Sarah – Page 41

Sarah June 9, 2013

Run Forrest Run #motivationalmonday #themondayclub

I had a text message this week from my best friend. She isnt a best friend that i see all the time but i have known her since we started school a billion years ago. She now lives in Port. Lincoln in Southern Australia and moved there a while ago with her family.

Her test message read:

Hi sarah, am thinking of running the London 10K while we are back, would you be interested too? Takes a lot of the Olympic route! See you soon. Mel

Thats one way to announce that you are going to be in the northern hemisphere for a while! 😉

Much as i would LOVE to run a race with my school days friend…if its the only chance im going to get to see her while she is back from Aus. Then my plans would be less in the training shoes and lycra shorts and more towards pub lunch and large bottle of wine. Since she moved to Australia i have seen her one other time when she returned when my now 4 year old was a very small baby.

But pushing that aspect aside it made me think a little about races…you know….running races…

hundreds or thousands of people all lined up to pound a certain distance together at varying speeds and times.

Im just not sure its me.

I do run…

well…probably more like a cross between a run and a jog..

a rog…

or a jun…

😉

Im not going to set any records, except against myself, which i get great delight in when the cheery little voice on the nike app happily tells me ‘thats the fastest yet!” or “great run, go hit the showers!’ ( reassuring to know that they care about personal hygiene too!)

Anyway…I go…I shuffle around some miles or clicks..whichever measurement floats your boat and you know whats the best part for me?

The Solitude….

Being by myself.

I like the headspace. I listen to some music…and try to skip the kids stories that are on my iphone playlist…has to be said that charlie and lola don’t offer much motivation to keep on going!

I also go out at a very early time of the morning when it is quiet and there is hardly anyone around. I love that feeling of space.

Clear roads

Empty pavements.

The faint sound of birdsong.

and a great openness for my mind to trail off to…

might be ‘whats for dinner…’

might be ‘what should we do next’

might be ‘ how incredible is this world we live in..’

But its uninterrupted by distraction except that offered by the silence of a waking city.

Thats what im worried about loosing if i was to run with hundred of others…my sense in running is less a need for exercise (although thats obviously good) but its about finding a tiny moment of peace in my day which can very rarely be described as peaceful.

I think i would wonder whether I would in fact find any motivation in a race, swarming along like a mass of bees…or if i would just stop and pretend to be nursing an injury so that i could hide out at the back amongst the stragglers and see if i can search out some solitude running!

Maybe its the pure lack of competitive spirit i have. I have been passed by other runners while i am out and my pace has remained unchanged and my focus stays on what i am doing. Truly in a world of my own!

I have to say though that there are a few runners that i pass regularly and we often acknowledge each other with a little nod of a wave and its nice, a nano-second of community.

Hmmm…i cant decide.

I have made plans in the past to run in little 5k/10k type races but ive always drifted off the idea. Ive thought about running in a race with headphones and seeing if that would help me to zone out everyone else but i just can’t help but feel that, that would be a little rude to my other fellow runners. Like trying to ‘exclude’ them from this group experience seems like missing the point a bit.

Maybe this invite from my friend is the shove i needed to go for it and at least try.

We tell our kids about trying something at least once before you decide right?

Maybe time to do a bit of practicing what we preach..?

This week i had to include a clip from one of my ALL time favourite movies…

Right this week its my birthday and to offset all this talk of exercise I am having an extra special giveaway courtesy of HOTEL CHOCOLAT

.

You can win a beautiful birthday gift box for you or for your loved one. Just follow rafflecopter and then be sure to check back for winners! Also announced on my Facebook page as well. Dont forget you can still enter to win a LUSH box of goodies and support a fantastic charity by clicking on this link

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Sarah June 8, 2013

#silentsunday

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Sarah June 7, 2013

its a soldiering type of #satcap

There was a large military event down at the docks here a couple of weeks ago and it was incredibly busy and the queues for actually getting on the ships were probably 2 hours long so we skipped that but we did manage to have a look at some tanks…

yes she was happy to pose on this tank..but they soldier pulled the exact same position with all the kids, and we had to put them up there one at a time…which im sure thrilled the people behind us in the queue! 😉

So what can you caption on this, this happy sunny saturday!

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Sarah June 7, 2013

A trip to the circus…#CountryKids #springcarnival

During the half term there is a small circus that visits a local park to us. The kids always ask us to go. We have to limit it to one visit as when you have 5 riders to pay for it can turn into a very expensive affair!!

The older kids can now be given their cash and sent off to find rides that they want to go on. So we found some toddler appropriate rides but the older kids couldnt resist getting in on the act as well. I always wonder how these little travelling circus groups keep going. It was late in the day and starting to rain a little but it was very very quiet and a couple of the rides were more than adequately attended by one worker as they were so quiet.

As it is such a close park to us we walked back and on the way back we had shall we say a ‘discussion’ with our 7 year old about how she couldn’t walk back home a different way to us because she fancied a bit of independence. We love that she is fiesty but there are limits when you have to cross some very busy roads!

As she was being quite grumpy I kept telling her that I was going to take a picture of her every time she moaned and whined at us…and determined not to be captured on film having a bit of a wobbly she did a manic smile every single time i pointed the camera at her!

In the end she was genuinely giggling!

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Sarah June 7, 2013

Moving towards the light #mamarazzi #photography101

Light is what photography is all about, you get that by now right? Light pretty much governs everything about your image so its fairly significant!

A lovely way of lighting is by putting your light to the side of the subject, it adds a real depth to an image, a lovely three dimensional quality. You know when you look at an image and there is just something about it that draws you in, often that is because this sort of lighting is being used. Its the sort of image that has a really strong distinction between the highlights and shadow across the face.

A general rule is to put your subject at a 45 degree angle to the source of light, which for most of us in going to be a window if we are inside and trying to get our kids to sit still. Or it can be outside usually when the sun has a directional quality about it, like during the golden hour (hour after sunrise and hour before sunset)

This is harder to control when you are taking a picture of a kid, the reason for this? Same as usual. They move. If they turn their head that little too much you are going to end up with all in shadow. One way of working out if it is slightly too much is if you look in the eyes of your child and can’t see catchlights in both. They chances are they have moved too much, so just try and get them to turn a little, easier said than done right! 😉

It is a beautiful style of lighting and is a favourite of portraiture photographers. It adds so much to the picture, its also pretty good for slimming if you are thinking of wanting to loose a few pounds as well 😉

Okay so here is a little project you can try out… this is a really clever and everso simple thing you can do here…this works in any lighting scenario to be honest…in the little diagram at the top of this image you can see that next to the person icon is a line saying reflector.

This does pretty much what is says and reflects light. It absolutely does not need to be a massive big reflector that you might have seen professionals using. No. It can be anything white pretty much…white is a very good reflector of light. Just even by using a sheet of paper you can see changes.

I did a demonstration with this today with my daughter who was a total trooper after having her pre-school booster imms this morning. She was working for smarties it has to be said. Ive done no editing to these images so you can see it as is. This is really easy to do…no dont think its all fancy photographer stuff. You can do it!! Try it out.

So here it is…sit your subject next to window or a light and aim for about 45 degree to the light…So this first shot is just the window light, you can see where the light drops off her face. yes?

Enter reflector to the left, this is a white bit of card that i got from b and q. You can see how the side of her face has just brightened up a bit. She did turn a little bit away in this one.

another reflector, you can see what it is by scrolling down. The reflector is on her lap so reflecting the light back into her face. The shadows have almost balanced out on her face now.