photography

The MA and Me

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So, I’m on a Masters… not a Masters in education, as was suggested to me during the Poster Presentations ession of the PGCE, but a Masters in Art Practice.

Now, as excited and as proud as I am to have been accepted onto this course and as eager as I am to start, I find myself belittling it. It’s been something that, over the past few months, I’ve caught myself doing, and doing a lot. Not just with the Masters, but with every aspect of my life.

I would like to state the fact, and make it heard, that I’m proud of my choice to return home and set up a life after China and travel, and then after only being home for a few months start a PGCE in Further Education and Training. Continue to do very well in the PGCE, excel within my placement, and work part-time as a caregiver alongside it all. After finishing the course and placement, I applied for and gaining a position on the MA in Art Practice, despite not having studied or even academically practicing my own photography in about 5 years…

I’m only 26, and have done a lot already, and have plans to do so much more with myself as the years go on, yet, I find myself talking down my accomplishments, my personal milestones, and basically, my life.

When I’m working there’s a fairly repetitive and regular dialogue that ensues between myself and either the old ladies I care for, or the staff I work with:

“So, what are you going back to uni to study, are you in your final year?” Continue reading →

Summer 2017 #10 : Hanoi #3, Vietnam

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Hanoi

Arrived: Wednesday 2nd August 2017 [Day22]

Departed: Friday 4thnd August 2017 [Day24]

Hostel: Hostel: Central Backpackers Hostel: Original

 It was a long and bumpy journey from Sapa to Hanoi in the dark. I spent it reading, listening to music, messaging friends and just lying there. We got dropped off in Hanoi again at around 9:30pm, and walked to our 2nd home: Central Backpackers – Original. We were both a bit grump and snappy with each other (definitely hangry). I messed up the directions walking back to the hostel, and Alice kept flapping the towel which made the lift doors open again, and again, and again before I snatched the towel off her. We dumped our bags, gave each other a look, and agreed we needed to go get some food before we lost it with each other. We went to a place just down the road and had a much needed burger and chips before going back to room #7 and getting some sleep (as much as we could with the worlds loudest snorer in our room).

We woke up, grabbed some breakfast (back to our standard of eggs and bread), and then chilled in the room until around 10:30am (I felt the need to write down in my journal that I brushed my teeth downstairs in the lobby area… Again, so much pointless Parker!) At half 10, Nathan, the hostel rep who had done the Halong Bay thing with us, came to the hostel to round up the troops for the free walking tour. (This hostel was definitely one of the most helpful and handy hostels we’d stayed at. Free towels, free breakfast (even when leaving super early), a warm welcome every time, free beer hour, great Halong Bay trip, free walking tour, reserving a table for us at the Indian, and helping us book and sort out busses.)

There were quite a lot of us (maybe 20-30) on the walking tour, and Nathan led us a few doors down to a small hidden temple which was roughly 900years old and one of the oldest standing buildings in Hanoi. We couldn’t go in if we were wearing shoes or had our shoulders or knees on show (standard practice). So most of us just stood in the little opening and looked at it from the outside.

Next up was the huge cathedral. “What do you guys think? Do you like it? Think it’s beautiful? Huge? Awesome?” Nathan asked us, we all responded with nods of agreement… “Well, you’re going to feel real bad about that when I tell you it’s history!”  St Joseph’s Cathedral was Continue reading →

Summer 2017 #4 : HoiAn

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Arrived: Tues 18thth July 2017 [Day7]

Departed: Fri 21st July 2017 [Day10]

Hostel: Tribee Cotu

Hoi An… I feel like we stayed here for a good while, like, a solid chunk of time. Looking back it’s where I would say our trip really took off and we properly got into the swing of things. It’s also somewhere we got to know really well during our stay, and we loved it. Realistically, we only stayed there for 3 nights, but after staying in 3 different places in less than a week, it felt like we made ourselves at home here.

It’s also here that I let my awkwardness and uselessness shine bright [not for the first or last time of the trip]. I’ve mentioned in a previous blog post that there are a few things I’ve learnt about myself during my little bits of travel. 1 – the sea cures any hangover, 2 – I am beyond crap at remembering people’s names and faces (to be fair, I’ve always known this, mention someone we were in school with for 10 years and I probably only have a 50% chance of knowing who you’re talking about), 3 – I am one of the most awkward humans you will ever meet. I somehow manage to make any task look difficult. I have a magic gift of creating awkward situations out of the most normal things. This is something I used to struggle with, but thankfully now I’ve just learnt to accept it and get on with it, I’ve made it part of who I am, because let’s face it; it always was, I just ignoring it! When we were in Tokyo and Seoul, Kyle couldn’t quite believe how bad it was, but again, thankfully he just laughed it off after the initial frustration. Alice, thankfully, has known me my whole damn life, so she’s known this is a part of me and my personality, but, again, I don’t think she realised how bad it had become (blame China), until Vietnam. She’s a pretty laid back lass though so it was all good!

Anyway….Let me tell you about our arrival at the hostel. I’m going to put this incident down to the serious lack of sleep we’d managed to get on the sleeper-bus… that’s what I’m going with anyway.

So, after awkwardly waiting in the wrong hostel (behind a massive group of French [?] students), we finally made it to the right Tribee hostel a few doors down. We were way too early to check-in, so we sorted out some laundry at reception (thankfully there weren’t many people about), and then we sorted ourselves out a bit, changed and rented some bicycles. It was during this time that I proceeded to walk into the bathroom on two different guys, within about 20 minutes. Now, “walk in” is probably the wrong term here. I practically barged the door down, I genuinely almost broke the Continue reading →

What next…?

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[Photo: tegalalang rice terrace, Bali from mine and Shelb’s travel this summer]

Planning for the future is a scary thing. Making decisions about your life is a terrifying concept. What if you make the wrong choice? What if you end up missing other opportunities due to the path you chose? It’s inevitable that you’ll always look back and say “Ow, I wish I could have been there for that.” Or “Damn it, I should have done this instead.” You can never cover all the bases that you wish to. You’re always going to have to choose one side of the coin. My coin currently has a few sides; it’s more like a triangular dice, or cute little (intimidating) cube…

A co-worker sat down with me the other day and discussed in great lengths her options and thoughts for the end of this academic year. It sounded exciting, adventurous, and fuelled with purpose and passion. I guess it helped that there was a love interest thrown in there to help aid and focus her attention, but still, she had a plan (vague as it was), and it could work [for her]. It was so easy for me to sit there and encourage her to follow this dream, to book the flights, to plan her trips. “Just do it!” I cried, “What have you got to loose!?”… Why is it so much easier for me to have that much faith and trust in someone else’s life and travel plan, than I have in my own? I have very little/no faith that the decisions I make at the end of this academic year will lead me to exactly where I’m supposed to be. I feel like I’m being torn across the globe. Pulled in all directions… I have to go there. I have to be back for this. I should think about that. I need to do it…

In all honesty, I feel selfish for what my thoughts and possible plans are. I can’t call them plans; they’re, at best, ideas. I know people repeatedly say “Your 20s are your selfish years. Do what you want. Go where you want. Be who you want.”… but I feel like I have to have some sort of structured plan right? Like, I don’t want to get to 29 and suddenly be like “Oh crap, I’ve had a great 8 years, but what now?! I’m not qualified to do anything; I’ve got no money to start my life. Is it time to whack out the old Maccies uniform and cap?!” I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, I feel like I’ve Continue reading →

Getting Lost in Documentation

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[Photo: a collage of some of my New Zealand photos from Dec. 2015 to give an overview of my time there]

Ok, so this blog post did not grow from a Post-a-Day Prompt, nor was it inspired by a wild and wonderful adventure. I don’t quite know where it’s going to go; I’ll figure that out along the way, I guess that’s how some authors work right? They don’t always know where their characters will end up, they don’t know what the grand finale will be, it’s just as much a surprise to them as it is to us, the reader.

I’ve been wondering for a couple of days what my next blog post will be about, I was starting to worry that without some amazing travel experience, I have nothing to say. When I started this blog, it wasn’t about that. Truthfully, when I started this blog, I was struggling to internally process some things, (mainly the whole Medical Photographer opportunity/moving to Foshan on my own), and I was able to just write and write with relative ease. I’d sit at my desk in work, and, shamefully, with such little photographic work left at the end of the academic year, I was able to spend some of my time tapping away at my school laptop and post a “blog-a-day”. Now I’m not at work, I’m sat on a friend’s sofa, surrounded by no one and nothing apart from my music, I’ve been struggling for inspiration, and the words haven’t been flowing as easy as before. My last post was easy, Thailand. Who wouldn’t be able to write a (relatively long) blog post about 5 days in that beautiful country? This one however, is very different. This one is much more personal, and goes back to Continue reading →