Loving this Tilt Shift photography where the camera is manipulated so that a life-sized location or subject looks like a miniature-scale model
Thursday 3 December 2009
Tilt Shift photography
Loving this Tilt Shift photography where the camera is manipulated so that a life-sized location or subject looks like a miniature-scale model
Tuesday 3 November 2009
Tate Modern
This is my favourite photo of all time. Taken on a very exciting day. Possibly the best I had all year.
Zantedeschia
This flower bears to me so many names. A dark flower from a dark man. Love lost. Wilted hearts and strengthened minds. Summer. Time wasted. Dashed hopes. Joy, pain, peace, trauma. Lab rat to fluctuating human emotions. A suitable boy (Vikram Seth). Closing a chapter, turning a page. etc etc etc . Moving inexorably on.
Turning a page
I recently graduated from the OxfordCGD after a year of such intensity, I scarcely found time to draw breath or pause. Thought this was indeed one of the hardest most exhausting year, with one day off for Xmas and weekends a true rarity, it was one of the richest and most stimulating. Not just the excellent content of the course, the tangible feeling of my mind expanding, but also the people I studied with were truly exceptional.
It is a strange feeling when one has been so driven, so motivated and also so stressed, to suddenly find the driving vehicle for all this energy gone. That is the indescribable feeling of graduating. We are suddenly spewed out from the cradle of learning, into a world of winds and whims. Like a leaf, we are then blown about, struggling to find a place to settle, and even despairing at the comparative lack of motivation which is so hard to replicate, day after day, when working on your own, bereft of all the energetic wonderful people who shared your journey for that singular period of education.
Despite all my sobs and moans, I am now a highly qualified Landscape Designer, with many fingers in pies, and irons in fires. I have been in conversation with the CEO of Oehme Van Sweden (OvS) about a possible future internship in the US; I have been head hunted to work 6 months maternity cover, assisting in the running of a most highly rated plant nursery in the country - Orchard Deans client list is like the residents list of Hollywood, ranging from humble to the absolute stars of the design world.
This Friday I start a week of work experience in London with Charlotte Row, an Ex student from my course who is rapidly becoming a big name in the City. I have also entered a nationwide design competition called Young Designer of the Year, to win a £12,000 grant to build my design for a show garden at Tatton Park 1010. On top of all this I have set up my business www.oliviastewartdesign.com , am working on an extensive planting plan for a very interesting lady who owns a construction company AND doing garden maintenance work to keep my self above the breadline while I wait for all these pies and irons to heat up and become productive (and fingers crossed lucrative!!)
I am breathless after the above, but now I feel I can just talk about one project or an other without having to explain myself every time.
And so the autumn draws to a close, and all the leaves have mostly blown from their trees, to settle in some muddy puddle or sheltered corner, leaving only the most tenacious ones, strung up high on the cold nights under this full moon.
Never is the passage of time better optimised, in my mind, than by the autumn time. I watch each golden second drip by with every fallen leaf, blown towards uncertain futures, and bringing me ever closer to the winter nights, the time for fires and films, hibernation of sorts and the end of a year.
Monday 26 October 2009
Monday 19 October 2009
In the Beginning
In the beginning there was light? Perhaps not in my case... My origins we far more humble and 26 years in the making. Forged by extreme fortune and adversity in equal measures, tempered by a loving family and a unique upbringing, I have finally reached a point in my life where I feel compelled to share my journey.
Before I delve any further I think I aught to explain; I recently lost someone very dear to me indeed. Someone I used to write to constantly for several years. Someone who, in fact, gradually inspired me to write, if only to be their equal in standards and expression, to discover it's joys, take pride in eloquence, and expression, emotion and poetry, to explore the power and beauty of words. Although I did not realise it at the time, the importance and experience of writing to that person soon equalled that of exchanging of news. Without our correspondence I have been rudderless at sea. And so, though sorely missed, I will now continue to a different audience. Thank you.
Before I delve any further I think I aught to explain; I recently lost someone very dear to me indeed. Someone I used to write to constantly for several years. Someone who, in fact, gradually inspired me to write, if only to be their equal in standards and expression, to discover it's joys, take pride in eloquence, and expression, emotion and poetry, to explore the power and beauty of words. Although I did not realise it at the time, the importance and experience of writing to that person soon equalled that of exchanging of news. Without our correspondence I have been rudderless at sea. And so, though sorely missed, I will now continue to a different audience. Thank you.
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