Unlike most weeks I am actually happy with the results of this one. The image above I have posted only has a little processing. No Photoshop and no Lightroom. The only thing I have done is cropped it and increased 'Shadow' in Picasa to make the silhouettes blacker. It is virtually how it came out of the camera. And for that I am happy. Something kind of apocalyptic about it which is what I was looking for. The sun was setting which can make the sky look like it is burning but I wanted to add the silhouettes as if someone, or some people, were looking out at the world burning. And for me it worked considering I didn't have to fake it. Just the right time of night and ensure the focus was on the right part of the sky and bingo. I did take lots mind you but that is the best way if you want to find one that works for you- and why digital is good.
If you are wondering what was actually happening at the time my wife and kids were trying on different sunglasses to look at the sunset. Different tints in each one belonging to the kids. One set made it look blood red. And there they are at the window looking. I could of course have used one of the better packages to tidy things up and especially, my wife would be mortified, clean up the window condensation as a result of her boiling potatoes in the kitchen at the time but I like where I can to keep as much out of the camera as I can unless I am doing something specific.
On the anxiety front a lot of what I call melancholy. Others would call it anxiety related depression- not the same as clinical depression. I don't like using the word 'depression' though. Not because there is anything wrong with it but because I don't want another worrying label and more than that it is not actually depression at all. At times I have been able to see through it when I sit calmly and observe. It still catches me out though even after seeing it for what it is more than once. It feels like its a great sadness, I feel jittery, the face muscles gets tight, the chin might feel a wobbly, the eyes feel like they are water balloons ready to burst, the is an ambiguous feeling I may burst into tears and a deep fear that I will have a complete breakdown. So it is little surprise when I do see through what I see is raw fear. My eyes are always dry and tired, as told by the optician a few years back, so do self lubricate. The jittery feeling is the anxiety. The tight face muscles is tension. The feeling is a ruse, its misinformation. The fear is what is actually creating the anxiety which is creating the physical sensations.
Looking back I see this is more like an emotional overload. I remember feeling the exact same way in my boss's office over a decade ago when he told me that a line workers job was more skilled than technican's job, my own as it happened, and that is why they were getting paid more. I had been there a couple of years when a woman on the line got her son a job and within a month he was getting paid more than me. Firstly I asked him why then were they putting me through college and not the line workers. And secondly I told him that I would then be looking for a new job. By the end of that week I was on more than any of them. But I digress. In that moment I was so consumed by anger that I struggled to keep it back and felt as much as I wanted to punch that smug face in that instance by pulling back I was going to burst into tears- through anger. Also I felt the fear after having a fit of uncontrollable hysterics recently at a comment I found funny on Facebook. Even my wife said she had not seen me laugh like that in a long time but I had to curb it through fear- fear that it was manic and unnatural, unsettling. And in the moments I see this then it all washes away and I am free of it. But the problem is holding on to that. I don't see it enough so its been troubling me this week.
Its the first full week back at school for the girls also. Already I can feel the tiredness accumulating. My wife keeps saying it will lift once the routine is established over the next few weeks but I know from the past that is not true, not nearly always the case. Tiredness accumulates. Mornings watching the boy has me in and out of dread. I try not to clock watch but invariably do. Its one of life's quirks that if you try not to think of something you do. And each time I look at the clock my mind automatically builds stories via calculations at links. For example I look and see 9:45. 45 minutes gone. One sixth of the way through. Do it again and that is a third. It drags by.
Nothing really and in comparison to others nothing at all but I try to get some understanding by explaining its not a holiday even if people don't believe that. I mean my wife for example says she would love to have the time alone I have. Its like life is one long party. Hey you don't have to work you lucky sod! You know the kind of thing. I have the time but its not quality time as I don't have the freedom to use it. Its full of black holes I spend most of the day trying not to be pulled into.
Not much in the way of photographic opportunities this week again like most. On a walk I went through a small park, Alton Towers (see previous post), I pass through a lot. The place is one big tip. People have no pride. And I assume that two toy smurfs lying on the ground abandoned looking almost new were once in the eyeline of that little child. Something quite sad about what they had become. Something that someone once desired enough to want to pay for now lying sodden near a puddle abandoned on a path- still with a smile on their face. Maybe even a well thought out and sought out present from a relative or friend just discarded. As I said sad but also a little disturbing because I have seen a pram to upended and it makes me wonder just what went on there?
