where we been and where we going

We've been home. ('Home' being the island I grew up on. I still call it 'home' even though it's not any more.)There was boats and sea and fishing and eating fishes and walking in the woods and lots of little girls in a bath and catching up with friends and making our brains ache trying to think of a way that we could live there and still do what we do.   

Tomorrow we are going to London. Where maybe we want home to be. It's all very confusing. There will be trains and cafes and Italian food and my first ever hen party and a house with a garden and catching up with friends.  

There probably won't be much blogging. But you're used to that by now.  

That whole 'weekly' thing didn't work out so well, huh?  In brief we are : busy, tired, barely seeing each other, photographing weddings (AMAZING weddings), travelling, exhausted.  The babies are: loud, rolling, trying to crawl (A), enjoying teeth (E), stealing (and eating) post it notes, throwing food, scowling.

* photos by the boy. 

a mystery

Elderflowers. So pretty, so sweet smelling, so delightfully deliciously free. So why have I never seen them in wedding flowers? It makes no sense. 

A tome.

I used to love to bake, to measure ingredients and mix them slowly or quickly depending on their need. To crack eggs and get a little on my fingers, to cut butter into small squares and sift flour making shapes on the worktops where it drifted quietly over the edges of the bowl.  And then I started using a new cookbook and that was the end of that. Ms Lawson drove me mad. Brownies that wouldn't cook, cakes that wouldn't rise, biscuits that spread over the baking sheet, everything too damn sweet. Joy was replaced with frustration, baking became a source of irritation and stress, so I stopped. Until I needed to or desperately wanted to bake and again I would get out The Book, hopefully convincing myself that as everyone else loves her and her buttery goods my failures had been flukes, my next effort would be perfect . No dice.  

I haven't quite been able to bring myself to throw out the damn thing but I will no longer use it.  Smitten Kitchen has become my go-to but I need a book. Something to dust in sugar and flour (Nye gets pissy if I do that to the laptop) with pages to peel apart at the edges where they have become bonded with butter and jam. A book for cakes. (And biscuits and breads and muffins and buns) One that won't fail me. One that will be there, a tome on my bookshelf, filled with deliciousnesses. Fancy deliciousnesses and basic deliciousnesses and comforting deliciousnesses and impressive deliciousnesses. Savoury deliciousnesses and sweet deliciousnesses and yeasty deliciousnesses and chocolatey deliciousnesses.  A book that will show me how to make perfect chocolate chip cookies when that is what I want but will also inspire me to try new cakes I have never heard of (I loved that about Nigella Lawson, when first we met, her cakes sound and look beautiful and interesting; autumn cake, nutella cake, Guinness cake... they just don't bloody work.) A baking bible if you will.  

Do you know of one?  

yearning

 And it was to this city, whenever I went home, that I always knew I must return, for it was mistress of one's wildest hopes, protector of one's deepest privacies. It was half insane with its noise, violence, and decay, but it gave one the tender security of fulfilment. On winter afternoons there were sunsets across Manhattan when the smog itself shimmered and glowed… Despite its difficulties, which become more obvious all the time, one was constantly put to the test by this city, which finally came down to its people; no other place in America had quite such people and they would not allow you to go stale; in the end they were its triumph and its reward. Willie Morris 

New York, I love you, I miss you.

<3

Notes. 

 * this post is alternatively titled 'Morning Sickness, A Tale of Vomit and Tears in New York City.' I can not tell you how ill I felt in every single one of these photos.

* the photo of Nye's armpit is alternatively titled 'I Can't Believe You Stayed Out Late, Came Home Drunk then Threw Up in the Bath. Get Out of Bed, We're Going Sightseeing, I Don't Care If It's 89F And You Have A Headache. (You Asshole.)'

* we want to go back. Real Bad. If you are getting married and would like to pay our travel & accommodation expenses in return for nice photos, CALL ME.  

*photos by me & him & us.  

* more C&N in NYC here. 

giving credit

I like it. I'm not entirely sure that you always need to contact the photographer to ask their permission before using their work.  Personally I'm busy. I barely have time to answer emails as it is. Personally I would rather you just used the image with a proper credit. Sometimes emailing me to let me know that you used my image is nice though, it gives me a chance to say thank you. 

Which is the thing. As a photographer I want you to use my images, I want my work to be seen by more people, I want to know that people like it, as long as you give me a proper credit (proper means including a link). A lot of the rhetoric being used in discussions about giving credit would suggest that photographers don't want you to use their work and as such I worry that bloggers are starting to fear the use of images that they find online. Of course there are photographers who don't want you to use their work without asking and sometimes they have good reason to. Sometimes they have sold the rights to the photo to someone else and they will get in big doodoo if you use it. Sometimes they just feel a little precious about where their work goes and what people do with it. And that's fine. Those photographers usually state quite clearly, where you can see it, that they don't want you to use their work. In fact even if it's not right there where you can see it you should probably have a good look around their website just in case. Should there be such a request, send the photographer an email. Even if they don't say that you can use it (and they often will) they will be pleased that you like their work and you will have spread some happiness. Isn't that nice? And if a photographer asks you not to use their work don't, for the love of god, take a screengrab of it and use it anyway, even if you do give credit. That's just obnoxious and you deserve that unpleasant email they will send you. Oh and whilst we're on the subject of unpleasant emails from photographers: photographers, please look properly for credits before you send unpleasant emails. Sending an email telling a blogger that they're infringing your copyright when the credit is right there at the bottom of the post, clear as day, will not only make you feel like an idiot, the blogger is unlikely ever to promote your work again.  (I speak from the experience of the pissed off blogger, not the stupid-ass photographer.)

So. To surmise, my thoughts are: 

• don't be scared of using someone else's work on your blog.

• As long as you CREDIT IT PROPERLY. 

• If you're not going to credit it properly, DON'T BOTHER.

• Unless you have looked and you just can't find the source and you really really love the image and can't bear not to share it, in which case, personally, I don't think that there's too much wrong with acknowledging that you can't find the source and asking your readers if they know. I may be mistaken.

• You don't always need to ask the photographer's permission.

• UNLESS they have clearly requested that you do so. 

• Screengrabs are for assholes. 

• Maybe buy this print if you just can't remember not to be an asshole. 

If you want a more eloquent and comprehensive guide to The Rules of Using Other's Work, check out {frolic}'s post on the matter, which I'm pretty sure has (deservedly so) become the definitive guide on the matter. 

*GIVING CREDIT PRINT, By Pia Jane Bijkerk, aka STREETCRED. For sale by Mammoth Collection, via {Frolic}

* photograph of print by Pia Jane Bijkerk

E & A.

For no reason other than that I'm in a stinking bad mood and I'd rather not be.