Wanted: Advice and minions

I'm slowly wading through the images from the recent trip - expect a post on Dubai soon. In the meantime though, I could use some suggestions.

I've been wanting to do some more of the long-exposure night photos and pinhole photos that i love so dearly, but sadly, my pain levels are currently kicking my butt. Chocolate Mark and I went out on Saturday to spend some time in the cemetery making pinhole images. We managed about 30 minutes before my camera battery died, but even spending as much time as possible sitting down, I'm still paying for the time on my feet two days later. It's very discouraging.

I love making pinhole images, but the long exposures are proving too hard on my feet

So I've been thinking about what I can do to make excursions for long exposure photos easier on myself, with a bit of input from M. Today, we bought the latest in high tech mobility equipment - a folding camp stool. I'll carabeena clip it to my camera bag - hopefully it won't be too unwieldy.

Hopefully the shiny new camp stool makes longer exposures less painful

I'm also buying myself a wireless remote trigger for my camera. I currently have a cable release, but I still have to stand up to turn it on or off. I'm hoping that having a glorified TV remote for the camera will make things slightly easier.

Other than that, the only other idea I can come up with is to find a volunteer or two to come on night ambles and carry some of the gear for me, so I don't have to pack everything down each time I want to move locations. Is anyone interested in some slow night-time rambling around the Inner West?

And does anyone have any other suggestions for easing the strain of slow photography on my feet?

The Lights at the End of the Tunnel

Winters are getting harder and harder. I quite like the way cold feels on my skin, and I like the aesthetics of grey skies and wet ground and stripped back branches. But...

But.

The cold is getting more painful each year, and harder to endure. Even harder to deal with is the lack of motivation. Everything is too hard - cooking, photography, creativity, you name it, I don't have the energy or the endurance to do it. Hell, I can't even keep my mood up.

The problem with living in the moment is that the moment is your experience of the world. It's all very well to tell myself that come spring, this lethargy and disgust will pass, and I'll have the will and the motivation to photograph, and to make something. At the moment, I feel blank and empty, a talentless nothing trudging through life. I can't even see in photographs, when my vision is taken up by pain, and the twitching in my fingers and toes to make an image is supplanted by the burning of outraged nerves.

It's not good.

So I pushed myself out, with camera and tripod and crutches, and went to make some pictures. Oddly enough, even intending to work out my angst in some suitably angsty and nihilistic photos, they still came out strangely serene. Ominous, yes, but the serenity is definitely there. I wonder what that says about me?

One thing I know; it's given me some ideas. I think my fingers are twitching. I just hope the cold holds up long enough for me to make the most of it.

Who on earth thinks this is smart??

My first few days in Singapore it was pouring with rain. The bus ride up had been grueling enough - by the time I got to the hotel I was aching all over, and could barely close my hands. The rain set the seal on things. Wet ground is often impossible to keep a grip on with crutches, and hands that could barely close around the holds weren't going to be able to hold me steady on slippery surfaces. So I was stuck. Fortunately, there was a mall attached to the hotel, so when cabin fever drove me berko, I could slowly shuffle down there, and at least get a kopi.

Or that was the plan.

When I got down there, there was an added obstacle. Some bright spark thought it would be clever to put steps up to each and every escalator. Maybe Singaporeans don't get enough exercise, or maybe the designers just hate cripples, but all through the mall were these bloody things. When every half-step is making you whimper, the last thing you need is some halfwit of a designer making you climb stairs just to get on and off the sodding escalator!

I spent two days hiding in the hotel room reading the Straits Times, or making a slow and sniffling way to the foodcourt. Then the weather cleared, and my hands started to heal, and I could get out and about again.

I still hate those stairs, though.