Archive for the ‘Life, The Universe, and Everything’ Category

Last week my dad finally made it over to the UK for a visit.

Moo took to her Pops instantly, excitedly waking him up in the mornings with a loud “squee!” and then spending our days showing him around our beautiful town.

It was nice to finally have my dad visit and see our lives in the UK.  I know he worries a lot, and I think the trip went a long way to laying those fears to rest: we’ve carved out a life for our little family here in the UK, and it’s a good life.

Family coming to visit is always a double-edged sword.  I really do like living here (even if it was a hard adjustment in the beginning) and sharing my life here with my mom or dad for a few weeks reminds me why I love Brighton:  I love having the sea at the bottom of my street, the cry of seagulls in the early morning, and 10pm sunsets with a jug of Pimms on the beach in the summer.  I love the life we’ve made here.  I’m also reminded just how far away my entire family is, how hard that is, and sometimes it feels as though it would be worth uprooting this little family of mine to move us all to the US.  But I do count myself lucky as my parents are visiting more and more, mom will be over in the summer as will dad, who decided he couldn’t be away from Moo for too long.    As an expat, all you can do really is make sure the time you DO have together is quality time.  And we did.

It was a good week.

2011 was a big year in a lot of ways for me as I set out to discover what it was, exactly, that I wanted out of life: life as a family, as an expat, and as an individual.  When it came to photography I thought I wanted to pursue a business of my own, at least on the side. Yet when it came down to it, I really didn’t want to. I didn’t have that drive needed to make the effort to fit this one more thing into an already busy lifestyle.   I became a fauxtographer: whipping out a business name, portfolio, and brand before I really knew what I was doing or where I was going.

As I learned more about photography I learned a bit about myself.  As it turns out, I really don’t want to take photos of people I have no emotional investment in, I don’t want to turn this hobby that I love into a job.   So I’m detaching my photography from the brand I created. I learned a lot about myself in pursuing Odyssey Photography (for it’s short 14 month life span), with the most important lesson being that the second it becomes work, the second the shots become forced and my heart not in it, is when it stops being fun.  And for me, I want this to always be something I do for fun.

I’m a rookie and, with any luck, I’ll continue to be a rookie for a long time: always learning, trying new techniques, new editing practices, and on and on as I get better.  I’m looking forward to how much more I will learn this year.

Google has decided to end Google Friend Connect service for all non-blogger based blogs starting March 1, 2012.  I don’t really have a lot to say on the matter other than 1. WordPress is a superior content management system and 2. I don’t want to lose readers, so I’m offering alternative methods for staying up to date with Awesomeville.

I’ve replaced the GFC follower box on the right with a very similar widget for following Awesomeville.co.uk’s Facebook page.  Click “like” and receive new post notifications to your Facebook news feed.  Highly convenient, wouldn’t you say? Awesomeville updates, neatly packaged and delivered right to your Facebook feed, sitting right there between the link your brother posted that’s probably not at all safe for work and the status update of a woman you’re friends with but not friends with who posts graphic details of her offspring’s bowel movements.  Why, my blog update notifications on your feed are practically  little rays of sunshine!*

You can also subscribe to the RSS feed. 

(*I’m only about 60% this arrogant).

When Jen said the color in my living room was very “jazz” one night (we may or may not have had copious amounts of wine) I instantly had an idea for some really cool wall art I could totally create myself and have printed to canvas.  So I set about creating three simple images involving jazz playing silhouettes on bold back-lit backdrops with photoshop.  I did a mock up (1) image of what it might look like on the wall, ordered test prints, made adjustments and improvements, ordered test prints of mock up 2 , and finally ordered on canvas. I even learned how to use Illustrator in the process in order to make proper vectors.  I am insanely happy with how they look hung up on the living room wall and also satisfied in that 1. it’s something I’ve made, my own art and 2. by creating EXACTLY what I wanted I didn’t simply settle for something close but not spot on and store bought.

The prints are 20 x 30″ each and, whilst canvas is a pretty expensive medium to print in, they are the perfect size to make the impact I was looking for.  I used www.dscolourlabs.co.uk because, after trying several online shops for print quality, DS Colour Labs is the best by far.  I love how quickly they process orders, I love the color reproduction, and I love how safely they package everything (take note Shutterfly, you DONT ROLL PRINTS!) so I trusted the same quality in my canvas order, and they delivered. *

I’m absolutely in love with 1920s -40s era jazz, big band, and swing;  Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and other Harlem legends, and this was a great way to bring that into our living space.

(*not paid to say it.)

(Click each photo to enlarge!)

Photos from my niece’s blessing.