous researcher and an entertaining, non-fiction writer. She analysed a lot of data about the nature of habits and habit building and presented it in such a way that it could be useful for either building new habits or getting rid of undesirable ones.

I need to add a caveat here. The reason I had decided not to delve into any more self improvement books was that I began to feel ‘flawed’ and needing to be fixed, rather than feeling perfectly imperfect–which was closer to how I wanted to feel about myself. My current mantra is ‘I am enough’. We are exactly as we are supposed to be. And so I read, with curiosity to understand, rather than a purpose filled thirst for changing myself.

Found objects still life

Found objects still life

Rubin introduces the ‘Four Tendencies’, her name for categories most of us fall into with regard to our approach to life in general. The Four Tendencies are: Upholder, Questioner, Obliger and Rebel. I will not go into explaining each, but I did find that I am a Questioner. A Questioner evaluates situations and internalises them to decide if they are something of value to them, and if so, they do it. That pretty much summed up my approach to the Photo Challenge, so I already had the answer to one of my questions soon after I started the book. But there was so much more.

The book further elaborates on other qualities and combinations thereof. Are you a ‘Lark’ or an ‘Owl’ with regard to the time of day you work best? Do you like to immerse yourself in a project and work like crazy for a short period of time, or do you like to take baby steps and achieve over a longer period of time? There are other qualities to think about as well; are you an ‘opener’ or a ‘finisher’, an ‘over-buyer’ or an ‘under-buyer’, and so on. Understanding these things about oneself assists in establishing good habits, or breaking bad ones. But I have found the simple awareness of one’s tendencies to be valuable, even if I do nothing to change them.

So in addition to moving through the 365 Photo Challenge, I have now learned how it is I managed to select something which was intuitively based on my natural predilection toward habit creation. I thought about it, and internalised the reasons I would benefit from doing it. And that was true to my character, so, while difficult at times, it has been, on the whole, achievable. When I started the challenge I said I was looking forward to the ‘adventure’. Perhaps you thought I was intending to jump off a cliff or sail the Pacific so that I could document it with photos. But the adventure to which I refer is the inner one a person experiences when trying something new, and a little out of their comfort zone. I have always thought inner adventure was equally interesting to physical adventures, and often, the two combine.

Here are a few photos from the journey that are among my favourites–I have lots of favourites. You’ll notice quite a few photos that I have edited using an app called Waterlogue. As a former watercolour painter, and because I am a Light Chaser and watercolour painting is mostly about the light, I just can’t resist using it. The key to using these apps that modify the photographic image is to be selective. I try to only use them when it actually improves the image, not to cover up mistakes. No amount of editing will make a bad photograph into a good one. And by the by I have learned, no amount of well-intended decisions will become habits if they are not right for you.

Afternoon rose in winter
Afternoon rose in winter
Salt Bush leaves edited in Waterlogue
Salt Bush leaves edited in Waterlogue
Basket seller at Victoria Markets, Melbourne edited in Waterlogue
Basket seller at Victoria Markets, Melbourne edited in Waterlogue
Eucalyptus flowers in morning sun
Eucalyptus flowers in morning sun
Pear halves, photo edited using Waterlogue
Pear halves, photo edited using Waterlogue
Have you got something for me? Edited in Waterlogue
Have you got something for me? Edited in Waterlogue
Still life of wings and dragonfly dish edited using Snapseed app
Still life of wings and dragonfly dish edited using Snapseed app
Still life of feather and bark using Snapseed and Waterlogue apps
Still life of feather and bark using Snapseed and Waterlogue apps
Photo of beads edited in Waterlogue
Photo of beads edited in Waterlogue

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seeing death with new eyes

18 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by Ardys in Alice Springs, Animals, nature, photography

≈ 27 Comments

Tags

Alice Springs, Australia, death, iphone photography, nature, photography, Waterlogue app

wallaby-skull-desert

(19) skull of a wallaby–circle of life

I see dead things. Please don’t freak out; I’m not going to make you look at anything gruesome… I hope. It’s not that I go looking for them, I just see things on my walks. It seems to me a privilege to live so close to nature that she shares these with me. Fascinating. I remember seeing an early painting by Édouard Manet in a small gallery in Paris. It depicted a dead rabbit, so clearly I’m not the first person to be captivated by this concept. At the time I wondered about his interest in that subject. Now I understand. There is beauty in it. To paint or photograph or draw carcasses, which many artists do to this day, helps us learn. Of course it helps us learn to draw and paint and compose images, but it also teaches us about the life cycle and that death, of course, is a part of it.

hopping-mouse-deceased

Face of deceased hopping mouse.

Our wet spell in early January caused growth in vegetation and fauna that has been both interesting, and highly annoying. Birds have gorged themselves on grasshoppers and insects. Mice have been abundant because the seed and grasses have been abundant, and probably the snakes have adjusted accordingly, though thankfully, I have no visual proof of that!

In this ripened, hot part of summer, one shuts the drapes and blinds in an effort to close out the radiant heat and help the air conditioning cope. Even cloistered inside, the white noise of cicada ‘song’ seeps into my subconscious, and puts me on edge. It seems to underscore the heat and somehow makes the days seem even hotter. Cicadas are dropping from the trees now and their carcasses litter the ground, providing banquets for the gazillion, or so, ants.

golden-drummer-cicada-deceased

Cicada carcass edited using Waterlogue app

(32) deceased galahs as found

(32) deceased galahs as found

But it was a true mystery the morning I walked to the back of the golf course and saw three dead galahs in quite demonstrative positions, as if an angry, but very precise, golfer had swung and surprised all three in a single felled swipe!

Another time, years ago, I captured the image below of a dying Galah. It moved me greatly, as it quietly waited for death. I know it was dying because a short while later when I went to check it, it was over on its side and ‘gone’. So dignified.

Galah-dying

Dying Galah beside the road.

(39) deceased butterfly, edited with Waterlogue app

(39) deceased butterfly, edited with Waterlogue app

All of the images are taken ‘as found’. I do not ‘arrange’ the scene, only alter my perspective through the lens. After taking these unusual photos, I decided to see if I could make some beautiful compositions from them. It seems to me it elevates the creatures’ ordinary passing to dignified images, perhaps even, immortal ones. What I see is that they show a variety of demises, much the same, but different, as our human endings. They are perhaps not as beautiful as Manet’s painting, but something worth seeing, nevertheless.

 

 

Photo of the Week:

(23) simplicity at dawn

(23) simplicity at dawn

My pick of the week of all the photos I’ve taken is one (below) that will look familiar, but is different. I showed you a very similar one last week (left) that I had taken a couple of weeks ago. There is something so peaceful and simple about it. But a few days ago as, again, I walked up the driveway for my morning saunter, I looked up and behold!! Not only a bird in almost the same place, but that sliver of moon on the wane. So, a photo I had thought was so rare I would never probably see it again, has revisited me, but with the added special touch of a silver sliver, smiling down. The next morning, there was neither a moon or a bird. I had truly captured a special moment in time…with my iPhone!!

bird-moon

early bird and sliver moon

 

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