I Misplaced My Purple Mirror Last Night (A Photo Challenge)
My effort at November’s 52-Week Photography Project for Full Frame.
The following images have no relation to each other whatsoever, so it’s impossible for me to write a coherent introduction.
This will have to do. There’s much more writing to come, anyway.
And a poem. Huh?! Come on, now! Poetry! I never thought I’d see the day.
Enough of that. Let’s crack on with the challenge.
Mirror image.
I can’t tell you how many images appear when I type in “mirror” into my Google Photos catalogue. Actually, I didn’t attempt to count. Maybe it tells me. Hang on a minute…
No, it doesn’t tell me. But Flickr does. I just searched for “mirror” in my Flickr account and it gave me 75 images. That’s not as many as I was expecting, to be fair, as I love mirror shots.
Right, that’s my New Year’s resolution decided then. More self-portraits-with-camera coming your way.
Oh, and this particular image was taken with my old Olympus E-PL5, and from a distance it looks like a manual-focus lens, but I can’t be too sure.
Sorry, Lindsey, you’re out of focus.
In my life.
(Thanks, Full Frame, I will now have that song in my head for the rest of the day. There are worse songs, to be fair.)
In my life (I love you more) I only have a few absolute essentials. It’s been a while since I wrote a good list, so here we go.
- Three Weetabix. Yes, it has to be three. One is for lightweights. Two leave a gap. Four is just a little too much. I once went through a phase of eating four Weetabix, and someone called me a “Weetabix pro”. I was proud of that. I often heat up my three Weetabix (with milk, obviously) in the microwave for exactly 1 minute and 20 seconds. Then I give it a good splodge around in the bowl so the heat evens out, then I eat it in around 30 seconds.
- Black coffee. I was once a tea drinker. No longer, much to my wife’s disappointment. She enjoyed “tea for two”. I’m now a coffee man. And it has to be black, and strong and poured from a cafetiere. No sugar. Any milk or sugar in coffee absolutely ruins it. Although, interestingly, I have in the recent past tried mixing my coffee with matcha powder, and it does have an effect on the sharpness of my mind, along with a unique taste. I might do that again soon. Thanks for the reminder.
- Bible. Daily Bible reading. I don’t write about this much on Medium, but I am a Christian, and I believe that Jesus is alive, and I believe that He speaks through His word — the Bible. I try to make time every morning to read a chapter or two, make notes, and pray through what I’ve just read. The Bible-book in this particular image is a lovely ESV “illuminated” edition of 1 and 2 Samuel. It has no verse numbers or anything else, just the text. I have a few different Bible books like this.
- Journalling. Another mainstay in my life (I love you more (argh)). I’ve been journalling for many years. I have lots of old half-filled journals, and as far as I know, only two that I have ever filled. One from 2005 when I was a youth and school worker for one year, and one from 2022, which happened to be the craziest year of my life (apart from 2023, maybe). I enjoy handwriting in paper journals, but I also journal digitally as well.
- Nice stationery. And one reason I enjoy handwriting in paper journals is that I love quality stationery. The pencil case in the photo is but a foretaste of the stationery I enjoy. I particularly like my left-handed Schneider ID fountain pen. I keep trying to use other pens. For example, Muji makes some sweet gel pens. But I keep on coming back to the Schneider. I currently have purple ink in it.
And on that note…..
Purple haze.
In a land of colours, where purple clouds play, Hendrix strums his guitar in a magical way.
Twinkling lights dance, like stars in the night; a photo of music, pure joy and light.
Giggles of guitars, like a camera’s sweet click, purple haze pictures, making hearts tick.
Hendrix sings tales, in a rainbow swirl; for little dreamers, it’s a magical twirl.
(?!?)
This must be the place.
Don’t be fooled. This is not a room. It’s an enclosure.
When I first encountered this enclosure, which is in the middle of a French campsite, my exact thought was, “What the heck is this?”
I took a photo of it (the exact photo you have just seen, in fact), and showed it to my wife.
She told me it’s a place where you can wash your clothes. I suppose she could’ve been right.
It’s a shame, though, because I promised my children I’d put them in one of these large sink-type things and wash them in cold water.
And also, get this — we used the on-site washing machines to wash our clothes in. Now is it just me or does that make no sense?
Provide us with large sinks to wash our clothes, and give us electric washing machines, and I don’t even get to put my kids in a sink?
Where is the justice in that?
In the heat of the night.
This is Amos, at night, about to eat a hot sparkler.
Don’t do it, Amos!
Here endeth the challenge for another month.
Many thanks for reading.