The birthplace of the sun

Lake Titicaca is situated on the border of Bolivia and Peru, lying 3,812 m (12,500 ft) above sea level, which makes it one of the highest navigable lakes in the world. Ancient myth has it that the first Inca, Manco Capac, rose from a crag on one of the Islands, and that the lake is the Sun's dwelling place.

Primarily Titicaca is known for the Uros, a group of 42 or so inhabited artificial islands made of floating reeds. However there are also natural islands on the lake, one of which, Amantaní, I visited, staying with a local family. The Island is truly stunning, with no cars or roads, overseen by two mountain peaks with Inca ruins, called Pachatata (Father Earth) and Pachamama (Mother Earth). The hillsides that steeply climb up from the lake from the lake are planted with wheat, potatoes, and vegetables, the fields still worked by the hands of the local Quechua speaking community. Cattle, sheep, and alpacas graze all around.

I don't have many photographs of the lake as I was on a moving boat most of the time, nor of the scenery of the Island I stayed on. But I do have photographs of the family I stayed with, who were wonderful smiley, warm people. My favorite is of Kelly, a little girl of 6 who wants to grow up to be a dancer, peeking through a door when I went off to watch a game of Islanders v Tourists high altitude football (tourists won, apparently a rare occurrence!). In my broken Spanish we got on very well, and I was showered with hugs and kisses when I left. Our 'Mama', Gladys, looked after us well, cooking amazing locro soup and vegtables and rice, with a ready supply of cocoa tea to help with the altitude sickness, all under the watchful eye of Grandmama (pictured in my previous post) and the solemn gaze of Kelly's cousin David.

Traveling

It's been over a month since I last posted anything, reason being I took a month out to do a bit of traveling. I promised myself I would keep away from the interweb as much as possible to try and regain some sense of what it was like to experience things through reality rather than through virtuality, sick and tired of the emptiness of virtual conversations, emails with no body language, and viewing life through the computer screen. The effect has been that I now feel much more grounded with life, who i am, less preoccupied with presenting a virtual image of my*self*, more skeptical of those who do so (as you can see traveling was not just done in the physical sense!).

I think this traveling has had a bit of an effect on my photography. In the images that will follow over the next few weeks (I took over 2000, it will take a while to get the good ones which I imagine will amount to about 50, together!). I've tried to capture how landscapes feel rather than how they look, and get to personalities through portraits. Technically, I now know all about the my camera and I've even experimented with RAW (the image of Machu Picchu is a RAW conversion to try and get that Ansel Adams effect). I hope you like what I've come back with, I'll be posting a few of the best on Flickr but I'm also keen to build an online exhibition, probably in SmugMug. As always critical feedback means a lot to me so please do tell me what you think, how I could improve etc.

Stay tuned....plenty more to come!

----Photographs above----
1. Mach Picchu (Peru)
2. Grandmama (Isla Amantaní, Lake Titicaca, Peru)

ṃεɾɾÿ сhɾïṡτṃαṡ

2008 Round-Up

This is the year I fell in love with photography. Last year I had the initial flutters but this year I went head over heels. It's amazing to think how much I have accumulated in terms of knowledge and equipment (and how much I have spent)! I started out the year with my compact Olympus but when it got to my birthday, with the help of some very generous family and friends I upgraded to my first SLR. Then I was lost forever to a camera geek world of lens', filters and f-stops. I now have 5 lens', and other bits and bobs, and whilst I don't think I am necessarily taking better technical photographs, I feel as though there are many more creative opportunities available to me through having more flexible technical equipment.

In terms of my photos it is really difficult to select what I think is my favorite for 2008. At the Window was probably a bit of a turning point for me as I learnt some cool photoshop techniques in creating it, but I also like When Morning Comes, The Pier and more recently my Beach Huts in B&W. My Flickr Stats tell me that you all seemed to like The Clown the best.

Last week my Flickr photostream views went over the 100,000 mark with 4 photos reaching the top ten in Explore, and my blog has hit 30,000 visits (and no that doesn't include me). But it's really hard work trying to push my work on Flickr, it is so saturated, there is so much good stuff on there, and may be it's time to try and fund some of this expensive hobby of mine. So to get better and to get out there a bit more, to make it a bit more than a hobby, I have a wish list for 2009:

1. Next year is all about light, I need to understand light and how the camera can capture it better. Money next year will be spend on light things!
2. I need some more formal hands-on training. There are a few places that run photography workshops like the Royal Photographic Society - I'd especially like to have a go at the Studio Photography and Fashion Photography workshops.
3. I would love to get in a magazine!
4. I would love to sell some prints - SmugMug and Photobox Po Galleries look to be decent options.
5. I want to work towards the Royal Photographic Society Associateship Distinction
6. I will damn well master long exposures!

So, so far that's quite a lot for 2009. I do plan on doing other stuff too! 2008 was a funny year, I worked too hard, but achieved a lot, I made some good friends, nurtured relationships, but I also lost some people I loved. I grew up a bit more. In 2009 I think I'll just stay peaceful and creative.

I'm off to sunnier climes now for most of January so I'll see you all in 2009, hopefully with lots more to share.

Bad Firefox

I noticed that when I uploaded a recent photo to Flickr that the colours went all funny. They were not as rich or deep as they looked in Photoshop or iPhoto. Turns out that the problem was with Firefox which doesn't yet support colour profiling. I upgraded to Firefox 3, which I read did support this function only to find out that it ships without this support by default...why? Anyway there is a plugin available for Firefox 3, and on installing it all looks much better. However it is annoying that most of those people using Firefox will not be seeing my photographs how I want them to see them.

Here's a nice blog explaining it all by dria.org

The Cat Lover

"Heidi was struck by a sudden thought - what if Gordon wasn't a cat at all but a man under a spell? A man forced to don the disguise of a cat by some wicked enchantress? A man trapped in the body of a cat?

Heidi knew there was only one way to break that kind of enchantment...she lent over and warily kissed his downy cheek. Gordon's ear twitched and he stirred but instead of being transformed into a man he simply swiped her away with a sleepy paw. Heidi wasn't sure whether she was disappointed or not." (The Cat Lover by Kate Atkinson)

A woman and her cat

I have been impressed by a number of photographers on Flickr who manage to get their cats in a photograph with them. As anyone who has a cat knows, cats can not be told what to do, in fact we humour them more than the other way around. They have enormous patience with the limitations of the human kind. So I love it when I find a good cat-owner photograph. Here are some of my favorites:

There's no place like home by Elle Moss (Above)
Untitled by Lenaah
A woman and her cat by MaryElise
Words fall through me by Reflecting Truth
Hey, you and me by Oladios

I also love the photo-montages of Mattijn , whose fantasy-esque images always feature his cat Pino. It's good to see a bit of man-cat love!

The most photogenic cat award however has to go to vaneska~tHOmz's cats tabitha and
charlie. How she does it I have no idea!

My cat is not one for being handsome in front of the lens. Every time I've tried something I end up with scratches all over my arms, so usually I have resorted to photo-montages too (see my blog on The Escape). Today however I was honored with some rare camera affection from my feline friend, and he even sat on my feet and kept them warm whilst I did all my photoshopping.

My latest faves on Flickr

1. Untitled, 2. Untitled, 3. Maybe I'm Just Tired 20/365, 4. matinée, 5. A Clench of the Covers (Explore!), 6. .6545, 7. day three hundred eighteen. writing your tragedy., 8. Untitled, 9. Freak Out, 10. Suspiria, 11. LastLeti, 12. 'relation intime avec le monde', 13. swoon orchestra, 14. this big cloud..., 15. day three hundred fourteen. birds on a wire., 16. i didn't know you meant forever, 17. Breathe, 18. Untitled, 19. The lookout - Sardinia, 20. Clifford Sax bird texture, 21. Untitled, 22. Soft as silk, smooth as jazz, 23. There are two kinds of light - the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures, 24. There are as many kinds of beauty as there are habitual ways of seeking happiness., 25. Untitled

Love my bones..

I've entered an alternative version entitled 'acceptance' for this weeks Digital Photography School Competition where the theme is "Happiness is...", although I imagine that this is perhaps an interpretation too far to be in with a chance! I think really that happiness is a sense of fulfillment or wholeness, and you can't rely on the external world (people, situations, or things) to provide that, it has to come from inside, right down to the depths of your bones. So happiness is, for me, acceptance and understanding, and being able to say to the world that they should accept me for who I am too. Happiness isn't a goal to be achieved by doing stuff or having stuff, it is being a peace with who you are, it's not easy.

...also a bit of a play on people always telling me I'm too skinny, well I'm content with the way I look, so naanas to you!