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A long weekend at the lakes

We’ve recently had some Bank holidays here in the UK, so myself Charlotte and our Canine companion Lola decided to take advantage & go and do some camping in the Great Langdale region of the Lake district. 

Gotta love a bit of Suma beans and sausage!

This was the first time we’d been camping together properly and not at a festival, so it was exciting for us and it brought back memories of camping back when I was a kid. We prepared as much as we could with various pots and pans, a fire pit and a cooler-box.  

Getting the barbie going

We arrived at about 8pm, happy and looking forward to getting set up, nothing could go wrong…until we realised that our tent wasn’t what we thought it was-we had only packed  the extension to the tent!  In a blind panic, we darted off to the little campsite shop in hope that they might have a tent we could buy, luckily they had a little dinky 2 man tent – the last one in the shop, what a relief!  

Mmmmm….bluebells

As you can imagine, we were all very cosy in our little tent, but it made for a funny weekend and we actually enjoyed being snug together as the weather wasn’t at its warmest!  

Cosy

Over the next couple of days we explored the beautiful sights of the lakes, walking for miles and miles & getting through more Chai tea than a bunch of hippies in a psychedelic festival tent!  

Professional hikers right there

So here I leave you with some of my favourite images from our weekend in the gallery below, enjoy!

Open studios exhibition

So just a short post to fill you in about my second open studios exhibition in Hebden Bridge last weekend.

The general theme was ‘a visual journal of self discovery’ and included 17 of some of my favourite images from the past couple of years that I’ve resided in the Calder Valley.

I like to think of each of my images as a self portrait, because essentially they are – everything that is shown in each image is a physical manifestation of everything that I’ve attracted into my life at that given moment!

It went down really well & it’s always encouraging to hear feedback from the general public about your work. It has left me with a feeling of inspiration & confidence with the direction I am taking my work.  For those of you who couldn’t make it, I am posting the images on this post below.  As always feedback and questions are welcome & I look forward to posting again soon!

Peace & love cosmonauts,

Theo

 

Welcome!

Hello fellow humans of the internet!  I’m here to tell you about my new blog.

 

 

Arnside, May, 2017

 

 

So what’s motivated me to start up a blog?

Well, people who know me well enough know that I enjoy photography and other forms of creativity. I’d like to say that this is going to be a photography blog, but I feel that the photography that I’ll be sharing on this blog is just part of an output of my ideas, perspectives and philosophies on life. For me, life isn’t solid and therefore I’d rather not be called a ‘photographer’ because labels just put people into categories and I feel that as humans, we are far more complex than being put into simple categories. But yes, there is a part of me that enjoys photography! There are also parts of me that enjoy cooking, walking, music and dreaming. So I guess if I’m going to categorise myself for the sake of this blog, then call me a Artist…who enjoys photography…..really though I’m just a human…aren’t I?!

 

So back to it – I’ve found it hard at times in my life to express myself verbally without getting frustrated…thats not to say that I haven’t ever, but on the whole, I have.  As I said before though, life is fluid and things change, I  believe that we can be many different versions of ourselves throughout our lifetime, so one minute I may be the Chief from One flew over the Cuckoos nest .  The next I’ll be Ace Ventura!  Jim Carey expresses this notion of being different versions of oneself very well in the recent documentary on Netflix –Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond. I highly recommend watching it! I think maybe one of the reasons I and other people find it hard to talk, is the fear of being judged, so I’d just like to take the opportunity of using this platform as a way to write as I think and speak without giving a shit!  If I swear, then I swear if I don’t I don’t, for me its just a form of expression and it is the way I like to express myself – so to that I say “fuck it!”  How liberating is that?!
Say what you want to say, not what you think others might want you to

 

I think in our culture – and I’d say particularly in my country, the UK. We worry about what the others think, now I’m not saying there is any problem with thinking about others and that is also a very beautiful quality to have (and necessary for things to grow and work). BUT if you never say what you want to say, then you are essentially giving your power away to the other person, you are undermining yourself to a huge degree and not only is it detrimental to yourself but it is to the other person as well – they THINK they’re getting the real you, but really they’re just getting an idealised version of you – the idea that they have of you through what they see.

 

Now I’m not advocating just going hell for leather and screaming “FUCK THE WORLD!”  There are times where you will tone yourself down a bit and feel the need to!  But at the same time, there is always going to be a reaction from someone – ‘good’ or ‘bad’ – from what you say.  You may awaken something within that person that they haven’t confronted and that may come out as anger…towards you!  But it works the other way as well, maybe you’ve been annoyed by someone and have good reason to be.  But maybe theres something that you need to look at in yourself!  Photography is much the same, you may seem something that horrifies you, but why does it?  Something may make you feel joyful – why is that?  It’s all just a reflection of different aspects of your own self.
If I go off on a tangent then I do apologise, I easily get carried away!

 

Arnside, May, 2017 From my personal series the #charlielolaproject – a continuous document of my dog lola and girlfriend Charlotte – inspired by Eric Kim’s #cindyproject

 

Sharing’s caring

 

I think it’s important to share because that’s how life works.  If you want to get scientific about it then look at how cells have to work together to multiply.  The cells in out body need energy – usually from food and drink, but also from the sun, socialising and other forms of connection!  If we don’t eat, then our cells can’t regenerate.  If we don’t socialise, then we become reclusive.  If we don’t output then we become like a fizzy drink that’s been shaken up – about to POP!  Coming from a male perspective, I think through cultural conditioning, we find it hard to share and show emotion. Slowly, I think this is improving and as the veil of illusion of who we really are is lifted, we will see more and more openness and much less fear, anger and depression in the world we live in.  On the female side I believe there are problems – also due to cultural conditioning and repressive mind-made ideologies – But I am a glass half full kinda guy and believe that things are slowly starting to change.  I will write a full post on this in the near future!

 

So there you go, my first post. I hope you enjoyed it and I look forward to sharing and connecting with you intergalactic interwebbers in the near future!

Adios Amigios,

Theo