2/52

Week two is nearly over!

Is it just me or does 2014 seem to be hurrying away already? But, that said, I have achieved a lot of great things already! Some things which are in the pipeline are starting to move forwards (more on this in a few weeks probably), my new years resolution isn't going too badly, I have been for my first run of the year today (more on that later too if I stick to it!), my budgeting is going well. All in all things aren't too shabby!

1. Self Portrait.

Well, I have to admit that I'm still not feeling too comfortable about putting my face on the net. Instead of a sensible portrait though, I have decided to pull a silly face and play on my photo editor with the 'cartoon' function. This way it hides the fact that I took the photo a couple of days after clippering my hair, with no make up on, fairly late at night. But in terms of 'being happy' this is still working as a great challenge to myself.

2. Garden

Ok, so I cheated already. This isn't taken in my garden, but not too far off. I also know it's pretty much another weather shot (see below,) but nevertheless, I did say that I'd let my self be flexible. I just had to stop and capture the totally blue sky with the sun struck trees off to the side.

3. Weather

This is the real weather shot! High river speeding along, wind pushing my brolly around and rain pouring down. This was captured on my mobile so it hasn't got the quality to pick out the rain unfortunately. But if you live in or near Bristol, you'll know it was there!

4. Number.

So this challenge was more to make me leave the house and look for details I might normally have missed. This week I signed up for a course (more on this next week) of which I am doing level '2'. How convenient! I still find printing techniques quite fascinating. Getting so close to this number to take the picture shows how the dots are ever so slightly misaligned with the back ground yellow.

5. Words

This weeks been a bit tight on time for my boyfriend and I, so we've succumbed to a Chinese takeaway. I feel guilty, but this isn't our usual Chinese. I feel as if we've defected. We're not good people. (Good Chinese though!)

6. Colour

PEEEEAAAAAAS! Yes. Peas. Another phone picture I'm afraid. But this was a spur of the moment thing. I apologise about the poor quality. I think I'm starting to learn a little about photography already from this project. Like it's really hard to take a beautifully highly coloured picture over a small saucepan of steaming vegetables with a rubbish mobile phone camera!

7. Black and White

Last photo of this surprisingly short week. Another walk in to work, another phone photo. Black and White photos are often adout high contrast, but this picture is about texture. The swans (which were not posing well at all. Bad swans!) are a great focal point for the foreground, but the picture is really all about the patterns and reflections on the water.


Well, there we are. I have managed two whole weeks of my 52 weeks project! I promised my self I'd do it until the end of January at least! I'm half way through. Kind of!

I'm not totally pleased with my photos this week. I think this coming week I will be travelling around with my actual camera a lot more. Do you have a photo project this year? Or any hints and tips for my photography skills?



All images are © Chloe Cooter 2013 unless image links to another website. All images that are not © Chloe Cooter will be linked to the source (if possible) and credited in that way.

1/52

I wasn't expecting to write anything here today. I've been having trouble finding the inspiration to write here recently, but there is something inspiring about a New Year. It not only brings the hope of future happiness, but also opens the mind up to think about what can be/what you want to achieve. New Year's resolutions have a bad reputation, they almost feel doomed to failure, and yet so many people make them. It's the new hope that the new year brings. Which I think is an excellent thing! I'm not making any traditional resolutions this year. Yes, of course I want to loose weight, and do exercise, learn more or earn more but what I truly want to achieve this year is happiness. Happiness in everything I do. Even when I'm three stone over weight, I want to be happy about my body. Even when I can't afford to go out, I want to find pleasure in staying in. I am going to find something positive about everyday and stop dwelling on the difficult and stressful. I'm going to devote 2014 to being happy.

As a part of that I have decided to start a year long project, and document it here. I know there's nothing new about a 365 day or 52 week long project. But rather than try to document my life I am going to try to reinforce my happiness.

My plan is to take 7 photographs a week (I'm not restricting myself to one a day, life's too unpredictable!) I'll try to post once a week, and I'm only dedicating my self to this for January for starters. (I'm going to little bite sizes goals here!)

Rather than have one theme, or no theme, I'm going to have 7 themes. One for each day of the week.

1. Self portrait
2. The garden
3. Weather
4. A number
5. Words
6. A colour
7. Black and White

Working up to a full portrait shot. Accidentally captured the reflection of myself and camera in the mirror I used to take the photo though, so I reckon it counts!

Self portrait is pretty self explanatory. This is all about documenting happiness, but also it's partly a challenge to myself. I'm not usually filled with self confidence, so it's going to be a bit scary to find enough good feelings towards my self to put my face on the web every week!

This is one of the lushest plants in the garden at the moment. I think it's 'lords and ladies'. I dug this up and transplanted it in the summer from my Dad's old garden before he moved.

The garden is one of the things I love and brings me a lot of pleasure. I'm going to take a photo of anything that takes my fancy from birds and bees to leaves, flowers or mud and compost.

I missed the amazing scenes of flooding in Bristol this week due to looking after my boyfriends kids. A moody rain filled sky was all that was left by the time I got the camera out.

Weather. Rain, shine, sun sets (I doubt you'll get a sun rise from me!) clouds, rainbows, hail or snow. It can be pretty dramatic, and since I like dancing about in the rain, I see no reason not to let something so everyday cause happiness.

Christmas cards. Enough said.

A number. This is a challenge to find a number in the wild as it were, for the week in question. So for week one I might photograph a door number, week two find '2 tbsp' written in a recipe book. Or as I've found for 1/52 a 1st class stamp.

After all, when you seek advice from someone it's certainly not because you want them to give it. You just want them to be there while you talk to yourself.

Words. For this I want to capture a phrase from a book that makes me smile or think. Or a quote from someone, or just some attractive typography, or 'bus lane' written on the road, anything that interests me!

Starry fairy lights slung together in a fire grate.

A colour. I love all-colour photographs and I want to capture a saturated image. So a close up of an all red flower, or a red brick wall, or maybe a huddle of brown beer bottles. The key here is texture.

Lonely Christmas decoration (jewellery) I scooped up from the last of the detritus left over when my dad moved house not long ago. Dug out of a bag whilst tidying for Christmas.

Lastly I want to try to capture a dramatic black and white image. Again the theme is really finding something that makes me happy, but not an image of happiness itself. Don't expect mawkish pictures of my family inanely grinning at the camera, but high contrast images of trees or cars or reflections on water, (or the occasional kitten.)


I'm definitely giving my self some freedom here though. One week maybe I'll have two black and white images, but one will be the self portrait. Or perhaps I will decide to have a two-toned colour photograph. Maybe I'll decide a puddle counts as 'weather', who knows. The point is to push myself to think about the things which give me pleasure.

What do you think to my 2014 project?

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I've been struggling with what to write here since declaring my withdrawal from trying to run Chloe and the Chimera as a successful business. I have two long blog posts waiting to be finished but neither of them feel right just at this time. I guess I'm feeling a little at sea at the moment with life. Too much, and yet, too little going on all at the same time!

Anyway I haven't forgotten about writing here, but you may have to be patient with me!

A Christmas tree made from buttons makes everything better!

I would like to wish all my readers a lovely New year, and I hope you've had an astounding Christmas.

I can feel that 2014 is going to be an exceptional and successful, but above all happy year!

Chloe and the Chimera and the Future.

Well, this is a positive, yet slightly sad moment.

I have decided to call it a day on Chloe and the Chimera as a business in the main. You'll still be able to buy jewellery online from my shop www.chloeandthechimera.com, or from the shop 'Glass Designs and Gallery' on North Street, Southville, Bristol where I sell my stuff. But I'm no longer going to be pursuing this as a career.

I'm going to be putting my energies in to a new avenue, of which I'm still not sure of the details. I decided it was better to be able to leave feeling good and try my hand at something that I will be able to do full time, and not have to devote most of my time, and all of my energy to working for someone else just to keep afloat whilst working on my 'dream'. I should be living my dream all the time.

So, that's all the sad bits over and done with. I just want to take a moment to thank every single person that ever liked, followed, read, bought or enjoyed anything I've done. Thank you so much for making Chloe and the Chimera possible, even for this short time.


On to new things.

I have decided that I don't want to let go of Chloe and the Chimera completely. Asides from keeping the website to sell from, I'm going to be keeping hold of my Twitter account, and the business Facebook page as well as this blog and Pinterest, and use them as my personal space on the net to talk about things I'm doing or that I find interesting. So with any luck I will be chatting about clothing, hair, make up, beer, wine, brewing, kittens, interior design, typography, graphic design, packaging, art, architecture, food and recipes, gardening, vegetables, flowers and garden design and maybe the odd local event. (The gardening side of things have their own blog here but will nevertheless start to show up on my twitter and facebook feeds.)

I really hope that without the pressure on me to make this a 'business' blog, I'll actually use it more, and be more interested and relaxed about the things I'm curious about.

I would like to invite all of my readers here, on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest to join me, to share the things I'm fascinated by, and to explore the world the way I see things now.

Here's to the future!
-Chloe-



All images are © Chloe Cooter 2013 unless image links to another website. All images that are not © Chloe Cooter will be linked to the source (if possible) and credited in that way.

Make Sunday's special

Wow!

So, the day before yesterday was the third Make Sunday's Special event. It was a great success for me!

I had my little stall at the top of Corn Street opposite the registers office.

(Photo taken by Snappy Andy)

Lately I've spent a lot of time working on the business, developing the jewellery side of things. I made the decision to officially drop the other aspects of the business barring my illustrated (and upcycled) home-ware for the time being. I think being more focused on one area will be beneficial to my business overall.

I've also started to draw not only birds, but underwater creatures like this octopus. So far you can also snag your self squids, jellyfish and angel fish!

The birds are still going strong, now featuring chickens! I'm also taking commissions so please get in touch!

I'll be at the next Make Sunday's Special event on the 29th September. Although, this is the last market I have planned so far! Please feel free to make suggestions for shops or markets where you think my jewellery (and home-ware) would go down well!