Creative Imaging Degree

As my Creative Imaging degree comes to an end I think it's time to reflect. Isn't it funny how you glide through life and never really stop to breathe and think about what you have actually been accomplished.
It all started 6 years ago when my friend Tina and I decided to do a G.C.S.E in Photography. Tina didn't complete it, but instead headed off to Singapore for an adventure of her own. However I stayed with it, back then I wasn't a particularly good photographer (perhaps not even now;), but something inside me wanted to stick at it and get better. I received a grade A in my Photography, so I thought to myself hmmm maybe I can get better at this, maybe I have potential. I was never a grade A student at school, so this was certainly different for me.
I needed another creative fix so I found the HND Photography course at Lurgan college, and embarked on the 3 year course. This was a great course, all the other students were ever so supportive and we covered a multitude of topics, which helps you decide what you feel most passionate about. After this course it felt only natural to complete my studies with the Degree in Creative Imaging, a very open degree, you can go into it from all sorts of backgrounds, graphic design, textiles, video manipulation. So as you can imagine we are quite the diverse bunch. This course has been great for me because of that openness. Strangely I have used very little photography in the 2 years, I wanted to stretch my imagination and my skills. When you do this you feel a much better sense of achievement rather than sticking to the safe and well known territory.
So at this point in time I have pretty much completed everything. The dissertation is in and bound and looks set for a pass (thank god) the final major backup work is in (if a little lean, that's what a trip to oz in your final year does) All I need to do now is attach the hanging hooks to my 4 final pieces, have the exhibit on June the 8th, and then be faced with the external verifier after that! I'm really excited about the exhibit, events like that give me such a buzz. It's just the final piece to the puzzle after some pretty hard work.

So as I say, 6 years of creativity later, and here I am ready to finish. I have been asked on many, many occasions 'what's next'? It does drive me mad, but of course it is in my mind. Perhaps there doesn't have to be a next, perhaps I'm content, but if you know me, you'll know I am never content, never finished, always striving for more ;)

Speak soon

K

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moving on

Well now that the holiday of a lifetime is over, time to get back to some creative work.

This week I've been working away on my final major trying to get it all finished, I'm getting there, and I'll hopefully write more on that at a later date.

Just wanted to put up a quick post regarding my left over exhibit pics.. I held an exhibit back in November, loved every minute of it! I hope to do something similar again. However a few people have been asking me if they can buy some of the images from the night. They're been sitting in bubble wrap the last 6 months, so I took them all out today and photographed them!

so if you fancy getting your hands any of these (there's only one version of each) please drop me a line, 

Thanks 

K

Sydney

Well this is it, last leg...
I'm actually starting this post on the first of the 3 flights home, so I'll try and reflect as best as possible.
We left Hamilton Island behind, sad to say goodbye actually, it really was beautiful, even walking to the plane was really pretty. A small airport with breath taking views.



We arrived in Sydney in the evening, which was a nice change from the usual crack of dawn that we seem to usually arrive into places at. The last time I was here I don't think I got to see the best of Sydney, perhaps this was because we were staying in the red light district, with a strip joint on every corner!
So on the first evening we just wandered around and got our bearings. We headed down to Darling Harbour for some seafood (softy shell crab has become a bit of a favourite food of ours whilst being away) doubt we'll be getting that back in Belfast.



Even though we arrived at night, you could tell right away that Sydney is a great place to shop. If only I had enough room to even fit in an extra bloody g-string, let along a Louis Vitton handbag.
This is the Louis Vitton store below.






We didn't even notice that literally right beside Louis Vitton was Sydney's Apple store, strolled right past it. Not to worry we visited it the next day. Lovely big 3 level store.



We visited a few galleries on the following day, some good, and some bad work as you'd usually expect in galleries. I of course find the random bits of wall to photograph!












Sydney has been fun, great to hop on a few river tours and take the obvious landmark shots as you do. Mark and I both agree that it's a great place to visit, kind of has that London vibe, too big to live in but great to visit and spend all your money!












We did take a day tour with my family out to the blue mountains (they don't really look that blue to be honest).


The fun bit about here is you can take a 52 degree train ride down the side. It's pretty hard to visualise what that is like isn't it? But it was a pretty cool experience.


Actually my favourite part of the day was visiting the wildlife park, not often do you get the opportunity to photography animals in such close proximity. When you are using an iPhone you have to be all up in the face of the subjects, and as you can see I managed it!












If you know me at all you'll know that I'm not a fan of Italian restaurants, as it's all pretty much pasta on the menu (I ate pasta waaay to much the last time in Oz, so kind of sickened myself on it)
However we discovered that Jamie Oliver had an Italian place here, right beside our hotel, so we just had to try it out.



As you can see I had pasta! But it's black squid ink pasta, therefore cool looking ;) beautiful flavours (excuse the pics, it was done with a night cam app, bit ropey). We liked it here so much that we went back for another night.






Last night, our final night, was spent with the family on a Showboat, ah just good old cheesy fun. The views of the city at night are spectacular.



As the night came to an end I had to say goodbye to my Aussie family. My bro has been trying hard to get me to move over on this trip. His final words were "so your next ticket will be a one way one then" it has to be said it seems to be a great quality of life over here, no sign of recession, great opportunities, and great weather. Not to mention the food, food here is a million times better than back home. Even having breakfast in cafés in the morning beats home hands down. You can be healthy too, I've fallen in love with toasted rye bread, and you can get some great Muesli that is always served with a great big dollop of yogurt. Amazing selections!
So as I said I'm on my first flight, another 4 hours of this one to go I think. Then another 13 or so hour flight to London, big wait there and onto Belfast. Its a long old haul, perhaps next time my ticket should be one way then ;)

But what an amazing trip, seen and done so much, and feel extremely lucky and privileged to be able to have done it all, and to see my family along the way. It breaks your heart when you hear your niece say "is Auntie Karen coming to live in Bunbury (Western Australia) with us"!



K.










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Hamilton Island

So it was time for a bit of paradise and to hit Hamilton Island (a Whitsunday Island)






We got the 45 minute boat journey across to the island, which didn't suck, beautiful blue water and great consistent sunshine!
We were greeted at the marina by the McClintock clan, (my mum & dad again, my brother, sister in law and 2 nieces)
Was great to see everyone, I'd never met my youngest niece before, and she's quite the cutie.. (most McClintocks are to be honest ;)



Transport around the island is all done by golf cart, pretty cool if you can afford it, my bro got his included in his apartment so he chauffeured us to our chalet..
I love love loved our chalet, so cute, just the right size and the main feature being the hammock, (I loved to just sit and read in there) Mark wasn't as much of a fan of it, found it hard to get out of ;)
We just had a BBQ the first night at my brothers luxury apartment, bit of a family reunion and a catchup. Just being able to eat, talk, drink wine and chill all outside is just perfect to me.
Parakeets would just come right down onto the balcony to grab a bite of food, (I later found out you aren't meant to feed the birds) but I gave him Special K so surely I was keeping him healthy, and emm regular.



We did some chilling out on the beach the next day, nice to have that proper holiday feeling for a bit. You know get some bad tan lines and sand in areas you don't want it to be.

The next day we needed some sort of activity so Mark & I tried some sea Kayaking (pics on my compact cam). I thought this would be a nice leisurely paddle around the island, but no, it's pretty hardcore. It's all currents, blisters and bad hair. None the less I loved it, was great to get a bit of a private guided tour around the island.

On our final full day I expected to be waking up in agony and walking like a cowboy after all the paddling, but no, fit as an ox me, felt fine :D
Was looking forward to the next adventure, we were all heading out to check on some big mass of coral, and perhaps a few stripey fish. Yeah that's it the barrier reef!
Getting there seemed to take ages, but we finally arrived at reef world, which is basically a platform way out at the reef that seems to stay there permanently. The last time I was on the reef in 2004, it definitely didn't seem as organised, and this time I was in for a much bigger treat beneath the sea!
Straight away we put on our fab stinger suits, last time mine was black, so I was simply delighted to learn I was getting a pink one on this occasion. Hot, don't ya think? Especially since I have pink sun glasses to match. My flippers however were orange, and therefore a clashing nightmare haha!


As soon as I jumped in I swam right over a huge sea turtle, an amazing sight, and he moves...well slow, like you know a turtle does, so you have plenty of opportunity to see every bit of him.

The reef is beautiful, and even more so when I went back in for a second time, an under water camera would have been amazing! But I couldn't justify that, well unless I moved here ;) so many colourful fish and clams opening and closing their big mouths as I swam past. A fish literally swam right in front of my face and ate a bit of god knows what, but where else would you get that experience!?



All in all quite a fabulous day, even standing outside chatting with a beer in the sun as we zoomed back home was a great little moment.



Currently writing this on the beach trying to soak up the last ounce of sun as I am expecting Sydney to be a bit colder and kinda rainy. Nothing like a bit of rain to help ease us back home. One week to go and it's all over, so fast, so grateful, such fun!

Kaz

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Fraser Island & Airlie Beach

Hey,

Feels like its been a while since I put a blog post together, it's too difficult to be witty. Think I'll probably focus on my photos this time around. ;)
So the last time I was with you I'd been to Brisbane and had flown into Hervey Bay.
Hervey Bay is such a sleepy little town, but it's the place to start at to get to Fraser Island. (the largest sand island in the world, apparently)
We arrived on Fraser island by boat pretty early, I'd forgotten that it is one bumpy ass ride when you get there, the bus you get on is obviously equipped to handle the terrain, but it's mental the amount of bouncing about you do, the easily travel sick would not appreciate it!
The last time I was on the island we did a self drive tour, which again consisted of heavy drinking and probably not seeing everything we should, so it was nice to be taken to the right places from someone who knows what they are talking about.



First stop on the tour was lake Wabby which has fresh water in it, as you can see above its pretty spectacular, we didn't visit this one last time, so it was nice to see something different. The lake was absolutely bloody freezing, but you have to get in don't you!? It was kind of windy down there and when you put on sun tan lotion you get what's known as the donut effect (Billy Connelly joke) in other words, as soon as the wind blows all the sand sticks to your freshly applied sun block! My dad always hated the beach, and I've definitely absorbed some of that hatred.

The next fresh water lake we went to was Lake McKenzie, I loved this place the last time, and even stole some of the beautiful white sand you see below. I'm pretty sure you aren't supposed to do this, in fact the sandy area is smaller than I last remember it, perhaps too many foolish backpackers swiping the sand has something to do with that!






Th picture below was my favourite of the day, a quiet captured moment, I managed to isolate this person out from the crowd. I actually entered this imaged into an Instagram competition.. It's rare for me to love one of my own pictures, but I love the concept behind this one :D



Indian Head below is another great view, when I was up here I became very contemplative, I remember thinking, I didn't appreciate this view enough the last time, so I made sure to hang around a bit longer. How lucky am I to be able to see and do this. I certainly don't slow down enough in life, but this view ensured that I did just that.


Apparently dingos are getting harder and harder to spot on Fraser so everyone went a bit crazy when one popped up by the bus. You can't feed them or they'll pretty much take your arm with the food, but this was a wee cute young one. Surprisingly not a bad pic for an iPhone, the only flaw with the iPhone being no zoom, well it's not a flaw its just something it's not meant to have.


It was great to return to Fraser, the tour guide asked us had anyone been here before, I was the only one who had. He made my day by saying you must have been very young the last time (I was 23).. Again extremely lucky to be back a second time in my life.

On from Fraser we got the greyhound bus to Airlie Beach, horrible ass 12 hour journey, not one wink of sleep, but it's over and makes for a cheap overnight bed, if you can call it a bed!
Yesterday we went on a croc safari, great little day out, very interesting and fun! Fab guys took us on the tour. I now know a great deal about crocs! Below you can see what we got to eat in the afternoon. Billy tea and damper, I'll let you google what they are, but I loved the both of them, and as I mentioned on my Facebook, I'm in love with veggie mite. It beats the ass of marmite!











Just a couple of un Karen scenic pics from the croc safari below (i eventually cracked out the compact camera to zoom in on the crocs, can't upload those yet though)






Tomorrow we are off to Hamilton Island to meet up with my family, good times! Also hoping to do some scuba diving there..
Bore you all again soon.

K.


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