2019: The year of 'The Fool'

If you follow me on my personal instagram (shameless plug here) then you might have already seen that I’ve pulled my Tarot card for the year and as mentioned above - it is indeed the year of ‘The Fool’. Remember how I said in my last post that I didn’t want to jinx it?! Yeah I jinxed it haha.

On one hand, I’m thrilled with the Fool - the Fool is potential, the Fool has trust in everything around them, in that things will work out ok. The Fool is curious and optimistic.

On the other… the Fool takes risks, the Fool doesn’t seem to think things over, the Fool trusts their gut over their thinking, the Fool is naive and reckless. And that my friends is where the terror steps in. Right now my gut is literally intolerant to wheat, dairy, mushroom, olives and red kidney beans (random I know)… so metaphorically, I don’t trust it all that much - because my gut doesn’t want me to have cheese boards - what kind of gut is that?!

BUT if you know anything about Tarot, then you know that it doesn’t do things the easy way, it does things the way they need to be done - which is ironic as my word for 2019 is EASE. But maybe, for things to be ease-y, they have to be right.

Biddy Tarot describes the Fool on her website:

“This is an excellent card to meditate on if you are struggling with dread, worry or self-doubt in your life. The Fool is your guide, as someone who is daring and carefree. He is the embodiment of who you really are – your free spirit, your inner child, and your playful soul. “

And as much I hate to admit it - 2018 was a year of anxiety - and I do need to let go of that - I need go easier on myself, I need to ease my path - and maybe that’s by carrying less on the journey and having a little trust if the path goes in a way I wasn’t expecting. I also hate that I’ve already taken a risk with my uni work (I mean a calculated one, I’m not crazy - but I wouldn’t have done it without thinking about The Fool so much these past few days) but I’m having some faith that I can do what I need to do and that is actually a pretty good idea.

So here we go guys - its time to trust our guts, to trust that everything is going to be ok, to trust that its ok to not massively over think everything and that maybe, we’re exactly where we need to be right now. Imagine that.

p.s. I still miss cheese, its been over a year but boy would I love some halloumi right now! I also miss good chocolate, pastry, big macs and pizza (especially stuffed crust, omg).

Around Leeds Part II

I originally shared the first part of this series in 2016 - so I’m a little bit behind in sharing these - oops!

It turns out that I took a lot of photos in 2016 that I never shared here though - I guess my priority really was my 366 project ha. I’m thinking of making it a leap year project so that means I really need to start thinking about stocking up film for next year as 2020 will be here before I know it!

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Did you know that theres an Egyptian inspired temple in Leeds?? I really don’t know why I havent shared that here before - but now you know!

Camera: Refurbished LC-A
Film: My beloved Kodak BW400CN (sigh)
Location: Various places around Leeds

Single Frame: Leeds Festival 2016

I’ve been slowly updating my Flickr page now that I’m paying for it and that means basically uploading all my photos from 2016 onwards - I got super lazy with Flickr once I could start using the stacked galleries here on Squarespace. The plus side of having to go through all my photos is that I keep finding photos that I had completely forgotten about - like this one of a ride at Leeds Festival when we went in 2016.

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Single frame series inspired by Jim Grey as always!

Camera: Refurbished LC-A
Film: Agfa Vista 200
Location: Leeds Festival

Edinburgh Little Details

It’s been nearly a whole year since we were in Edinburgh so I’m a bit late sharing these. But I got round to it, and thats what matters.

I’ve been struggling a little with a couple of these where the main object I wanted in focus isn’t - and I’ve been trying to decide if that detracts from them as a final result. The skull grave (an intended nod to my interwebs friend Dianne) isn’t in focus - yet the ivy behind it is - and once I start looking at the ivy I kind of get sucked into the textures and reflections of light… and almost forget the grave stone is there. Not my intention… but I think I like it. What do you think?

I’ve totally forgotten the name of the dog statue - I’ll have to look it up and update this (at some point ha) but I loved it!

Edit: I looked it up and its Bum the dog. Bum!! How could I forget that?! Anyway, Bum the St Bernard Spaniel cross is from San Diego and San Diego is a twin city of Edinburgh apparently.

Location: Edinburgh, Scotland
FIlm: Agfa Vista 200
Camera: Canon EOS 750