My beating heart

I read this quote and thought it was amazing!

When a writer writes, it's as if she holds the sides
of her chest apart, exposes her beating heart. And
even though everything wants to heal and close over
and protect the heart, the writer must keep it bare,
exposed. And in doing this, all of life is kept back,
all the petty demands of the day-to-day. The heart is
a river. The act of writing is moving water that holds
the banks apart, keeps the muscle of words flexing so
that the reader can be carried along by this movement.
To be given space and the chance to leave one's
earthly world. Is there any greater freedom than this?

I just substitute the word writer with photographer,
but it pertains to anything creative. The book is
about a woman in England during World War II who is
reviving a garden on an abandoned mansion.It is called
The Lost Garden by Helen Humphries. The author is also
a poet and it is just a gorgeous book.

Window in Venice

Venice again

I was in Venice again in November and this time the mist was spectacular. Really all consuming, the way I remembered it. And Venice is so quiet and dark at night that it really does add to the mystery of the place.

dots

yesterday, as I enlarged a photo really BIG, I realized that we are all just dots of matter strung together with energy.

BUT, I keep trying to figure a way to get everything in balance. Me, the country, the planet. I can't take the inequality of it all. The people starve in Darfur while I throw away old bread and a piece of dried up cheese. How can this work out?

And the term throw away. Where is "away". I am driving myself insane, slowly with all this.

So, I did volunteer last week. Try to right the planet, one small dot at a time.

rehearsal

Florida

Despite my best efforts, I have become an erratic blogger. Went to Florida for a week. Sat in the sun, swam and played shuffleboard and hardly touched my computer. Here is one of my shots from the trip. Taken at the Ca' Zan at the Ringling Museum.

Venezia

Red Rubber Band

Rain Dance

Rainy Day

Artists Cafe lunchtime

I ran around the Fine Arts Building yesterday and it was so much fun. Reminded me of sneaking around a big old house, like when I was a kid. Full of funny rooms and people off in the distance. The place smelled of wood polish and old radiators. This shot was taken in back of the Artists Cafe on the ground floor.

Girl with bow

No comment on this one. Such a sweet moment and troublesome too.

© 2006 Sarah Hadley

A single leaf

I shot this over a month ago. I had an afternoon off and went out with my camera to shoot. I wandered around for an hour or so, and shot a bunch of things, and honestly thought I had not gotten any good shots, so I downloaded these photos and didn't look at them again until today, when I found a few gems, like this one. I need to trust my instincts more. Trust that I have been shooting for more than 15 years and something good is bound to happen when I try.

© 2006 Sarah Hadley

rehearsal

So, I have been shooting this play being put up and the process has been very interesting. It is so much more work than I ever imagined. So much time, so much dedication. The director works 4 hours a night and on weekends to mold this script into something. It takes a lot of time and it has made me think about my own creative process. Do I work 4 hours a day on one project, do I stay the course even when my enthusiasm fails. The actors have to show up for rehearsal. When there is no one watching me, do I show up? Do I make myself go through the motions even when I don't feel like it. I know I should. I would see the results. It is just like the gym. Pump a little iron everyday and you will see results. I should pump some metaphoric iron...

Nostalgia

Here is a photo from a recent trip to Venice. I know it looks like it was taken in the 19th century. That is partly Venice and partly me. I guess. It is part of a series i am working on about my childhood, which was NOT in the 19th century, obviously. But it is about memory and recovering how I felt as a kid, which was mostly sort of happy and sort of scared. I don't know. I am sorting it out. Trying to recover my memories and translate them to film. I call it nostalgia, because we are all nostalgic in a way for something. I went to Venice when i was 20 and worked as an intern at the Guggenheim Museum there. It was the greatest thing I had ever done. I fell in love with Venice. Figured out my way around and felt as if I owned it. I lived there off and on in my twenties, and everytime it was marvelous, but it can also be the most melancholic place in the world. Those were the days before the internet, so I really felt cut off from the US and on my own. The beauty of Venice is breathtaking.