The View From My Couch.

Ever since I was a little girl I've wanted to travel.  For me it was always places like Morocco, Chile and Cambodia that were always high on my list.   I've always wanted to experience the more exotic locations that were so far removed from my normal existence.  I've travelled in Asia, thanks to it's close proximity when we lived in Darwin (Bali was only an hours flight).   From Vietnam which was truly breathtaking and far more diverse than I could ever have expected.  Bali beautifully exotic.  To Singapore, and it's juxtaposition of the ultra modern and the historic.  Each country had it's own charms.

Going off the beaten path was always my preferred choice of travel.  That's where you have the best experiences, and sometimes the most scary.  Having a machine gun trained on our small boat in Vietnam whilst the men on board demanded cash was a tad unnerving.  However, sitting having tea with a family of Dragonfruit farmers in the middle of nowhere, was bliss.  Travelling to other countries opens your eye's to other ways of life, it can be confronting and exhilarating at the same time. 

Now those experiences are unlikely to happen again unless I can get Bob to bugger off somewhere in the future.  My physical world is now reduced to a very, very small space, sometimes no bigger than my couch.  I can't drive far.  I can't walk far.  Some days my backyard seems as remote as the Silk Road I had always planned to walk.   

Part of the joy of travel is photography.  I'm one of those obnoxious people who is not above tying you to a chair, propping your eyes open with matchsticks and forcing you to look at hundreds of photos of my adventures. Unfortunately for me, but not my future viewing victims, my plan to photograph my way through the casbah and beyond is not going to happen.  Time to reinvent and think outside the square once more.

Every day we overlook the beauty that surrounds us.  We seek outside ourselves and our regular environment to find beauty and excitement.  We miss the small stuff.  The little moments that are all the more precious for their simplicity.  There is beauty all around us, if we take the time to notice.  If we take the time to refocus our vision until it naturally seeks out that beauty.

So I have a plan.  It may not be a good plan.  It may verge on mad.  It may be teetering on the edge of 'watching paint dry' levels of boredom.

So what's my plan?  Well thanks for asking.  I plan to find beauty in my immediate vicinity and more importantly take a snap.

I'm calling it "The View From My Couch".  There is beauty out there people and damn it I'm going to find it, even if it kills me.  I'm going to try once or twice a week to post a photo of something that screams beauty to me, or just simply gives me joy. 

So here's the first one.  I took this on the steps at the side of my house.  The flowers are actually a weed, but they are so cute I just can't make myself pull them out.  I love that even something that is supposed to be worthless can still have beauty.

'Lawn Daisies'

Just call me Ansel Adams.

Cheers
Michelle :)

What other musical accompaniment for a blog about photography could there be but, Girls on Film, by Duran Duran.  I still remember giggling at the 'naughty' version, think girls wearing clear plastic undies, whipped cream, and lots of boobs, when I was a child.  I look at it now and think how the hell did they ever get that on TV?