Back to Weaving

I have managed to quite a lot of weaving on the Schacht and am getting along nicely. Jerry has given up sitting on the treadles which does complicate weaving. Also the Guild is gearing up for a weekend with Melanie Venes and I have found some nice yarn in my stash. The warp  is wound and needs mounting. I am doing deflected double weave. Never done it before. I have put on a five metre warp with the aim of doing two scarves on what is left after the weekend.

I also found a book on photography that I cannot remember buying, it is called Wabi, after the Japanese simplicity thinking. The photos are all taken in.a nature reserve in North Germany with a macro lens. (Gerhardt Dibudda). I may have found the solution to my angst over photography.  They are really abstract

photography

It is one in the morning and I am wide awake - thinking. Woe is me. Or maybe just a scream of rage. Basically I am unhappy about photography. When I was doing the OCA course, at least I had projects to complete. They may not have been wonderful photos but they were photos and usually not of something I would have dreamt of taking.

My current problem is the trip to Uzbekistan. I took close on a thousand photos. Lots of blue tiled domes, beautiful minarets, none of which are more than picture postcards. I went to a meeting a few days ago where photos were critiqued and asked the question about these photos, what should I have done? And the consensus was take photos of the patterns. No, no, no. What I like best were the ones shot in the markets or people working. I am not much good at street photography because I think it is intrusive but I got several shots where the people did not realise they were being photographed. This is in fact just as intrusive but how do you ask for permission to photograph when you do not speak the language.

I have some photos from the market which are just sacks - of spices or rice or lentils. Sort of pattern , actually nicer that the minarets. Still not satisfactory. Composition is not my strong point. There are 'rules' in photography about composition. Not satisfactory either. The trouble is that I hope that I will turn into a Cartier-Bresson or Ansel Adams all of a sudden. And that is not going to happen. What is happening is that I am so dissatisfied that I am not taking photographs. I reckon I haven take 10,000 photos this year and I have not even taken ten that I think are good. Lots in Iceland, lots at the Goodwood races, some good portraits at Tom's wedding but there everyone knew who I was, I asked for permission weeks before hand.

Looking back over 2018, it seems to me that the best body of work was the posters showing people doing things. Otherwise everything is just a record.

And talking of records, I had five plants of squash, 'Sweet Dumpling', one of the best. I thought I would get one squash per plant. Instead, here are a few of the crop. I have given several away as well. And the freezer is filling up with tomato soup and tomato puree.

And the lord and master of this house (so he thinks).

So tomorrow I will take the camera and sally forth and just see what I can find.

Woe is me

You will have noticed a long period of silence. I brought home a bug from Uzbekistan and have been so ill that I have lost 6 kg. Dorothy had it too and has also lost weight. She is rather pleased about that. I am not. My trousers do not fit. Anyway last Friday I was definitely on the mend but Monday it struck again. This time I had had enough and visited the doctor who listened to my tale of woe and prescribed powerful antibiotics. The result is that I feel better already and quite hungry.

The result of all this is that I have not done much. We are having a two day workshop with Melanie Venes and I have wound the warp for the new Voyager. I also got to the linocuts class last week and cut a new block, not a cracking plant this time but a chemical plant in East Germany.  Nevertheless I am so feeble that I had to come home early.

Not much in the way of photos taken though the trees are turning autumn colours and I ought to get out. An interesting piece of info is that the new small Canon is very good indeed. The focal length is limited of course but it does a better job of macro than the Nikon.

 One piece of news. I have decided to replace my laptop which I use to drive the Megado. The existing one is nearly ten years old and I am worried about it packing life in. So I am having the existing hard drive cloned. It should be with me this week.

So I think I am on the mend. Jerry is his usual energetic self and needs more walks than we are well enough to give him. I have discovered that he much prefers pavements to woods because he gets people and dogs there. So he comes shopping. He loves the world and is startled when someone does not love him back. I took him to the vet for his monthly check up on Monday and the nurse gave it as her opinion that he would probably be 7 kg when full grown. I was expecting him to be bigger than that. Still I can tuck him under one arm.