By Vincent Baldensperger
Ca sent le feu, le fer, le foin. Ici à Castelroc, on marche sur les traces de combattants, on vit l'espace de deux jours au rythme des forgerons, des passes d'armes et des prouesses équestres...
July 30, 2018 at 9:27 AM (Otterburn Park, Canada)
By Patrick La Roque
I’m reading David Lynch’s Room to Dream these days, a co-written biography/auto-biography—a very peculiar, yet fascinating literary object that alternates between two voices. I was probably eighteen when I saw Eraserhead, as part of a late-night show at the old Théâtre Outremont in Montreal. Part of me was shaken but mostly I just sat there, completely riveted and transfixed. Lynch’s work made entire universes possible: the darkest and most surreal visions could be unleashed unapologetically. We could weave tales beyond our earth-bound senses. The movie was a license to reveal ourselves.
I’ve been on a steady trajectory for over a year now, reuniting with the obscure and the abstract. There’s certainly nothing in it for me in terms of work opportunities, but for some reason I feel less and less interested in precision, both in words and imagery. I keep reaching for dreamscapes, compelled to break up what I see...as though I now need layers to understand reality.
This weekend—tentatively—it was water.
Black sun piercing the veil.
Shapes like explosions.
July 26 2018 at 2:08PM (Biograd, Croatia)
By Jonas Rask
Finally vacation time. Finally time for family.
We drove through Europe. 1900km+, it took us a couple of days to get here, improvized hotel stay et all. But now we are. Here.
In Croatia. This is a first for our family, but it probably be the last. This place is amazing.
We do what we usually do. Live simple, enjoy it all. I am so ever grateful.
25 July 2018 at 10:07 am (Darlinghurst, Australia)
JULY 26, 2018 at 3:30 PM (MOTHERWELL, SCOTLAND)
By Derek Clark
My sister lost her fight with cancer at 4:47 am on Tuesday 17th July 2018. She was 55 years old. Joyce was diagnosed with a brain tumour back in November 2016 and despite 6 months of radiotherapy, 14 months of chemotherapy, cannabis oil and honey imported from Israel, one tumour became two and it was clear treatment was not going to work.
Joyce kept her sense of humour right to the end, she never complained or showed any sign of self-pity, but a stroke changed her permanently and made communication more difficult and then finally almost impossible. At the end it was although everything but her lungs shut down, each breath a fight for survival. In the last few minutes of her life, she managed to open her eyes. She was surrounded by family, each of us holding on to her, making sure she knew we were there. Finally, her breath slowed, a few more breaths with longer gaps in between and then silence. She was gone forever.
July 24th, 2018. The funeral was today, exactly one week after she died. We couldn’t believe how many people showed up to pay their respects. It was a sea of faces, some I knew some I didn’t and some I should have known, but didn’t recognise. As requested by my brother in law, Joyce’s coffin was carried by her three brothers and three sons as her favourite singer Andrea Bocelli played in the background.
I've been asked so many times in the past week how I and the rest of my family were. I say that we’re ok, we're getting there. But the real truth is that we are all hanging by a thread right now. My brother in law, their three sons, my two brothers and our other halves, we’re all hanging by a thread. But my parents just buried their only daughter and that's just not right. It's not the way it's supposed to happen. I don't know how they're supposed to move on from this.
So we are all hanging by a thread. But we’re a close family, and if you twist and intertwine thread it becomes rope, and rope anchors the ship, it holds down the tents in a storm. As I write these words I look down at my wrist at the piece of climbing rope that’s been there for almost a year. I realise that it's the stuff that keeps us from falling.
Click on each picture for the caption
July 26, 2018 at 6:30AM (Malmesbury, England)
BY KEVIN MULLINS
It's 6:30am on Thursday.
I've had possibly the busiest three weeks of my life, both professionally and personally.
6:30 is actually late for me. I'm an early riser but today I have a family photography session locally at 8am and I found myself dozing thinking about that and the many other things I need to achieve today.
This weekend is my light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel. After Saturdays wedding I escape to Spain for a month, so expect my next set of journal entries to be as such inspired by the Southern Spanish events around me.
Each morning I check on the children, I walk to the kitchen, I rub Buddha's head out of superstition and I think about making coffee.
July 24, 2018 at 11:29 AM (Zaventem, Belgium / Dunkirk, France)
By Bert Stephani
Today I've spent another day photographing at the refugee camp near Dunkirk, France. I feel it's my obligation as a story teller to tell the stories that I believe aren't told enough. It's personal ... and usually I'm pretty professional in being personal. But today the camera didn't function as a professional shield, it acted as a personal rear view mirror.
I stumbled upon two dusty boxes in my garage with toys from back when my kids were small and decided to give them to the many refugee children in the camp. Some of the toys have been in our house for fifteen years and opening the boxes brought back countless memories of happy childhoods, contrasted by smiles from children who were just born in the wrong country.
I'm sad, angry and happy
23 juillet 2018 à 19h35 (Toulouse, France)
By Vincent Baldensperger
Je t’écoute et t’observe, me tourner autour, me gratter et me renifler, me grimper sur les épaules.
Dis moi, tu t’appelles comment, tu as quel âge, tu aimes les oiseaux, les fleurs, les papillons, les hérissons, les escargots ?
Et les arbres tu les aimes aussi ?
Tu sens l’herbe folle, ta voix me chatouille un peu, tes mains comme de petits abricots.
Raconte moi tes rêves.
July 23, 2018 at 9:33 AM (Otterburn Park, Canada)
By Patrick La Roque
I shouldn’t read the news in the morning. Hell, I shouldn’t read the news, period, these days. All it does is ramp up my blood pressure and that’s not good for anything is it? Héloïse is off to summer camp this week, Anaïs is still sleeping the sleep of a budding teenager. Jacob just had breakfast and Cynthia’s downstairs, watching her latest rushes.
If I close my eyes our backyard pool almost sounds like a small forest brook.
I should meditate for a bit. Today’s going to be another scorcher...
