Loving Miss A

I hadn’t planned on putting anymore photos of the gorgeous Miss A up, but while I was processing the last of the images I came across a couple that I couldn’t resist.

LOVE

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The 25 Days of Christmas: 8. lunchtime

A promite sandwich can be practically inhaled in the small time I have to eat anything and in this instance is garnished with a slice of cheese.

Envy

Today I feel caged by the white pickett fence I worked hard to create.

Most days I love my home and its surrounds. I have created a sort of suburban paradise (at least it is in my mind) to dwell in. After all it is my work space and home. With a newborn and two other children under five it is difficult for me to leave this space, sometimes even for an hour.

Usually I don’t mind.

I photograph the flowers in my garden and my children’s smiling faces and I am content.

But occassionally the part of me that has been stored away temporarily while I choose to raise my family is envious of the photographers who can get out and find interesting subjects. People go on destination trips to exotic places with fascinating cultures, people, colours, textures…I could go on, but there is no point. Other people explore their town, city, wider environment…I’m stopping here.

One day I will do these things. I will look forward to exploring with my three young, ready made photography assistants. Until then I will enjoy my time with them and force myself to look at my immediate environment in multiple ways. Perhaps it is, after all, a good thing to be hemmed in.

Self Portrait…well essence of self

I am about as uninteresting as stereotypical people go.

I am a stay at home mum. I have three boys. I spend my days making sure they don’t hurt themselves or each other…Um, that’s it.

You can imagine that although I wouldn’t trade even one second of my time with my kids, after 4 years, I needed something a bit different to prevent my brain from turning completely to mush. When I got my first smart phone I got a hobby. Taking photos.

4 years later the smartphone has changed and alternates with my DSLR. The later is my ultimate challenge. I imagine I will feel frustrated by it and love it dearly for the rest of my life. But although I am isolated, between my children and my photography I will never be bored.

Here is me on any given day.

Photography: Documenting the Tum

I am pregnant. Very pregnant. So pregnant that my husband now laughs at how big the tummy has become. You see the rest of my body hasn’t changed. Photoshop out the tummy and I would look like I did before this pregnancy.

I felt like I wanted to document the tummy. This will be our last pregnancy and its size needed capturing, but I’m not really into glamourizing it (pregnancy for a mum of two young kids and another on the way is not glamorous) and the image wouldn’t represent the situation at all. I also wanted to stay true to my lack of time. So I have used my camera phone and not my DSLR.
I decided to use a documentary or lifestyle type shot to just capture a moment.

I quite liked it and then tried a few filters for fun. Somehow the colour version seemed too personal to share?! Anyway, at least there is a record of the gigantic tum!…and my son’s interest in it.

October Photo Challenge: 26. listening to…just another Mum blogger

No photo today. WHAT?! I think you failed today’s challenge.

It is a protest.

It is true that a photo challenge should include a photo, but I don’t have one of what I am about to mention and although I don’t usually post things like this, several days later it is still irritating me so instead of a photo you get an argument.

For anyone who is left reading after that last statement, I was watching a program called Media Watch the other night in Australia. The main purpose of the program is to find mistakes or poor journalistic morals in the current news items running on Australian media to highlight the problems with them and keep them honest.

I have no problem with the show normally. I enjoy watching it enough that it is something I watch most weeks, BUT the presenter last week flippantly threw out a phrase that irks me.

‘So we are subjected to another Mum blogger.’

Here is WHY it bothers me.

The word ‘subjected’ is obviously my main issue. It is insulting to me that somehow Mums blogging are offensive.

I happen to be a mum who blogs.

Shouldn’t mothers who manage to find the time to research and write about things that matter to them be applauded not only for excellent time management skills, but also undertaking what amounts to voluntary study and education with out any expectation of a payoff in the end? I suppose I am thinking of myself when I write that, but I am trying to educate myself in the area of photography and practising my developing skills and I use my blog to journal my efforts. Being a mother can be isolating so I get great feedback from other people with more knowledge than I have in this area. My blog entries are my equivalent of handing up an assignment.

I think it equates to other areas too. It might be a subject blog or a blog that focuses on one or more of the many aspects of mothering and educating children. I still think that the content is as interesting to one person as another subject is interesting to another person. Why then are Mum bloggers singled out as flippantly wasting valuable space in the bloggosphere. The statement assumes Mums who dare to blog are forcing unwitting people to be subjected to the pressumed always tedious and mundane experience that staying at home provides.

Sure the pay for the hours worked is SH@#!, but how many other careers offer the flexibility of choosing your location daily based on the weather and your mood. Or offer the opportunity to undertake a (very) longterm project with sole (nearly) responsibility for the outcome and the impact of the result can mean the world to someone.

In the end no one is subjected to anything in the bloggosphere. You can always choose not to read or look. But it isn’t OK to trivialise the existence of a mother or to tell her its not OK share her experience. And it is worth listening, you might learn something.

That is what I listened to.