Maria and Arminda

So, this is actually a bit old, but as you can appreciate, I haven't had a great deal of time to update this blog.

Recently, I was fortunate enough to photograph the work of an organisation called East Timor Hearts Fund. These guys, to say the very least, are amazing. I don't generally like to toot my own horn, but fortunately The Age picked up the story, and ran it page one in their sunday print edition. 

Here is a pic of the lovely young Arminda, 12, with a copy of herself on the cover of The Sunday Age.

9 Out Of 10

Mum's health hasn't been great lately. Her pain meds just aren't doing it. She's been feeling nauseas, but on the other hand, she hasn't really been eating. Codeine based pain meds make you blocked up, so there was close to a week where she couldn't use the bathroom. After the second or third day where she tried convincing me she was fine, we went to hospital. After a few days, she started to improve, but a day later she wasn't doing too well.

After I had arrived home from shooting a job, she told me she had thrown up earlier, but that she was now fine and had held down some beetroot and apple juice. She then threw up across me. She then asked me to rub her back and tried to sleep sitting up to ease her pain. The next day, we went through emergency again. That was 5 days ago.

It's been a long week. I'm probably not the right frame of mind to keep typing.

Mum was feeling cold. She was in a fair bit of pain and the endone wasn't really taking the edge off her pain. 

Talking to the study nurse about mum's condition. 

After being admitted through emergency, finally a room. 

Mum's room overlooked the northern suburbs. She was trying to identify landmarks from her window. 

My aunt's visit my mum in hospital.

Struggling to find an appetite. 

Mum asked me if she looked skinny. She told me anyone who had visited her had told her she had looked sick, tired, and skinny. 

After mum had spent four days in bed, she asked me to walk with her through the hospital. After hours, the place is devoid of visitors. Other than the occasional orderly or security guard, the place is a bit of a ghost town. Mum was watching it from the glass walkway of level 5. 

Surrendering Control

Over the past few months (or years),  I've been stuck in a rut. I've been in a routine of going to hospital, or going to work. I feel like life hasn't really been in my hands and has been controlled and regulated by my circumstances. While I appreciate that I'm in a unique situation, I can't help but feel that I have been consumed by boredom, monotony, and all the shit I generally hate. On the way to visiting mum in hospital, I thought I would pick up a shitty old russian lomo (the original ones.. not the made in china 'lets pay too much for a box with no aperture, shutter speed, or focus' toys) and took some random pics of stuff. (I am aware of how much of a hipster this makes me sound like).

Special Olympics

It was smiles all around at yesterday's Special Olympics event at Victoria University, Footscray. I was shooting it for a local paper, but I thought that this shot stood out a bit more than the rest.