No one longs for "content", 
what we want is connection.
We want hope.
We want to look at something and feel
something deeper than whatever it is
that moves my finger to click
the Like Button.
David DuChemin.

 

January 14, 2018

Long time blog readers will no doubt be pleased to have noted that I didn’t do the normal, ‘bare my creative soul’ post this year and instead seemed to have skipped it this time around.  And rightly so too, as someone said not so long ago ‘the blog is good, but I just ignore all that philosophical stuff”—not exactly the words used, but I’ve cleaned it up for general consumption.

I’ve been working with a photo mentor, David DuChemin, (again should be obvious from the direction some of the posts here have taken), good to have a mentor, keeps me focused, honest with my work, and challenges the things that I see as ‘comfortable’.

But they do get picky.  Like “So, what’s your project for 2018?”  Blank look, stares at feet, thinks of principal’s office all those years ago, and responds,  Ohhh, I dunno!

And what’s with the project stuff anyway.  I take pictures.  More pondering and ever so slightly drifting toward the philo-pile commented on above.

So I was sitting in the kitchen, popping the muesli into the bowl, in the early morning, and looking out the window at the wonders of the world outside. Not much really as a colorbond fence is about all that stares back at me.  When I heard a lovely musical bird call.
Looking up it was one of a pair of European Goldfinch that have been messing about in the yard over the past few months.

Then, it departed and a much higher pitched and urgent call came from the clothes-line on the other side of the fence.   And as I strained to see thought the fence, behold—as they say in all the best scripts—behold (well it was so good I thought I’d use it again) a young Goldfinch landed on the fence in front of me.

 

Normally if a bird lands on the fence, it’s an in-between move to somewhere and is gone in a second. But this little dude had food on its mind and was looking for a place to bring mum and/or dad loaded with a snack.
I pondered, walk down hall, open cupboard, get out camera, check the battery, check its got a memory card, hope I don’t have to sort through the bush-gear to find a memory card, by the time I get back, bird will have died of starvation.  Still, I went.

By the time I’d gotten back, and yes, the memory card was there, the battery was charged, I had to confront my next problem. Opening the kitchen sliding door, and then the security door, and not frighten off the hungry little bird.  And I suspect for the ‘hungry’ part, the bird remained even at the appallingly loud “CLICK” of the security door release.

And just in time because right on schedule, food arrived.  And there was much wing-flapping and waving.

And so much fun to see the young one eagerly devour the offering.   And to see that really short tail indicating its only just gotten its wing powers.  And off course to see that the finches have had a good season.
They tend to sit on the tv antennae around about and call loudly across the street at one another.  Great sound.

 

Enjoy