have you seen this pigeon? [entries|friends|calendar] katie [ website | portrait, pinhole, and wet plate photography ] [ userinfo | livejournal userinfo ] [ calendar | livejournal calendar ]

[15 Nov 2009|04:02pm] 1. I really wish the heating was working. Have been trying to study, bundled in clothes and wrapped in a blanket, and I've forgotten what my toes feel like and my fingers have been too cold and stiff to make notes. This reminds me of my first year in college, in another high-ceilinged georgian room with no bloody heating. And I can't even push off to the Bod. At least another few days till its fixed, as obscure part for an obsolute boiler makes its way through the post. Brr. Why is this the first place that we've lived in years that has no fireplaces? 2. Hurrah for a whole afternoon playing with seriously cool archaeological artefacts at the University. Thanks, Dot! 3. Hurrah for a Padmini party (though I am clearly Too Damn Old to stay out *that* late.) 4. Cold. Time for another bath. post comment

[11 Nov 2009|08:09pm] Ninety four percent. (phew) 10 comments|post comment

print sale: pictures are an education [08 Nov 2009|10:36pm] print sale: pictures are an education, originally uploaded by heyoka. As most of you know, I'm currently studying to finish a long-paused degree, having picked it up again after a gap of twenty years. Unfortunately, I'm rather short of funds and so need to raise the necessaries or put the studies on hold for another year. I'm hoping to start my next course, in art history, so that I can go on and apply to study for a masters. But, I need to pay for it in a month's time. Towards that end, I'm selling some prints at a reduced price. I'm offering a number of handmade silver prints, made from pictures in this set, for a reduced price for the next few weeks... Each print is hand-printed by me on silver gelatin fibre-based paper, and toned. They are printed on 8x10" paper, so the image size is slightly smaller than that to allow for proper mounting. I will mount and mat them, to a standard size (based on where you are, so, inches or centimetres, as appropriate.) $95 each, plus postage. Or £60 including registered delivery in the UK. The original images are either 4x5" wet plate collodion on clear glass, or pinhole photographs on 4x5" film. If there is a particular image you'd be interested in, but it's not in this set, let me know, or, if you would rather have a larger size, and we can discuss it... Wouldn't you like to give yourself a heyoka print? Or perhaps you know someone else who would dig one. Email me at slowlight@slowlight.net with any questions. Thanks. post comment

clearly not my week [05 Nov 2009|02:29pm] The other day, the hot water ceased to be hot, but was merely tepid. Instead, the radiators came on. Strange, given that the central heating was switched off at the wall. Call landlord's agency. Wait a couple of days. Take morning off work. Chap shows up. Hurrah. Water diverting to the radiators? Ooh, that'll be the diverting valve gone then. We discuss: hot water or heating. Hot water, obviously, as there are always more jumpers and showering from a kettle-filled bucket is not fun at all. He open up the boiler to perfom magic, and swears a lot. Boiler it seems, is buggered and needs replacing. Landlord will not be happy. Anyway, he leaves, leaving hot water behind. I do a spot of work, and then hear funny noises coming from the kitchen. Boiler. Of course. Boiler is repeatedly trying to fire but managing nothing at all. NO heating AND no hot water. Icy cold and horrible noises. Call agency, oh, well, it could take a while. You probably need a new boiler. I HAVE NO HOT WATER. AND A MARINA COMING FOR THE WEEKEND TOO. FIX THIS. We'll call you. Great. Thanks. EDITED TO ADD: hmm, so, seems like my growlery works sometimes. Knight in shining white van reappears, opens up boiler, spots that an old "mend" was held together with sticky tape (not a metaphor) and fixes that. HOT HOT WATER AGAIN. downside: heting likely to be off for at least ten days. And that's without replacing boiler. That's ordering the special part from the special parts shop. Oh. And my tooth is still not fixed. 1 comment|post comment

Yah. Tah. Boo. Sucks. [01 Nov 2009|04:12pm] Hurrah. Essay number 2 dead and delivered up, still bleeding, to tutor. Hurrah. Pubbage with pals. Bah. Official day off to make photographs? Pissing down with rain and dark, dark, dark. DOUBLE BASTARD BAH: a major filling just dropped out. On a sunday afternoon, of course. Doesn't hurt yet...but do I play roulette with infection risk for 24 hours, or do I go and spend the rest of the day/evening sitting in a waiting room at Chalmers Street? Yeah, that part is the sucks. (edited: oh great. I get to spend my evening at the dentist. Because I'm one of the awkward squad that needs hefty antibiotics before any treatment. Lucky me. 7pm for pills. 8pm for drillings. UGH. pass the painkillers.) 1 comment|post comment

doing battle with Harvard. a question. [21 Oct 2009|08:52pm] I've been having a round of teeth-clencingly polite disagreements with the poor woman who is unfortunate enough to be my tutor. We appear to have issues. These, I fear, cannot be fixed. But there is something I was wondering about, and perhaps the collected writerly and academic brains among you can help. I was given a slapping down for how I included secondary citations. And yet, hmm. Perhaps you can help me with this. Policy is: plagiarism is evil, not referencing is plagiarism, and pretending to have read something you have not is a form of this very same evil. Hypothetically, Bloggs does seminal scientific fieldwork in, oh, neolithic bee-keeping. Jones, some years later, writes a mostly dull but useful article about domesticated animals, and refers to Bloggs, at length. I have no chance of reading Bloggs's original 1988 essay, as The Annals of Archaic Apiarists is not available locally, or online. But I want to make use of it because it's the killer info, and even--being sneaky and trying to get double duty from my stunted wordcounts-- get across how Jones has used the discoveries of Sweet Bloggs to put across a particularly tasty argument. And in this example, there are no direct quotes, and working the names and layers into my miserable excuse for text would be a shocking use of extra words... The question, finally, is how does one perform this act of secondary referencing in the Harvard system? (Bloggs, 1988, cited by Jones, 1999, p123) (Jones, 1999, p123) (Bloggs, 1988) Something else? 22 comments|post comment

[17 Oct 2009|12:41pm] 3.10 this afternoon. At the cameo. New Gilliam film. Who fancies joining us? 10 comments|post comment

ok. phew. [02 Oct 2009|09:47pm] Essay submitted, 3 hours before deadline. Go me. Is it wrong that a 1560 word essay has 1150 words of bibliography? In frivolous but happy-making news: Pilot Pluminix pens are insanely cute, are just the right size for my hands, have a surprisingly smooth italic nib, and are under five quid. I have ink. And, non-frivolous but utterly glorious: an entire morning in the museum stores, looking at a tiny fraction of a collection of very early, and very marvellous photography. Swoonsome. 11 comments|post comment

Polonius can stick it [28 Sep 2009|09:03pm] in several respects the reconstruction was open to doubt, originally uploaded by heyoka. I'm rapidly approaching the deadline for my first college essay in, er, lots of years. There's one small problem. It's not the subject--that's remarkably interesting. It's not the access to material--with magic OU login credentials I seem to have almost unfettered access to abundant journals. It's not the time to study--I've found myself reading and making notes from the big damn textbook, following up references, chasing down idle thoughts, and enjoying it hugely. The problem? I'd not noticed the dreadful significance of the phrase "in no more than 750 words." 750? That's barely an introduction. Fine, there are two sets of 750, but the first has to contain, get this "compare and contrast what is known about the development of agriculture in Southwest Asia and Mesoamerica." Not what I know, but what is known. Sigh. Also, I already detest the Harvard system of citations--the one that hiccups (Jones, 1772) into the text with the author's (Thingummy et al., nd) names in brackets (Bloggs and Smith, 2008.) What's wrong with footnotes? I lvoe footnotes. I particularly love sneaking bad puns into footnotes in documents at work. I have never before spent so long line-editing anything. Tweaking, and pruning, and excising all those beautifully precise details and scratching out all those illuminating examples for the sake of, oh just stab me in the eyes with an italic nib, one of those foul little wrap up paragraphs that adds fuck all but satisfies the "tell us what you're going to tell us, tell us, tell us what you told us" nonsense rather that dropping in one of those dangerous about turn surprises. And I'm still 53 words over (and that's counting on the basis that hunter-gatherer is one word, etc.) And this paragraph? 106. (With one of the worst run on sentences I've ever written, but that's entirely beside the point. Except it's not. Brevity has never been my strong point. I am short in other ways.) Anyway. You see my problem. I can't even send a picture. That's 250 over my word count. That's the griping done. Learning shiny new things rocks pretty hard. And I have new ink. (I'm easily pleased. 2 comments|post comment

is there a laptop gathering dust and looking for a new home? [10 Sep 2009|07:17pm] is there a laptop somewhere out there among you, gathering dust and looking for a new home? The terminal case of ibook death has coincided rather badly with a bad money drought. So, cheekily, I was wondering if anyone might have a-no-longer-used laptop that is otherwise healthy but just doing a good impression of a paperweight. Doesn't have to be swanky or or even slightly new, just has to be able to run some version of photoshop (later than v8) and talk to my scanner and deal with reasonably big graphics files. Mac would be dreamy, PC would be fine. Ickle tiny netbook? Not so good for photographics. Not fussed if it weighs a ton, as it won't get out and about much, it's just that the sitting editing pictures for hours is not something I can do sitting at a desk because of the stupid leg. Can scare up some cash. Lots of barterables. Don't really want to go the ebay-risk way, of not being sure if I can get something that, you know, will function. Any ideas? (and, forgive me, please, if this seems bang out of order.) 5 comments|post comment

[09 Sep 2009|06:50pm] the book of memory and forgetting, originally uploaded by heyoka. so, yes, busy. Second week of being an OU student, and I'm inky-fingered and fretting about access to books, fighting pavlovian-urges to buy up all the refill pads and lovely stationery in the world, and getting slightly miffed by the people who are already discussing their first essay. Two weeks early. Gits. Mourning the dead laptop. Despite Col's best attempts to resurrect, the ibook is pronounced dead. So I am in search of a cheap or barterable, not new and shiny but photoshop-friendly laptop... Swimming through ideas for possible future studenting adventures, and poking things with sticks to see what might be a living, breathing chunk of research. This is quite ridiculously pleasurable. As is making pictures. Does that ever wear off? Oh, and work is worky. If I've not seen you much lately, all the above is why. post comment

[23 Aug 2009|11:11pm] drawing down the moon, originally uploaded by heyoka. Dear world, just in case you were wondering, I am alive and haven't exploded from boring medical stuff. Been working, making pictures, being broke, ticking along; you know, the usual stuff. Tintypes are strange and marvelous, and, very backwards/reversed. it does my head in slightly, but I am digging them a lot. The book festival is also doing my head in, but also has pictures. Some of them are good. Some of them are not. This is the way of the world. Edinburgh weather: wait five minutes and it's a whole other season. I've been rained on and sun burned within the space of half an hour, twice of each. In one week's time I will be a student. For the first time in twenty years. See above re: doing head in. Scanning photos is possibly the most tedious occupation ever invented. Except for the part when you see the results. Unless they suck. In which case it's tedious, frustrating, disappointing, and aggravating. I've been dreaming about exhibitions again. (And really weird towns with seven clock towers.) i need to do something about that. The exhibitions, anyway. The clock towers can get built without me. love, heyoka post comment

home (medical. TMI-ish.) [08 Aug 2009|02:32pm] Am home again from hospital. Phew. Have my snarl, have sofa, have snoozing kitties, have freedom from talkative mean lady on the ward. Have jammies rather than stylish backless gown. Am still feeling rubbish, but pain is down to reasonable levels (at the mumbling and grumbling and taking tablets level rather than serious swearyfucks more morphine NOW level), temperature down to normal for 48 hours now, and no longer have the constant "stand back, she's going to blow" level of revolting nausea I had for four solid days. That all got very tedious. Had a bunch of tests that reveal that Something Is Wrong but We Don't Know What. Odd things that don't join up, basically. Good news is that there's nothing obviously scary showing up. Best assumption now is that Something Is Wrong and am being booked in for more tests to look at gallbladder, bile duct and pancreas related things. Possibly some sort of obstruction somewhere. Endoscopy was utterly foul, so glad it's not another of those. Doc seems happy that I am remarkably healthy and fit, except for whatever this is. Glad to be home. Just waiting for it to stop and go away now, please. p.s. thank you for all the nice thoughts. Forgive me for not replying to each, but am slightly cross-eyed from painkillers, and also my lap is more full of slightly-batty-cat than laptop 14 comments|post comment

bah [06 Aug 2009|10:21pm] i am in hospital with invisible gallstones again. been here since monday. no longer in screaming, well, sweary anyway, agony but in wworld of nofun. ultrasound showed no stones. other tests and theories ongoing. yay for painkillers. prob not up to visits sorry. can get texts but not enough signal for calls. also rubbish net. not sure when home as much depends on next tests and all, or maybe it will go away like last time. pls llook after my snarl. he probably needs a pint. 6 comments|post comment

[27 Jul 2009|11:28pm] ~, originally uploaded by heyoka. I had a birthday, and it was good. Thank you. 1 comment|post comment

[23 Jul 2009|02:45pm] Friday. Cumberland bar, Cumberland street. I'll be there from about 6pm. Outside if it's nice. Will you be? There, or nice? 7 comments|post comment

friday, then [21 Jul 2009|09:14am] looks like friday, then. Will attempt to come up with a plan slightly more thrilling than going to the local. 1 comment|post comment

it appears to be that time of year again [20 Jul 2009|01:31pm] It's been brought to my attention that planning to spend one's birthday being grumpy while drinking too much is most unsporting, and one should invite others to join the boozy puddleglumming. So, for those of you in Edinburgh, really, how can you refuse such an appealing event? Of course, birthday grumpiness also involves indecision. So: Friday or Saturday evening, kittens? (that would be this coming Friday, rather than some random, future Friday.) 9 comments|post comment

... [14 Jul 2009|07:38pm] self portrait (ambrotype), originally uploaded by heyoka. After not attempting any collodion portraits since I started with wet plate--oh my! a year ago now!--Snarl and I spent saturday making some plates. Working inside so exposures were pretty bloody long for lens-work, and I don't have a head brace, hence the lack of super-sharpness going on in this, but it's pretty still for a two minute exposure, no? Even though collodion goes slightly crazed for freckles, I rather dig this. Sunday I went to pick up some more collodion, and we both had to be photographed. Outside! In sunlight! Man, that's quick. Second-long exposures and the first non-hated picture of me by someone else evah. Zot: bounced back. Slightly tottery but no longer doing that feeble and fragile nonsense for the moment. Phew. Summer project: slowly looking like it might happen with four so far saying yes, three no, and lots of silence which could go either way, and, hurrah, actual proper official press accreditation to make it all easier. Work: worky. Swimming: wet. Snarl: lovely. Twitter: strangely compelling. Torchwood: remarkable. 3 comments|post comment

snippets [10 Jul 2009|03:04pm] peony, originally uploaded by heyoka. Zot, old tottery tiny cat, is sick again. She is now utterly stuffed with antibiotics (and tuna) has stopped doing icky things, and is fast asleep on my feet. Bad: she's lost more weight and is very wobbly and scruffy. Good: no signs of dodgy thyroid things or anything else. Also good: being able to work from home so I can provide feet to sleep on and regular snacky treats. Photos: summer project planning progresses in tiny hops and shuffles forward, and a few back. Much silence. Gah. But, I got to photograph the lovely Alice on Sunday (though have as yet failed to scan the negs. Sorry. Am rubbish.) Big maybes: are cooking. Next meeting on this is on the 21st, to discuss what I need to do in order to do what I want to do. Hurrah! Am making lists. (Would be useful to talk to any of you academic types, as now would be a good time to try to talk me out of it, or further into it, as I ponder specifics rather than leaping around and ZOMG-ing at possibilities.) Gosh. That was dull. Who's up for a pint and/or photosession this weekend? 26 comments|post comment

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