My DaDa passed away last night. He’d been in hospital since just after Christmas so we all knew it was coming but, looking at this photograph and knowing the mischief that’s in those eyes, I still find it all a little difficult to take in. I don’t really know what else to say, but his photographs were so well received when I posted them here and on Damien’s blog I just felt like I should tell you all.
I had a photography session in a school in Dublin yesterday where my assignment was to capture and document the work of a group called Creativity In The Classroom. They go into schools and give the pupils the opportunity to work with actual artists. The atmosphere was wonderful, the school was an old Catholic school with all the old features so I was in photo heaven. There is a rule now in a lot of schools that photographs cannot be taken where the children are recognisable so this gave me a bit of a challenge when trying to capture their work (portraits without faces!). Still there were plenty of colourful images everywhere I looked. I haven’t processed them yet, except this one which I spotted while downloading the files.
This is the very beautiful Carlene, she and I are members of the same church so I took this portrait this afternoon after the service while everyone else was having tea.
First off you should go read this blog to get a first hand account of what a woman in Ireland is up against if she discovers a lump or needs to have something as simple as a breast ultrasound. Go to this page, scroll to the bottom and read your way up through the posts. It’s frustrating and terrifying and you may just finish it wondering what on earth can be done.
Well, Sabrina, a blogger who has impressed me so much of late with her graphics and hilarious blog that I can’t wait to meet her at the Ladies Tea Party, has stepped up and launched twotitsandavote.com (brilliant name!). In Sabrina’s words:
Two Tits and a Vote is a political action campaign, designed to get women to use their muscle as voters to take action around a single issue at a time. Men are very welcome to take part; the platform is merely aimed at mobilising women.
It’s built around the concept of “armchair activism.†Armchair activism enjoys reasonable take-up online, but is often decried as ultimately being rather useless because it rarely translates into the real world. I started to think a lot about how to merge all of the good stuff about armchair activism – it’s fast, it’s accessible, it’s not a big ask, and it delivers a feel-good factor to the participant – with actions that could actually take form in the real world.
So go sign up, send a postcard, write a letter, add your name to the petition. It’s already generating a fair amount of press and radio coverage so spread the word.
Back to approaching strangers I met John walking through Greystones and he was so nice. I’m constantly surprised (in a good way) at just how friendly people are. I’m not completely happy with this one…the light was fading and one thing about this project is you have to take what conditions you get so there’s no moving people or positioning them so the light is better. Hence this one is a little blurry and the reflections in the glasses hide his eyes. Still, this project isn’t all about being technically perfect (thankfully!) so there’s no hiding the blurry ones 😀