Thursday, 10th February, 2005

Visually Pretty, Conceptually Dull

I'm having a bit of a creative block at the moment (which might explain just why my writing is not up to scratch right now), one of those periods where everything I touch seems to turn to poo. In situations like these, I tend to wallow in a pool of self-pity, despairing of all that is wrong with life — much to the consternation of those around me.

With this in mind, I thought I'd illustrate just what I mean, and do something I rarely do: show half-completed work.

I've been having fun with some macro-extension tubes you see, but any still image work I've made using the stuff I took has two problems (1) I can't blow the mup to the sizes I usually work with, because their graininess looks shite on a large scale, (2) they look far too similar to a certain someone else's work.

Also, there's no real thought involved with them — it's just about me trying to make pretty pictures. OK, so I know that on one level that's fine, but the stripes I make have all sorts of things going on in them underneath the surface.

Meh

My problem with that film above (it's less than 1MB BTW ) is that it doesn't have any depth to it. Conceptually, it's no different to the auto-generated visuals you get in something like iTunes. But whatever, I thought I'd share it anyway.

My Girlfriend is the Best Girlfriend in the World

Now let me just stop you there for a minute. I know what you're thinking ... "pfft Siobhan, you're so wrong. My girlfriend/boyfriend/partner/cat is actually the best in the world"

But you'd be wrong.

True story

Last night, I came home from Leeds in a bit of a bad mood. Actually, "bad mood" makes it sound like I was angry at something — I wasn't, I was just feeling particularly low that's all.

I'd had a bit of a panic at the train station earlier — I left work and pottered down to catch a train home, but there were so many people trying to get on the train, that I decided to get a different one. When I got over to the other platform, there were a lot of people there too, so I wandered aimlessly between the two platforms, trying to weigh up the advantages of (a) getting home a bit earlier, and (b) not having to stand all the way to Halifax.

In the end, I dithered so much, that I found myself sitting in a waiting room, almost about to burst into tears, having missed both trains.

When I did manage to get up and get a train though, it turned out to be pretty empty, and comfortable — so I ended up with a pleasant enough journey to Manchester, followed by a short(ish) wait, then another empty, comfy train all the way back to Lancaster.

(Although, the Manchester -> Lancaster train seemed to be filled with nutters: One guy, I swear was Frank Gallagher, and another guy was walking up the carriage talking to people, shaking their hands, trying to get phone numbers, and at one point trying to beg for the fare from Preston to London)

By the time I actually walked through my front door, I was feeling like there was no hope or loveliness in the world ... which was when I discovered that Kath had been round earlier and had left me some cripsy duck and pancakes for me to warm up and eat.

See? She really is the Best Girlfriend in the World.