Finding inspiration - Photography

I find myself stopping to look at something that captures my attention. One of my first actions is to pull out my camera or phone to try and capture the moment. It is how I try to remember the moment. Sometimes the image takes my breadth away and if I am lucky it helps inspire me to find words that I shape into a poem.

Yet in that moment if others are with me they scratch their head and sum it up as me being me... (Well there are a few who understand).  I met someone who inspires me in a number of ways. Through them I have met others who also inspire me. Now in that moment when they are by my side I do not need to explain why I need to stop. Why I need to capture the moment. Plus what they capture can take my breadth away. 

Thank you for inspiring me and for understanding that sometimes you have to stop to capture the moment. I feel lucky that I have been allowed to travel with you on your photographic exhibitions and learn from each of you.

Photo Shoot

Night time photo shoot with Otago photographic enthusiasts on the evening of Friday 19 June 2015 - Album https://flic.kr/s/aHske6k4KW.


Ship at night in Dunedin

ANZAC Day

Today is ANZAC day, April 25th. This day is for Australians and New Zealanders to remember those who have died in war. ANZAC day is acknowledging that sometimes war occurs in order to protect something worth dying for. This day is not about glorifying war.

I feel that this day is not just about those who did not return from war, for those who did return were forever changed. When I was a child it was my Great-Grandfather Da who took me fishing and gave me one of my first jobs sweeping floors. Da was in the British Navy and survived World War II. Yet even towards the end of his life the impact of war still lingered. Often I remember him and think about the impact war had on him and many of our family. In trying to understand my thoughts drifted across the fields of the many battles that have occurred in the last 100 years.
From this the poem Red Tears came into being.

On this day I remember Da and those like him who survived, but have had to learn to live with all that they faced in war.





Da is the one of
the far right of
this picture.

Anzac Day by Allison Brown is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.5 Australia License.
Based on a work at allisonbrown.blogspot.com.

Looking at the world through different lenses

Today I attended my first lecture so I can learn Te Reo Māori - The Māori language.

It is really not enough to simply say that Te Reo Māori is the language of the indigenous population of New Zealand. New Zealand is made up of two islands and within each island there are different groups or tribes and then within those groups... Well I think if you do not know anything about New Zealand then you should find out. And maybe I should become more comfortable writing about it as well :-)

The paper or subject that I am doing is called Introduction to Conversational Māori. In the next couple of months I hope to introduce who I am and talk about myself in te reo Māori. Thinking about this has made me realise I have not really talked much about myself beyond my writing. What I write is heavily influences by who I am. The resources that I think are worth sharing are things that I have encountered because of what I do in my life. Therefore...

Hello, my name in Allison Brown. I am Australian and was born in a suburb in Melbourne, Australia. I moved to the state of Queensland when I was 3 years old and grew up in the area known as the Sunshine Coast. My mother's name is Cherry and my father's name was Ian. I have known all my grandparents and my mother's parents are still a part of my life. I also knew two of my great grandparents on my mother's side, one of which was born in England.

My ancestors began arriving in Australia as officers on the First Fleet. One of those ancestors John Shortland (1769-1810) spent a lot of his life in Australia but spent his last years back in England. My connection to New Zealand goes as far back as the nephews of John Shortland, Willoughby (1804–1869) and Edward (1812–1893), who played significant roles within New Zealand.

Even though I have ancestors from places like England and Scotland, I only feel a connection to Australia as I think most of my ancestoring is too far back to truly matter. The way I try to express this connection is through my poetry, especially in how I view the world.

I will post my introduction in te reo Māori towards the end of Semester so wish me luck. To make sure it is accurate I will ask a friend who is fluent to check :-)

Note (03-04-2010)

I successfully finished this paper but my goals from this well... Reality has well and truly set in and I accept not that this is beyond my abilities. I am also not sure that this is something I should do.

Cooliris: pictures upon a wall

The Cooliris plugin is a web browser plugin made by Cooliris that provides interactive full-screen slideshows of online images (wikipedia). The instructions for how to install Cooliris in Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari is located via cooliris support. If you find yourself enjoying using cooliris as much as I am then you can also follow the cooliris blog. Once you have installed cooliris you are able to search things like Flickr and Google Images.

Searching images through cooliris is fantastic in that the images you find can be displayed on a wall. Cooliris then makes it easy to scroll across many images, focus on a particular image, bookmark your favourites and jump out to the site the image is located on. I had seen cooliris demonstrated at a conference last year. However, it was only when a colleague dropped the URL on my desk and said try this did I give it a go. They gave no explanation beyond that and I think you will only truly understand what cooliris is if you yourself give it a go.

While looking at cooliris the first time another colleague asked me what I was looking at. I showed them and then asked if there was something they wanted to search. They suggested trying to find a photo of the All Saints Church in Dunedin - so I put in the terms Saints and Dunedin. Then the most wonderful thing occurred: the first result was of them in the church, which had been taken by the local newspaper. They were thrilled :-)

This in itself is a wonderful way to find images yet it gets better.
The power of cooliris comes into play when you discover sites that have enabled cooliris - how to enable your site. As already mentioned Flickr, Google and Facebook have enabled cooliris.

Now to start my blogroll to show you why I love cooliris so much.

One of my favourite blogs is Secret Agent Mama: shooting from the hip. The photography is breathtaking and there is sprinkling of poetry throughout, which as a poet I love. Now go to the photostream in flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/secretagentmama and activate cooliris. I have to admit it took me a bit of playing to figure out how to look at a site like this in cooliris. At first I tried searching in cooliris itself with "secretagentmama" but I kept picking up other images as well.

I have discovered that any blogs on blogspot also seems to let you activate cooliris.
For me this means I can see a wall of amazing doodles that Beck posts on her blog BeckaDoodles. And then for a change I can view a wall of gorgeous vintage postcards from Cpaphil Vintage Postcards.

If you love history then you will really like the last example I will give you, which is via the National Library of New Zealand in the Manuscripts and Pictorial Collections of the Alexander Turnbull Library digitised collection. Once you arrive at the site search for something like "shortland" and activate cooliris. Though I have noticed you might have to refresh once or dig a little before cooliris realises it should be working. Dr Edward Shortland was the nephew of one of my ancestors and to see his letters like this is fantastic.

A new look & plans for the coming week

After playing with the layout for a bit I think I have gotten Behind Dreaming to where I want it to be: at least for now. This means having the same template as To Write is to Dream but I have altered the colours to suit my current mood. Like my moods I may look at this next week and want to make more changes.

My next challenge is to figure out how to refer to the online petition organized by the Creative Freedom Foundation on Monday morning. In New Zealand on February 28 a new copyright amendment to the Act is coming into force - Section 92a. Even though someone will be given 3 warnings about downloading content that is copyright protected: the kicker is really that that a person can have the internet access cut without the sort of evidence a court would require. Welcome to the age of Guilty until proven Innocent and the innocent part - well it does not seem very clear how you can prove your innocence.

Creative Freedom Foundation has some fantastic information on their site about what is happening in New Zealand. If you are not from New Zealand this does not mean it has no connection to you as there are other countries like Australia that are facing similar laws. You can bury your head and think it will not happen to you but never say never and try to remain informed just in case.

My profile picture here, in twitter and on Facebook have been blackout as a form of protest. Many others have done the same, including Stephen Fry in twitter.

On Monday there are many sites will refer people to the online petition organized by the Creative Freedom Foundation.

Rain

I moved to the New Zealand South Island almost a year ago. From the moment I arrived in Dunedin I felt at home. This city, though many would consider it too small to be called that, makes a creator feel like they can simply be themselves. The richness of the creative culture within Dunedin can be clearly seen by how it supports is writers.

In October 2008 there were celebrations held for the 50th Anniversary of the Robert Burns Fellowship. I was lucky enough to be able to attend many of the sessions that different Burns Fellows spoke at: poets, novelists, playwrights, ... so much talent in one room. Not being from New Zealand meant that this was my introduction to some wonderful New Zealand writers.

One of the sessions was to remember those Fellows who had died. It was in this session that I first heard a poem that let my imagination take flight. The poem was Rain and its creator is Hone Tuwhare. This post seems an inadequate way to share the poem Rain with you so I will end this post with a recommendation. Click on the link Rain and then find a someone else to read the poem to you, so you can close your eyes. I hope like I did that you will then hear, smell, feel and see the rain.