My Photoschool: Week 2 - The Teenager and the engine...

It seems that I'm doing my very first photo course.  MyPhotoSchool approached my employers, netmums.com, looking for someone to road test David Handley's course -  A Parents Guide to Photographing Your Children.  I'm part of the Netmums Parent Bloggers Network so I asked if I could have a go. My tutor, David Handley, is winner of the Sony World Photography Award for fashion and is an established and renowned photographer, known for his ability to capture the naturalness of his subjects, combined with compositional aptitude and knowledge of natural and studio lighting.


This week is all about a Patience, Positivity and Playfulness.  Again, no amazing technical knowledge is needed for this - the aim is to get natural, generally unposed photos of children.

Z is 14...and the challenge for me was to get a shot of his face.  I have endless photos of him miles away in the countryside with a mop of hair over his face.

Patience was needed even when chosing timing of the shot.  He knew I intended to take some pictures of him, so when I noticed him in the garden dismantling an engine I just wandered out and started snapping.  It was nearly teatime but I grabbed my camera off the desk and got going.

Fortunately the light was good and the 50mm lens meant I didn't have to get right in his face with a big lens.  It does of course mean lots of bobbing around and changing position to get the shots I wanted...tricky given the amount of oil and engine parts around the place!

He'd been waiting for me to get the engine back to the house for months so recording the event was kinda special and I'm really enjoying seeing him using his toolbox and working things out.  The old film developing tray of oil close to the backdoor is an accident waiting to happen, but hey - at least he put it in a tray.

Most of the time he was distracted by the engine and seemed very comfortable in front of the camera.  As mentioned in the tutorial, there was no way I could treat a teenager like a little kid.  We talked about the engine and I helped to dismantle some bits and worked with him, which made the exchange very positive and relaxed.  It was actually really nice to take time out with him.  I even got a slight teenager smile.  Just a slight one - but a natural one and that's what I was trying to catch.

 

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My Photoschool: Week 1 - Thunderbirds and things 11 years old shouldn't know about...

For the next four weeks I'm doing my very first photo course.  MyPhotoSchool approached my employers, netmums.com, looking for someone to road test David Handley's course -  A Parents Guide to Photographing Your Children.  I'm part of the Netmums Parent Bloggers Network so I asked if I could have a go.  Even though I've earnt the odd few quid from my pics, starting with taking some food photos for Netmums and I've exhibited from time time in open exhibitions and have some pictures on permanent display, I've never had any formal training.  So I was kinda nervous...

My tutor, David Handley, is winner of the Sony World Photography Award for fashion and is an established and renowned photographer, known for his ability to capture the naturalness of his subjects, combined with compositional aptitude and knowledge of natural and studio lighting.

Week 1 is all about achieving natural photographs of babies and children.  David's online video taught us how to use different techniques to distract the child from the elephant in the room - or rather the camera in their face.  No amazing technical knowledge is needed for this and indeed the brief was to put the camera into auto and get going.

First of all I realised that this was going to be hard.  We're a very low key sort of a family and though we laugh, it's usually at stupid in jokes.  Me waving props around in a way very unlike myself is probably not going to wash with my own kids, so I decided to choose an approach that suited my 11 year old.  Thunderbird 2 was duly set into active service. At first he wasn't convinced, as you can see...

So - we just chatted.  Laughs were had but I really can't repeat the wording here.  Suffice to say that he'd watched a film with two fourteen year olds the night before and was amused by a certain scene.  I just hope it's not mentioned at school...

At some point during all this the synopsis for a video was made.  So, in return I had to set up the tripod and attempt a bit of filming.

J: Thank you very much for helping me Rooster

R: 'I enjoyed it - it was fun'

R Walks off

R:'I enjoyed that'

Cool.

So - the pics are done in auto using a Canon 7d (I'd not actually used auto on this before) and minimal tweaking done in Lightroom (in the above pic the grass had made his face green and a smidge of cropping was done for the first and last - otherwise hands off).

The assignment has now been submitted for tutor and peer feedback...eeek!  Now it's time for me to do the next module - Techniques and Attitudes.  Catcha next week.


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Paris...with the kids in tow. The Louvre.

I guess this has to start with the admission that I just turned 40.  It's okay.  I feel it.

To mark the occasional, my long suffering longhair suggested going to Paris.  I think he may have had a romantic weekend without the kids in mind but having had them, we can't escape without them.  Plus, the eldest long longhair was scheduled to go to France with the school and quite wanted his first trip abroad to be with us.  This seemed reasonable.

So, one July morning we packed our bright yellow suitcases, gripped our tickets tightly, and headed off.   It turns out that the Eurostar is pretty darned fine, mainly because we didn't have to throw indignant assholes out of our reserved seats.  Also, drinking a bottle of wine with olives and crisps on the return journey ensured that we had a jolly good time on the way home.  The genteel group of proper grown ups across the aisle may disagree.

On the whole, I reckon that Paris isn't for kids - all kiddy activity is safely siphoned off to Disneyland Paris or Asterix World.  That's okay by us but after the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, Sacre Coure, the Louvre, Montparnasse Cemetery, Père Lachaise Cemetery, and the Paris Museum of Modern Art even the Catacombs would have come as a bit of light relief for them - but not with a 3 hour queue on the Sunday and being closed on the Monday.

We found ways of entertaining ourselves (the trials of feeding an almost vegan child in Paris shall be glossed over until I can face revisiting them).  We did a lot of walking, spotting graffiti, drinking wine by the canal, identifying obscure vehicles, stopping on Metro platforms just because they looked good and dodging puddles of wee in the morning.

The Louvre with kids was a potential nightmare, but we did get round a great deal of it.  First we renamed a few artworks, mainly in desperation as the smaller longhairs were about to revolt...

Kiddy lunchtime woes.

DARLING, THE INTERNET HAS GONE DOWN

End of slumber.

 Then the kids actually seemed to start enjoying it a bit...

We just found this funny.  Very funny.

How were we not...

...asked to leave?

Lots of people taking photos of a painting.  We may have mocked them.

 

Perhaps time to leave?

Yes, time to leave.

But we couldn't go without a long chat about
these men regarding their curly wurly willies.

And then we were gone.  Right after I'd shamefully gone back to security to pick up my penknife that had been confiscated on entry.  Still a menace to the artworld at 40 ;)

Reading to older children & teens

This isn't something I'd have really insisted upon, had a stay at home Dad friend not regularly told me that he reads to his 16 year old daughter and her siblings.  Really?  I thought...yeah - knowing him, that's going to be the case.  And he's not going to be reading the Beano.  So...bearing this in mind and on the insistence of my 10 year old that he'd like a story, I wondered what to read.  It's easy to go back to Enid Blyton but to tell the truth, we both knew that the Island of Adventure wasn't going to cut it for us this time.  An evening reading and old Thomas the Tank Engine book broke me, and though I'm sure we'll still read dear old poorly written Thomas & Friends from time to time.  Why avoid something that gives so much happiness to a child?  Other than for my own sanity of course.  We need to move on.

We have two kids, aged 13 and 10.  Neither of them are slouches when it comes to reading.  Z, the new teengager, had books for his birthday - and R...well...where IS his school reading book even?  Apart from a frantic few weeks about three years ago where he went head to head with his brother to read the entire Harry Potter series, he's not read much - other than old favourites like Horrible Histories and a couple of Railway Detective books, which I'm told had the proper C word in.  Oops - and thanks Grandma.

So, where to begin.  A few googles on the loo and last thing at night in bed started me off nicely - not to mention putting me to shame and enthusing me all over again about my own reading possibilities.  The difficulty is persuading the kids to listen to Mum.  Mums aren't cool you see, and thanks perhaps to social ideas of mum's intelligence, a year spent chemically lobotomised (notice the big gap in the blog?  Don't do SSRI's folks - they'll screw you up) and the small detail that after getting them to do the things they need to do to be human, there isn't much time to be a cool and intelligent role model.  Burning tea last night didn't help my case.

So...at a time way past their bedtime, my mission to move them up a reading notch began.  They're not really sheltered kids in terms of TV/Media so hopefully they'll still sleep well.  Okay...I am looking after a small cuddly monkey today whilst R goes to school BUT I trust that this is down to the everyday social horror of school - not HP Lovecraft.  Yep, we started on the Necronomicon.  Hell, I want to read more of it myself and it turns out that it's an utter pleasure to read aloud.  Occasional references to the nether and other minecraftian things also bolster my case that Mum is to be listened to where books are concerned. 

And I hope we'll move on, through bookshelves that would have made me POP with delight as child.  No stunting for them with a tiny bookshelf and rereads of the stupidly expensive gender appropriate books from rare trips to WH Smiths.  Perhaps a few worries might crop up and - eventually - the embarrassing stumbling through a forgotten sex scene (we will laugh and read it in a funny voice most likely).  Or perhaps they'll save me the horror and pick up the reading baton themselves and our bookshelves will ravaged and my books will be strewn around the house.  Time will tell.

Motivation: Why bother?

© Trout Mask

I've been thinking about writing about the vagaries that constitute motivation for some time...but was worried about running out of steam somehow part way through, or not making it 'good enough' - which of course is a very real risk, but nothing ventured and all that.  I guess it all revolves around that old chestnut "what is important" and as a mum I should say something along the lines of 'well, of course, my children always come first'.  They may well do - but they also have to do a lot of fitting in too, as that's what life is all about.  Striking that balance between not being 'good enough' for their needs and letting them have the space to just get on with it and make their own way.

As they began to get older though, it was with a sense of relief that I picked up the old me and started looking to the longer term again.  At first it felt almost childish to be doing things just for myself - a waste of time - but it's the new things I'm learning that gradually seems to be bringing benefits in work, friendships and in fulfilment.  Not all the time of course. There's still those days when the bottom lip is firmly stuck out and nothing seems right - I guess they just have to be ridden out.

When I began writing this I was tired and my typing and communication had been hindered by some sort of heavy fog with treacly overtones.  The sensible thing would be to go to bed.  I did think that an evening in front of the TV might be good - but entertainment seems to be hit & miss (mainly miss) so I stay at the laptop.  At times like this I sometimes try to find some solace in my online activities but I'm increasingly left with a feeling of emptiness.  They are - after all - trivial.  But then my recent face to face activities haven't left me full of the joys of spring either...and I'm left wondering, what is the point?  We are merely creatures who took the evolution thing maybe a bit too far one day, and ended up with brains that, lets face it, half the time would be better off not working.

After much tooing and froing I strongly suspect that there is no point...sometimes the scales just fall from your eyes and it's hard to participate anymore.  Then you have to accept that rewards do not necessarily arrive commensurate in effort, that one day a friend will turn on you, that you will see others lauded for lacklustre work and that sometimes things just aren't fair.   Some people painfully remind you that we are domesticated animals and the rest are just to weary to engage their brains anymore.  Your children will continue to frustrate and disappoint you but no one will care for them as much as you.   At this point you have to decide whether to take time out, refocus and try harder or just withdraw until you're feeling a bit better.

Today is a good day.  Let's see what happens.

The pecking order

© AGS

I don't have to venture too far from my front door these days for a bit of subterfuge and political intrigue.    Yes, it's that time when the middle classes - or those that aspire to be - get their knickers in a twist about choosing a school for their kids.  Of course, to a large degree the school is important.  Let face it, I'm still pretty pissed off that my school was lame.  I remained convinced for many years that with more professional teachers doling out hefty dollops of care and inspiration that I could have achieved brilliance.  Not a thought crossed my mind in this time that if I hadn't discovered pubs, sex and recreational drugs towards the end of my education I might have done a tadge better.  Oh no.  It was down to the lame teachers.  Mr Melvin, you know who you are.  You were the king of this genre and I trust you are now safely ensconced in a clerical role.

It comes down to this.  We live in an okay area. There is a logical next step High School within walking distance.  Right - statistics checked, visit made, application filled out, job done.

But it's not that simple.  Having made what I consider to be the logical choice for the next three years I suddenly find that I seem to be somewhat on my own in this.  This is sort of fine - I was never really one to follow the crowd...but what are we going to be left with?  You see, I was sort of depending on the majority people who I considered to be my peers on sending their kids there too.  They generally have good kids and I like having them around...but it seems that I had underestimated their parents’ deep religious beliefs (in some but not all cases) and many are trying their hands elsewhere.  So, if they are going to 'better' lands, then what are we left with?  I strongly suspect that we are left with the two cub scouts who spent the entire open evening whacking each other over the head with rolled up paper.  And lots like them.  But worse.

Parents are exercising their choice.  Their choice to indulge government set performance indicators and use their local community as somewhere to sleep and park the car between self inflicted 'hellish' school runs, work and the gym.

So here's my revised plan.  We take a close interest in our children's schooling and make sure that they are achieving within the crippling confines that we have imposed by choosing the school on our doorstep.  We ignore the looks of pity (or belief that we are of a lower social order) from those who have chosen a more prestigious school and we try our damnedest to educate our children ourselves in terms of academia, art and moral values,  because it feels like we're virtually on our own here.

And if the school turns out to be okay we'll allow ourselves a self congratulatory smirk.  We're only human after all...

Where the time goes.

It has to be said that I don't have much time for this blog lark.  Or rather I do...but it's been channelled elsewhere for a little while.  Yes, I have been playing away. My blog must complete with another floozy in blogland.  And to add insult to injury, it doesn't even concern the living at the moment.

Still, that's nothing compared to the kiddy fending and general life stuff that vies for my time in an increasingly inventive number of ways.  Some of it is completely understandable and to be expected.  I can deal with that, but I just can't deal calmly with the stuff that just should never be a problem.  Most exasperating of all is my music supply - my fabulous but untrustworthy Logitech Boombox which currently refuses to:

The wired wireless © Trout Mask

a) play music off the network
b) recognise the equally tardy wonder of iplayer
or
c) scrobble (it's a last.fm thing)

I've managed to get round points a & b with the use of a line in (which pokes out of the front of my laptop, so is seriously in the way and so NOT the idea of having the box in the first place I could weep) but still, it has been forced to comply to some degree and this makes me vengefully happy.  A more permanent solution will have to wait.

Honourable time wasting mentions must also go to (insert drumroll here):

Yahoo! Customer Support, who did not support at all, leaving me to implement my own flickr untangle solution instead (an unwelcome side effect of the joys of creating multiple accounts) and then sending me a customer satisfaction survey request to extend my misery;

and

To the utter twat from an energy grant company who interrupted my work and began his call by introducing himself, denying that he was the purveyor of a marketing call and then asking if I was the owner of the household.  He failed to get the hint when I said I wasn't going to tell him and blindly pressed on with the call on the frustratingly arrogant assumption that I was the owner anyway and (I guess, seeing as he felt he could freely assume things about me) would love to invest in his crackpot scheme.  For pities sake...click ...brrrrrrrrr.

I'm gonna be round my vegetables...

It's not entirely clear what draws me to grow my own stuff.  Most recently it seems to be driven by the demands of the camera...but back in the days of my film camera this certainly wasn't the case.  Nevertheless, ever since I had my own plot of ground, the urge for decking and a nice patio set has never outweighed the somewhat strange desire to grow vegetables.

Marrows and spaceship squash © 2010 Trout Mask

Not that I'm especially good at this.  It has to be said that their have been some pretty spectacular disasters.  It's taken me fifteen years years after the first boiled broccoli and braised caterpillar incident to even consider growing broccoli again.  This year I'm attempting the purple sprouting stuff, and that's only because my Dad gave me some plants and I reckon that its spindly nature might host less surprises come Sunday dinner time.  Perhaps. 

But still, I consider growing stuff to be just one of those things that I do.  When I moved house to a garden so full of trees that the ground has more in common with a forest floor, I put my name down for an allotment.  Some people might like to watch TV of an evening...I like nothing more than a energetic dig and a bit of pyromania in a rusty old barrel.  It's been a massively hard job to get the ground right and get on top of the wasteland the local council allocated to me, but each year I find that our diet is supplemented that little more with fresh veg.  Last year was the first time that I could cancel the organic box for months on end over the summer period and also the year that I managed to really hurt my right elbow carrying buckets of produce home!

Pepper and tomatoes © 2010 Trout Mask

The ressurection of the greenhouse this May (it had been languishing in pieces under those bloody trees in the back garden for years) has restored tomatoey joy to my home, and my little apple tree has started to produce fruit at last.  These apples were picked and fiercely guarded whilst I found the time to give them the photo call that they deserved.    When Mr Z tried to share the delights of "tree apples" (hmmm, so where do the others come from?) with visiting friends, they were somewhat confused by the mum who actually said that NO WAY were they allowed to eat the fruit...

A real 'tree apple' © 2010 Trout Mask

And I plan to take it further...I am incredibly tempted by growing winter veg this year and although I've left it too late to get the plants on the go from seed, I think I'm going to treat myself (yes, you heard right - treat!) to a selection box of plants to grow.  There's possibly something a little skew-wiff in my girly head that rates this as a joy way higher than Pandora, but hey.

Next time I must tell you about the hens...

This is not a mum blog.

So what the what the heck is this going to be then?  I mean, how do I begin introducing stuff that I write and also give it a title that isn't cutesy, cliched or just downright pretentious?  The truth is I can't...so i'm just going to get stuck in and tell you stuff.  If you like it, that's good.  Maybe you'll begin to tell me stuff too.  Nice stuff I hope - but I know I've got to take the crunchie with the smoothie.

In order to prove my tagline somewhat misleading from the off, today there will be only small adventures.  Actually, most of then will be geographically pretty titchy to be honest.  We've already been to my allotment (which you'll come to realise is often my only destination other than the school gate).   The adventure I crave today - popping a whole four miles into Leicester to see Jason Ringenberg at the Musician Pub is off limits.  Yep, silly old me - I had kids.  This means that my partner and I have to leave the house separately or with the two random factors.

Of course, I could go with a friend, but my friend finds herself in exactly the same position and asking my partner to stay in with four kids after their bedtimes is far from practical.  I could ask my parents, but this is really an ask too much as they have done some kiddy duty in recent memory.  My partner has parents....but it's down to him to ask and he's not.  Sibling help...erm, nope.  Asking a friend?  Not good unless I can repay the favour and they seem content to stay in (more than one friend has said she'd prefer not to go out alone with her supposed beloved.  I suspect they think that I might unduly influence or even eat their children).  Paying a babysitter?  Out of the question on top of an evening out, even if I could get my head around the thorny question of how much is the right amount to pay them.  Probably especially out of the question if I got my head around what is considered reasonable to pay them...

Jason Ringenberg © 2010 Trout Mask

So I will stay in and not see a man who has found a way to travel from Nashville to Leicester to sing some songs - a distance that even google maps cannot calculate, as I am unable to be four miles away from my children.

Up for a race after the gig.
© 2010 Trout Mask

The thing is though - if it wasn't for my kids I simply wouldn't be thinking about going out.  In fact, when we first saw Jason Ringenberg it was due to a friendship reforged around the kids and they were there in the front row of the Jason and The Scorchers gig at the Summer Sundae.  Jason has even run a race with my youngest, Mr R, and he is Mr R's second favourite pop star.  Mr Z still has the ear plugs that his bandmate Warner Hodges gave him to protect his delicate shell likes.  So we will bide our time...this is not an issue.

Everything is just PEACHY.