A Penetrating Photographic Experience

Sorry I’ve been off blog. I’ve been busy with medical stuff and spent an afternoon at the hospital on Tuesday waiting for one of my head checkups. This involved an excruciatingly boring two and a half hour wait with a small four-year-old child in tow, during which I had nothing to read other than waiting-room garbage because I’d left Susan Sontag at home. So I was reduced to reading wedding brochures (harrowing) and catholic society newsletter catalogues (unbelievably harrowing) and teddy-bear stories (not as bad as catholic newsletters and twice as profound) and I was soooooo bored that I accidentally-on-purpose overdosed on at least 3 cappuccino’s and achieved that sort of giggly, strung-out, drunken high that results from milky-caffeine overdose. So I was feeling distinctly queasy and floaty by the time I was summoned to meet the neurosurgeon.

Well it turned out that I had a new neurosurgeon who perchance bore a startling resemblance to the luscious Matthew Mcconaughey. Now I was mightily pleased by this new and exciting medical development, as my previous surgeon (otherwise known as God) was distinctly old and droopy, although he was mind-bogglingly clever, but you can’t fancy a God for his brain alone, and heaven knows I deserved a bit of hot 'n' hunky medical eye-candy after everything I’d been through. So now I had the all-new-upgraded-younger-sooper-dooper-brain-surgeon. Good looks, charm and incredible intelligence. Yee-har! My ship had definitely come in.

“Good afternoon, Mrs B. How are you feeling?” he enquired in a deep, upper-class, plummy British accent.

I visibly melted. I had a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach, and my knees turned to jelly. Actually that might have been due to excess caffeine, but I didn’t really care by that point because I was feeling exceedingly strange.

“Mmmm…I feel…really really good…”I purred, gazing into those beautiful, penetrating blue eyes. In fact I felt bloody awful, but I wasn’t exactly thinking straight.

“Well that’s excellent news. I hear you had a rather rough time of it in London. I’m ever so sorry about that, but you look very well considering. I’m afraid I need to examine you, so please would you mind removing your top layer of clothing so I can check the back of your neck?”

“That’s no problem Doctor, although I usually charge £30 per hour for this you know.”

“What ?”

“Oh nothing, sorry, I’m a bit strung out this afternoon. It's been a long wait…”

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He looked a bit boggled but proceeded to gently probe the back of my neck, looking for lumps no doubt. Now the back of my neck is one of my all-time-overly-sensitive erogenous zones, and having Dr Matt stroke the back of your neck is a treat that can only be imagined in the wildest dreams of middle-aged-old-ladies like myself who really don’t get out very much. I felt even more warm and twice as fuzzy. Parts of me really began to…er…glow…

“Hmm…I can definitely feel something,” he said.

“Me too. Me too…”

“What?”

“Oh nothing. Gosh, did I think out loud? Sorry…er…I do have a brain tumour, you know…”

“Hmm…Well…I…er…do apologise but I need to probe you a little deeper. It will involve a more penetrating examination, I’m afraid.”

“Woo hoo! It must be Christmas!” I thought.

“Pardon? Are you quite sure you’re feeling O.K. Mrs B? Now, hold still a moment whilst I stick this camera up your nose…hold steady...steady now…this will only hurt a bit.”

“Well Doctor I must admit no-one’s ever taken a photo of the inside of my nose before…you really are the most thorough....gahh! Argle! Zat-hurtssalot!”

He’d stuck a tiny camera and a light up my nose. My eyes were watering like mad and bulging out of their sockets. I opened my mouth and light came out. Now I knew what it felt like to be possessed. My passion drooped significantly. It’s difficult to have a warm fuzzy feeling in your nether regions with a long thick rubber tube shoved up your nose. Not the type of photographic experience that makes me juicy, if you know what I mean.

“Hmm…it’s a bit tight in here…can’t…quite…see…down your throat ...say ‘hey!’”

“Hay.”

“No, no, I want to go deeper. Much, much, deeper inside…Say it like you really mean it…'heeyyyy’…”

“Hayyyyyyouch!”

“All finished! You look fine to me. Well done! Off you go Mrs B. See you at Christmas!”

Eyes streaming, snot dripping from my nose and my ardent passion completely extinguished, I fled, vowing under my breath never to let a camera inside me again.

“Mama, why did that bad man put that big thing up your nose?” said my daughter, who had been watching intently and silently throughout. “I don’t like that man. I want my Dada. He doesn’t put big things in my Mama's nose. I love my Dada. He makes me feel better.”

“Me too, sweetie, me too.”

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Don't try this at home folks

(Alas I don't have any camera-up-the-nose photos available I'm afraid, as models don't tend to like that very much, but big kudos to Roswell Ivory for this very brave shot.)

Rock Bottom

A strong language, big smelly-ass post. You have been suitably cautioned.

It’s been a heck of a couple of months. It’s been our busiest time of year, accounting-wise and I’ve been swamped with finance, tax and working fifteen hour days for the last ten weeks or so. Combine this with trying to blog several times a week, continual professional development (accounting/legal lectures and studying), looking after the family, keeping house plus fallout from the full force of Duke Nukem’s mighty ray-gun, and there’s only one result. Burnout.

The docs ordered me to rest. I didn’t make time to follow their orders (I’ve always been a terrible patient.) Now I’m suffering the consequences.

I’ve been to the delightful location of Rock Bottom before, and I can tell you that it's actually rather a fabulous place to be. Very picturesque, rather quiet, and once you’re there, life suddenly becomes very black and white. All the crap falls away, and there’s nothing left except you and the choices you make.

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Too much tax maketh a zombie

But let’s talk about my little photographic world for a moment.

Photographically I’ve not been enjoying myself as much as I should have been. In particular I’ve been trying to follow all the blogs, largely because the Annual Golden Fluffies dictate that we try to regularly read as many nude blogs as possible so that we can fairly assess the best ones out there.

The trouble is that over the course of the last six months, there have been absolutely tons of new blogs springing up. Starting a blog now appears to be a de facto requirement for photographers and models alike. Wannabe a recognised art photographer or model? Start a blog! It’s part of the mandatory marketing package nowadays. And whereas I really applaud the expansion of the art blog community, and I love the fact that it’s growing so fast, it’s simply just not possible for me to keep track of them all on a regular basis. I now read so many, that they are detracting from my main love (actual photographs) and I am in danger of finding the photographic blogosphere...not fun.

So…in that sudden moment of clarity that results from exploring one’s Bottom, I have resolved (in no particular order) to:

1. Stop working so hard. I am switching to strictly working part-time, starting immediately (and since my boss reads this blog he can take this as notice of my reduction in hours!)

2. I am going to let the sodding housework go a bit. Not doing the dusting for three weeks won’t result in the total destruction of life as we know it, and I’m not fucking Superwoman. It can bloody well just stay dusty.

3. I am going to stop reading blogs that stress me out, both economic and photographic. Please believe me that this is nothing personal regarding any of you wonderful bloggers out there, but it’s time my bloggie world contracted rather a lot, for the sake of my own sanity if nothing else. You can safely assume that if I comment on your blog, it’s because you make me happy.

4. I will be reading more of the type of books I love (yes, that means more on the whys of photography I'm afraid, these books are my therapy) and writing more about the the photographic stuff that interests me, even if it's not popular and no-one reads it.

5. I am damn well going to photograph my cat. Oh yes I am, and I am going to try to do it well. (Note: Have tried multiple shoots already, but the model has proved flaky and uncooperative.)

6. Most importantly, I am going to play more. With my family of course, with my friends (both photographic and non-photographic, online and offline, they are incredibly supportive and I am very lucky to have them) and most importantly, with Mr Fluffy.

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Full of hot air and not much else

So here’s to arriving at my bottom. Now the only way is up.

The Absence of Self

“There is no me. I do not exist. There used to be a me but I had it surgically removed.”
Peter Sellers

No doubt some of you will be wondering why our blogging has been minimal in the past few weeks. It hasn’t all been over-work-related. I’ve been feeling slightly below par recently. This is totally unlike me, as I‘m usually an incredibly balanced and sensible person (It’s true, and you can all just stop laughing now, otherwise I‘ll thump you.). However there’s no doubt that strange things have been happening, courtesy of my expanding/shrinking/currently-in-its-death-throes-tumour.

I was warned of course that there would be lasting side effects of the treatment, But being warned about something isn’t the same as living it. The effects are really kicking in now. Vertigo, pain, nausea, chronic itchy head (I nearly shaved my head yesterday out of sheer desperation.) And my personality is changing on a daily basis, depending on what part of my brain the tumour is pressing today. Rich is an absolute saint for putting up with me, I can tell you that. For example I woke up yesterday as an atheist, for no reason at all (Rich calls it enlightenment and takes it as a good sign!)

I’ve absolutely no idea what has happened to “the real me.” She’s long gone. I’m a floating voter at the moment. I’ve nearly deleted the blog at least 21 times last week (that’s three times a day.) Now don’t you go feeling sympathy for me, 'cos that will only make me mad. And I’ll probably delete this post anyway, but assuming I decide to leave it up or you catch it via RSS feeds, this is by way of explanation as to what’s happening in The Fluffytek Photographic World. Oh and Rich worked 82 hours last week. The man is superhuman. He really is.

Anyhoo, I’m not feeling despondent about all of this, and I do know I’ll get past all the side effects, but in the meantime, you can anticipate wacky personality changes on my part, and no doubt the bloggie-style and contents will fluctuate accordingly.

For example, I’ve been tempted to pick up a camera recently. Very strongly tempted. Resistance to this foolish notion is not aided by the fact that Rich has offered me his old Canon 350D. Not that I want to shoot female nudes though. No worries there (I’m not that crazy. Yet.) But sometimes I really do get tempted to view life from the other side of the lens. T’would be interesting, and rather therapeutic, methinks. Plus it would provide answers to the constant questions I inevitably ask “How do they do that? What lighting do they use? How is a photograph produced?” (Rather than the viewer’s/writer’s perspective of why?) Hmm. We shall see. I really would make a terrible photographer you know.

Right, off to my lime-and-lemon-grass-flavoured-bubble-bath. If I don’t decide to go to the dark side and take up photography or full-time writing, I might alternatively pursue a new and exciting career inbreeding Norwegian Forest cats, or even start a company selling exotic-flavoured-bubble-bath. Plus we could get some really good photos of bubblicious models (with said Norwegian Forest Cats) soaking in a giant steamy foamy tub. Cliché. Cliché. Predictable glamour photography, I know. Rich is shuddering at the thought.

Anyway, who gives a damn if a photograph’s been done many times before, as long as it smells nice?

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Pirate Maiden. I've no idea if she smells nice, but very probably.

This post will self-destruct in 5 seconds.

The Halo

In which our intrepid model spends waaay too much time in bed with a certain Mr Brooks Jensen

I had a sneaking suspicion that it was all going to go horribly wrong from the moment I stepped off the Tube at my new (supposedly) state-of-the-art London hospital. I expected a beacon of shining light. I expected it to positively glow with hope, promise and millions of taxpayers hard-earned pounds. I expected the road to said- hospital to be paved with gold. What I did not expect was armed police (yes this might be normal in the US, but this is the UK, remember?), BIG signs saying “Caution, muggings operate in this area. Do not carry bags. Do not go out unescorted after dark. Park your car at your own peril. If in doubt, run for your life” and so forth. At that point I was VERY glad I had strongly insisted Rich had stayed at home to look after the kids. (With hindsight this was probably not one of the wisest decisions I ever made.)

The hospital is situated in an area of London known as Tower Hamlets. Once upon a time this used to be a quaint ol’ cockney area, not dissimilar to the London you see in Charles Dickens movies. Today it looks like an overpopulated version of an American Gangsta movie. I’m not kidding. Now I normally live somewhere so rural that the highlight of the day is a tractor going past, so you will appreciate that being deposited in the middle of one of the roughest parts of London was a bit of a culture shock, not only for me, but also for the scores of would-be muggers who took one look at my Italian designer wool-and-cashmere-blend coat, and moved in for the kill.

I fled, in a rather undignified manner, to the hospital, whereupon I was instructed in no uncertain terms that I should NEVER go out on my own. Apparently I could go out to get food (hospital food not supplied the night before treatment), but only with a security escort. Of course, me being me, I took absolutely no notice at all, and sneaked out to mingle with the evening crowd (in which I blended in perfectly, one designer-clad white woman amongst 20,000 Muslims, no I did not stick out at all) and I managed to take some perfectly awful photos with my little instant-camera (why don’t the magnificent images I saw in my viewfinder look the same as those that came back from the developers? Why? Why? So don’t blame me for the photos accompanying this post. I’m blaming the equipment.)



Anyhoo, talented as I am in the ways of sniffing out the highest quality restaurant in the area, I was grateful to the above salubrious establishment for my quality evening meal of some very strange and unidentifiable vegetables. In the interests of worldly research, I was rather tempted by the advertisements on the wall to remain for the evening Pole-dancing Show, but instead fled back to my bed and curled up with Brooks Jensen for the night, figuratively speaking of course.

And there I spent the next two days. With Brooks. Just him ‘n’ me. Despite all the horror and crap going on around me, I lost myself in his photographic and artistic world. I listened to his arguments, thought him sometimes a genius, sometimes flawed, always honest. I smiled, I laughed, I learned a heck of a lot. Photography as therapy. Instant calm. I carried that book everywhere, and read it continually.



Brooks was there the next morning when they bolted a metal frame (a.k.a “The Halo”) to my skull. He was there when I was transported to a second hospital (nicer than the first, methinks) and waited for four hours with the weight of the metal pressing into my skull, whilst they mapped my brain. Brooks was there when I couldn’t eat, drink, blow my nose or wipe the tears from my eyes for nine very long hours. He was there when the docs came and told me that they couldn’t get all of the tumour after all, only most of it, and I would probably need to go through additional radiation in a year’s time to get the rest of it. He was there when they came and told me the machine had broken and they couldn’t treat me. And I even returned to those (by now) very tear-stained and soggy pages when I finally came out from that dratted machine in the evening, after they had finally hot-wired a temporary solution so they could nuke me.

The sheer fact that I held it together for that length of time, was largely down to the persuasive writing skills of Mr Jensen, and if he were here now, I would hurl myself upon him and give him the biggest hug imaginable. I don’t always “get” his photos, but by God, that guy can write. I owe that man my sanity.



It’s now a week later.

I am recovering, very slowly. The radiation sickness is going. I no longer resemble the Elephant Man, and I am eating again. And hello weight loss! Hurrah! I can report that my colossal ass has now reduced to the scrawny butt it used to be! Not the best dieting-programme I would recommend, but very effective.

And as for photography? It saved me. No exaggeration.

I’m reading my second Brooks Jensen book at the moment.
So much, MUCH more about photography to come.

Now, let’s get back to business of talking about art, shall we?

Amoebas and Elephants

Contrary to popular belief, having a brain tumour doesn't usually make you feel poorly. I always get immensely irritated when people treat me as if I'm ill, or diseased. I feel perfectly O.K., and I lead a completely normal life thank-you-very-much. On the whole, I feel absolutely fine. Healthier than you do probably. If my tumour is happy, then I'm happy.

And yet...sometimes I do become aware that I'm not invincible, that something is definitely not quite right. I feel...odd. No other way to describe it. Not quite here. Other-worldy. In particular, I lose blocks of time. Whole periods of my memory have been erased. The early years of my marriage, for example, are all gone. This might be a good thing actually – the first few years of our marriage were apparently very stormy. And my medium and short term memory are also pretty ghastly. Rich has to constantly remind me of stuff that happened yesterday. I'm like the fish with a three second memory.

When I was growing up I used to be incredibly scared of losing my memory. It was a phobia of my youth. I used to think I would rather go blind than lose my past. Our memories are the essence of who we are...if you forget your experiences, then it makes you a lesser person. You're just a blank slate. You forget how you came to be the person you are.

The good news is that memory loss is actually completely painless, emotionally speaking. Because you can't remember past events, you're not upset about not remembering, because you simply can't recall what you should be upset about in the first place.

Another advantage is that whole periods of my sordid past have been completely erased. Also a good thing. And memory loss comes in very handy for inter-marital arguments too. If I get angry with Rich then I don't stay angry for long, because I never remember what we argued about originally. So having an addled and malfunctioning brain is exceptionally good for family harmony. Plus there's the added sexual bonus too. Every time is always the first time for me 'n' the studly Mr Fluffy. I literally never remember it being this good, so I am constantly surprised and blown away by his sexual prowess.

Alas, this memory loss issue will remain with me for the rest of my life. My doctors tell me it will probably get worse too. I'm not especially bothered by this, largely because I know I'm not going to remember being upset about it. It's not going to affect my intelligence or my identity. It's just inconvenient, that's all. And of course, as with most disabilities, you do learn to work around the problem.

Organisation is the key to leading a normal life. I have learned to write things down. Blogs are excellent recorders of stories (part of the reason I started one in the first place.) And I live by lists. I write lists for everything, and stick post-it notes all over the house. Rich designed his day-job software to have sophisticated calendaring and reminder services, so I get emailed every day about specific things that I need to do. For example, tomorrow's messages read: Monday- give cat anti-fur-ball gel, shave pussy, evening shoot. So if I end up with a completely bald and shitty cat on Tuesday, blame Rich's software not me. I just do what the emails tell me to.

If you have severe memory problems, then the only long term memories you will have are the stories told by your loved ones. Rich has to tell me the same stories over and over again. He knows I won't recall it next week, but I swear he never ever complains about being a regurgitating tape recorder. He's a fabulous chap, you know. Who else could possibly be so endlessly patient with me? (Of course, I don't actually remember his faults, if indeed he has any, which I'm sure he doesn't.)

I would also like to submit that photography is of critical importance to brain tumour patients. It is essential to take as many photos as you can, all of the time. I have issued the kids with cheap digital cameras, and they snap anything and everything. They are my memory storage devices. I will be able to remember them growing up through the eyes of the camera. My life's stories are stored on computer. My memories are in digital. If memories are who you are as a person, then my psyche is on my hard disk drive, laid bare for all the world's hackers to see.

Incidentally my appalling memory makes me an excellent agony aunt and confession storage repository. Please do feel free to tell me all your sordid, deep, dark secrets. I can guarantee I won't remember them in two days time. On the other hand, if I seem vague or repetitive in email conversations with you, this isn't because I'm stupid, it's simply because I am a fish.

Now I'm sure some of you are feeling sorry for me by now. This is a mistake, caused by your own inbuilt fear of losing your identity. Truly, you should never feel sorry for people with memory loss. Chances are they are happier than you are.

Thanks to my tumour, I'm in a constant state of contentment.
Amoebas are happier than elephants, let me tell you that.

The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.
Nietzche



Amy, in high key.