Whimsical Musings of a Loon

Murakami. Hokusai. Sushi. Samurai. Ghibli. Kurosawa. Japan had always been my dream destination. My fascination in the country and culture started in slightly an unusual way - sifting through my Van Gogh print book aged 11, I saw Vincent's Japanese art work, The Bridge in the Rain (after Hiroshige) and was rather taken by the image. On further inspection, I learnt of the original by Hiroshige and how Vincent had been influenced by the ukiyo-e prints. I had no conscious awareness of the why, but I just knew the style ticked a certain box within my sense of order. As I got older, the more I delved into Japanese culture, the more obsessed I became. I read the Pillow book of Sei Shonagon. I watched all the Kurosawa films I could get on VHS from the library (I've been concocting a whole blog post dedicated to my love affair with Ikuru for months), I bought all the Murakami I could afford (I remember trying to explain to a friend once why I loved his books "He writes what...

When I first started studying photography, mobile phone technology was still relatively primitive. Digital photography was still in its infancy (I learnt on a second hand 35mm film Nikon and dark room processing). Digital cameras were the golden grail of its time, the extra legroom supplement of technology - expensive but you didn't really get that much more for your money. To think of our lives without digital photography, or indeed, smart phones, is akin to imagining us existing without air.  Digital imaging and mobile technology has become an integral part of how we live - a repercussion of the internet emerging as the centre of modern life. Smart phones, or rather, camera phones have changed photography as a medium. It has changed the way we take photographs, obviously, but it has changed the way we share our images, the way the media use and publish images, and perhaps most interestingly, the way we even experience our lives. The first camera phone I ever owned was...

New year. New outlook. Usually new(ish) reflections; reviewing the past 12 months can be cathartic, it can also be for some of us painful. At new year, I always feel reflective, its the very nature of the time - the dark evenings and harsh weather turn me into something of a clam shell. I want to hibernate and ponder; I feel myself morph into something I don't always recognise. It's also a time when I see so many people pour scorn on the year that has just passed. A quick glance across social media sites result in a textual cornucopia of  similar statements: 'good riddance to this year!', and 'this has been a terrible year, can't wait for the new one' etc. etc. My immediate response always seems in agreement: "How true! X year has been appalling, let it die a nasty horrible death and bring on the great hope of placebo new year!" I suddenly stopped myself. Why did I think 2014 had been particularly bad? What evidence was there to support th...

When Kate Bush announced she would be performing live again after over 30 years of absence from audience shows, I had to pinch myself it was real. It was surely yet another myth. It was surely yet another silly rumour, created to tease and taunt. I had heard and suffered this disappointment so many times over the years. It was part of being a Kate fan. It was part of the deal. She was elusive. She rarely, if ever, appeared in public anymore, neither did she do interviews. As I was growing up in the late 90s and as the internet fuelled mass media driven celebrity obsessed culture expanded faster than you could say 'world wide web' - this elusive behaviour seemed even more intriguing, and yet even more frustrating. By the 00s, I was resigned to watching old Aspel clips on youtubes or getting very excited when Top of the Pops 2 showed old Kate videos. But it was part of the pact. Part of accepting her work into your domain. Accept her work into your life, but this is the pr...

It takes a special kind of film to bewitch you. It takes a particularly rare specie of film to intwine itself into your core, so that you become so affected and absorbed, it lingers in your mind like a stubborn infection, digging its heels into the very walls of your brain. Dramatic of course, but Boyhood, director Richard Linklater's latest movie release, had and continues to have precisely that affect on me. The culture equivalent of having my soul taken out, shaken, strewn through the washing machine and hung out to dry like wary bed clothes. On the face of it, Boyhood tackles themes and issues that have been dealt with copious amounts of times, not only in films but most culture forms - 'boy grows up', 'coming-of-age', 'families' 'struggling relationships'. It is understatedly filmed and shot. It has a couple of known actors in Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke, but no one overly 'blockbuster'. Its not set in glossy bustling New York ...

Why can I not be the lark ascending? Wings that glide on strings a-singing. Swoop and soar devoid of care; Nimble dart, slice through air. Lose me as a feather in space; Gone forever - to that other place. Becomes a shadow painted in kind, Remnants only in passing mind. Why can I not be the lark ascending? Wings glide free leaving strings a-singing.

Sodden track, without care, Earthy soil, damp air; The woods surround, More lost than found. Arthritic branches, cold & bare, Naked tall, stand & stare. The trunk firm dark; Lesions skin bark. Nature's elderly, furrow old, Seen and heard, it all does hold- Terror or be, Mute, noble tree.