January 2022 in review

It’s the end of January already and I can’t believe how quickly this month has gone!

I returned to work on January 10th, and I’ve been flat out ever since. So here’s a snapchat of what has been on my radar through January…

Work

This month I completed a beta read of a 120,000 word speculative fiction novel and started the structural edit of a 100,000 word fantasy novel. Shoutout to the two amazing writers who trusted me with their manuscripts!

I’ve also been hard at work on photoshoots with authors Sharron Booth and Debbie Jordan. I had such a great time with both of these wonderful women discussing books, writing and making a career in this crazy industry.

Reading

This summer I reviewed The First Time I Thought I Was Dying by Sarah Walker . You can read the full review over at The AU Review.

This is not a comfortable book, but then it’s not intended to be. It is intended to be thoughtful and heartfelt, and in that it certainly succeeds.

In addition to the review, I had a lot of thoughts when reading Walker’s book that I thought I’d respond to here. The opening essay in the collection is called “Healing Brush” and draws on Walker’s experience and work as an arts photographer. The healing brush is a tool often used in editing photos to remove blemishes, stray hairs and the like. As a photographer myself, I was drawn to the reflections in this particular essay.

Walker opens with: “The first thing you need to know is that the camera always lies.” She finishes the essay with “so do the eyes”.

Almost all of the people I work with say how uncomfortable they feel in front of the camera. The first part of every shoot for me is about helping the person to relax, to forget the camera pointed at them. The tips and tricks of photography aren’t unknown to people anymore - shoot from above to lose the double chins, turn the shoulders to slim down the chest space, push the shoulders back to look taller, hold your legs and arms in certain ways and it makes you look thinner. Almost every person I work with, starts to do these things naturally when I point the camera at them.

It’s not until I get them talking about something they’re passionate about that the real ‘them’ starts to shine through. That’s when I get my best photos. When someone is excitedly telling me about their upcoming book, the trip they recently took or are about to take, the seminar they went to that helped them figure it all out…

Walker writes:

To create a portrait of someone is to show them a version of themselves as they seem to you. It is a precise magic. Sometimes, this is a great and glorious power. … The images clarify possiblity into form.

So often when we look at photos of ourselves, we are focused on what we perceive as imperfections. Do we look ‘good’, ‘beautiful’? We don’t see what other’s see: the smile that radiates joy, the way we talk with our hands, the way our eyes crease when we laugh, the body that gives warm comforting hugs, the hands that build or bake or create… our friends and family see these photos and see us as they love us. Strangers see someone caught in a moment of unfiltered joy or excitement or wonder.

When I do professional headshots, there is a certain look that has to be pursued for the sake of professionalism but it does not have to be at the expense of our personalities, our bodies, or our love.

The feedback I love getting the most from a photoshoot, is when someone tells me it was fun and that the photos really feel like them.

Leisure

I’ve been making the most of summer to enjoy some holiday time: pool parties with friends, lazy days catching up on TV and movies, reading books that I don’t need to review or edit.

A couple of years ago, all my family went in on a very special present for me. I have been obsessed with space for a long time and last year began my adventures of astrophotography taking Milky Way shots across country skies. My wonderful family, always so supportive of my passions, bought me a telescope. While I’ve taken it out a few times, I knew I wasn’t get the most out of it and booked in for a proper lesson to learn how to set up and use my telescope properly. Below is a very blurry photo from my phone of my setup at my lesson, alongside my first nebula photo of Orion’s nebula.

I had a couple of days of serious binging on season 2 of The Witcher. I have been listening to Jaskier’s new song “Burn Butcher Burn” on repeat ever since (video below of the scene but check out the soundtrack version too)!

One of the thing I love about this series is how it doesn’t babysit viewers. It allows you to infer alot about the relationships and the characters through their interactions with each other. Jaskier and Yennifer’s reunion was one of my favourite moments of the whole season.

I’ve also watched Encanto more than a couple of times just so I can sing along to “Surface Pressure” and “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” (and yes I have been listening to those songs on repeat as well next to “Burn Butcher Burn”).

If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter you may have seen my little rant about Pepa, Maribel’s aunt whose emotions control the weather (pictured below).

While I perhaps identified the most (as many did) with Maribel’s older sister Luisa, it was Pepa who I felt most sorry for.

When Pepa is happy the weather is sunshine, blue skies and rainbows. When she’s sad it rains. When she’s angry it thunders. When she’s scared it snows. When she’s stressed it blows a gale sometimes culminating in a full-blown hurricane.

What this means is that, throughout the movie, whenever one of her ‘negative’ emotions shows, everyone immediately points it out to her and tells her to calm down so that they don’t get wet, windswept, etc. So poor Pepa never gets to just sit with her emotions. She spends large portions of the movie constantly muttering to herself ‘stay calm, stay calm, stay calm’, so that her emotions and discomfort don’t impact anyone else. And I felt so god damn sorry that she was never allowed to just deal with what was happening to her and her family.

If you’re someone who feels like you always need to control your emotions for the people around you, just remember that part of loving someone is that we sit with them when they’re uncomfortable. Of course we hate to see our loved ones cry, or see them scared or angry or upset. Of course we worry about the people we love when they are unhappy. But that’s not a bad thing.

Showing our emotions is healthy. It helps us set boundaries and helps others around us know when we need support. And in turn, when we see someone we love who seems down, who seems to always be harried and racing from place to place and job to job, who seems to snap quickly… then we need to stop and ask them what’s going on and what we can do to help.

So don’t bottle up your emotions. And don’t ignore the signs when you see someone you love who needs help. Telling them to be calm is not helpful. Sitting with them while they work through and process their emotions is much more helpful.

Alright. Back to the fun stuff!

This month I attempted to make sukiyaki for the first time. This Japanese dish is a type of nabemono (hot pot) consisting of ingredients like vegetables, tofu and meat cooked in a soup broth. One of the things I love most about nabemono is that it’s cooked at the table on a little portable butane burner and everyone adds the food they want to cook to the pot.

I’ve wanted to try making sukiyaki for quite a while so for Christmas I asked for a donabe pot (a traditional Japanese cooking pot), and this month I went out to get the butane burner and after an afternoon of preparation, we were ready to go.

It was delicious! Granted, it’s a bit hot to be sitting next to an open flame while you eat but it was so worth it and I can’t wait to cook like this more in winter. It’s also a great way to eat because you’re cooking and eating at the same time which means there’s some lag time. Lag time means your stomach has time to process that it’s full which means you eat a bit less while still feeling absolutely so full!

If you’re keen to give it a go, I got my recipes and information from this super useful website: Just One Cookbook.

And last but not least…

Art night shenanigans have resumed with my wonderful friends Elizabeth and Sam who generously open up their home, wine and paint supplies to a few of us on a Thursday night.

I’m loving having this opportunity to explore art, to try new styles and mediums, to produce without any expectation that it will be good!

Elizabeth and Sam are just so wonderful as well, always pointing out the positives in every project, offering advice on how to improve, providing ideas and enthusiasm and positivity in boundless amounts.

Stay tuned for when I eventually finish my new project.