2 Comments Bringing Photography Back into My Life

As you may have noticed, I added yet another tab to the navbar. This time it is photography, which is something I have been very fond of since I was about 15. I got my first and only DSLR (Digital Single-Lens Reflex) camera, Pentax K200D, at the age of 17 during the first year of my stay in the UK.

Since then (and it has been a 'wow!' 6 years already) I have been using it on and off, and in the recent years I only ever used it whenever I went for a holiday. For the most of it I simply didn't have time to go around taking pictures, and when I did I was kind of being too self-conscious to just take it out and start shooting, unless it was during a holiday trip. Because, apparently, it makes a difference!

The final blow was my camera sticking in the AF (auto-focus) mode for as long as two years. 90% of the time I would use MF (manual focus), so without it taking pictures instantly became rather dull. But, a very big thanks to this lovely forum thread, I fixed my cam and am now ready to pick up photography again! 

Testing the heart-shaped bokeh technique

Actually, I even got brave enough to start thinking about participating in Taylor Wessing photography portrait prize competition hosted by London's National Portrait Gallery. I mean, I sure can try – even if I don't win, getting lucky enough for one of my photographs to be exhibited will be winning in itself.

I still have until end of July to submit the photographs, so hopefully I will come up with a concept soon enough to start shooting. Wish me luck!

Have you ever taken up adventurous endeavours like that? Let me know in the comments ;)

E.V.

0 Comments Knitting Aside...

With all the posts on crochet and knitting (another one coming up fairly soon), I thought it was getting a bit monotonous, so I decided to entertain you with a post on a completely unrelated matter. Last night I finally put up the Christmas tree!

I know, it might seem that I've done it quite late, but the main holiday we celebrate nationwide in Russia is the New Years Eve, while our Christmas is orthodox style and is only celebrated in January and by the religious population. So the delay is quite acceptable in my case. Although I have been dying to put it up for a while now, just didn't quite have the time...

This tree is from IKEA, and it's pretty damn amazing for a fake Christmas tree! Once you fluff its flexible branches it actually does look like a real conifer. We have the smaller one out of the two available sizes, and it is just perfect for the limited space we have in our living room right in between an armchair and the 'sewing station'. 

My little helper

And here are some snaps of my favourite pieces from this year's Christmas tree: 

Little red tram - so cute!
Garland in the background: IKEA

Owl bauble: this year's IKEA Christmas collection

Amazing glass bauble from last year's IKEA Christmas shop

Kitty bauble I bought a couple of years ago at London's Winter Wonderland

The first batch of presents appearing under the tree this year
Giftwrap: IKEA

The holiday season is always an exciting time, whether you are a child or an adult. There is some sort of "magic" in all these rituals we do every year, like putting up and decorating the Christmas tree, buying and wrapping presents for the important people in our lives, having the fairy lights all around our houses. It's all quite atmospheric.

It is also a wonderful time when all our problems seem to be a bit less significant, and when we suddenly start enjoying silly but joyful music that is playing all around. It is a time to both reflect on the past and think about our future aspirations. And, obviously, it is the time to celebrate the friendship and love in our lives, so do not forget this essential part! ;)

Wish you all an amazing holiday season this year!

E.V. <3

0 Comments Houses Down the Memory Lane

In retrospective I can say that I have lived in a fair number of different places during the last 10 years or so. For the total of six years I have lived abroad, away from my home and my parents (who managed to move approximately 7,000km away from what I used to call "home" during that time). I lived through student accommodation, annoying landlords, obnoxious flatmates and poor living conditions. I had to teach myself what it is to find a new [affordable] place in  the shortest period of time, what it is to move towns, what it is to move in with people you don't know when all you can do is hope it is going to turn out fine.

All this moving from place to place has diluted the idea of "home" as it is for me quite significantly, but I have to say that each house or flat I lived in still holds a certain place in my heart. Yes, some of them were quite terrible, and some landlords were plain unbearable, but I do have at least a few memories worth keeping about every single one of those places.

What I wanted to talk about here in this post is revisiting places one used to live in before. Not necessarily coming inside (as if some new tenant would let you in just like that), but even simply passing by in a bus, or walking by the building. To be perfectly honest, I myself fail to describe the feeling I get when I casually happen to be next to the place I used to live in. Temporary, short-term, but still home at some point...

For the record, for the first couple of years of living alone I never even fully unpacked my things and at times even lived off my suitcases. The logic behind it being that I will be leaving this place soon enough, so by not fully unpacking I would save myself some packing time in the future [oh, so mature and wise in my pre-18s!]. Later though I decided to 'go with it' and unpack completely, even being brave enough to occasionally buy something for the room, despite having to include it in my subsequent 'house removals'. That way I learned to view a new place as a new home, even if for a little while. 

Naturally, leaving each place you call "home" would inevitably mean having mixed feelings. See, one gets attached even to what is bad in their lives (I know, definitely not the healthiest thing to do, but that is kind of how us humans tend to work...) But especially that was true for those places where I had had the greatest times. Revisiting the places though, any of those places, is always (I don't even know...) haunting in a way, arouses curiosity and some inexplicable excitement within, and definitely sends me back down the memory lane. 

Whether or not it is a pleasant journey back in time or not, it demonstrates how a simple habit of living at a certain place can transform into something much more subtle and elusive like a lingering sensation of emptiness when one sees or thinks of a place one used to live in some years back. 

I am pretty certain I am not the only one thinking that way, and that a lot of you have experienced at least some of those nostalgia symptoms at some point. For now though, all the best! And don't forget to cherish your memories.

E.V.