Sauntering Vaguely Downward

I didn't want to say anything about it lest I jinx it before I got too far into it. Now that I've reached Week 6 (and planned Weeks 7 and 8) I feel comfortable announcing that I have started a 52 project. My approach this time will be to select what I think is my best photograph of the week. I started out free-form, but at the moment I'm using reading material for inspiration. At the moment it's The Horologicon by Mark Forsyth, in which the author indulges his passion for reviving obscure and under-utilised words by sorting them according to the hours of the day and their associated "typical" activities.

I've also decided to work in black and white for a while, because I've acquired a new dSLR. It's a significant step for me since I had the same entry-level consumer dSLR for seven years, and now I'm using a camera that, while not full-frame because I don't fancy lugging that kind of weight or responsibility around, is still a big step up from my previous bit of kit. Using black and white forces me to see where I'm making mistakes in focus, exposure and depth of field. I find colour can distract from recognising those errors. Often a photograph that looks interesting in colour becomes extremely dull when the colour is removed, because from a technical perspective it has not been well executed. This isn't always true, of course - the whole appeal of some photographs is in the colour. But with the types of photography that I like to do, portrait and macro, the previously mentioned items are of paramount importance in creating a memorable, striking image.

So, starting with week six, here's what I've done so far. I won't post an update here every week (although I probably will in my favourite DW and LJ communities) - instead I'll do periodic updates like this one.

Week 6

(The word that inspired this is agastopia, defined in the Descriptive Dictionary and Atlas of Sexology as, "a rarely used term for admiration of any particular part of the body.")

( Weeks 1 through 5 - TW for dead things in jars )

Drunken butterflies feasting on overripe bananas


Guess who's back from central Europe? And guess who had to make the journey home commando because she packed three pairs too many socks, but one pair too few underpants?

I love being mixed race. I like having a genetic as well as experiential link to cultures in different parts of the globe. I wish that the only difference it made to anyone else was to inspire benign curiosity. I wish that it didn’t create assumptions about my intelligence or my abilities...or my immigration status.

I’m still learning to like the way I look. It doesn’t fit traditional, monoethnic standards of Asian or white beauty and it never will. I don’t have perfect almond-shaped eyes or cheekbones that can cut glass. I didn’t inherit the delicate Asian thinness of my father or the long-necked European elegance of my mother. I have long thin hands and feet. The rest of me is quite muscular. My face is topped by a cloud of dark-brown hair that grows greyer daily. My face is also balanced exactly halfway between my parents. Freckles from my mother. Lips from my father. Eyelashes from my mother. Eyes from my father. Nose that appears to have been forged from a blend of my mother’s little pointy number and my father’s flat wide schnozz. Every time I think I’ve got it all figured out, I age a bit more and it changes on me. And forget trying to find makeup that matches my skin tone. Two weeks in the sun and I turn a completely different colour.

I babble. This image was inspired by all the wonderful portraits in Part Asian, 100% Hapa by Kip Fulbeck. The lovely anthrokeight sent me the book as a present. When I opened it, I cried. Every time I re-read it, I cry. I don’t fully understand why it affects me deeply to see photos of other mixed-race people other than it makes me feel that I’m not alone.