i am camera: sewlomax

This is such an amazing time to be alive.

Epic the-world-is-ending storms, and yet nearly everyone survives.. and then a Presidential election where the Fate of the Entire World is hanging on the balance.

But we all have our cross to bear: some friends are still without heat, or power, and some people have lost their homes.  Mine is that my camera broke. It is inoperable. I am in mourning, but have been assured by the lovely Greek man who tried to save it, Kriton Chris Krimitos, that the cause of death - while technically being the shutter breaking down - was really that I wore it down. I literally wore it into the ground, through use. Which heartens me somewhat: my Canon EOS (which sounds Greek actually) really did have a good innings.

But when God closes a door, He or She opens a window, and just I lost my camera, I received this lovely handmade bespoke camera bag from SEW LOMAX, which was created by Emma Lomax, and her site is the most adorable, clever, charming site I've seen in a long long time. (I shot this, incidentally, with my phone). And she sent it because she's good mates with the girlfriend of one of the two Toms who are behind LookBible.

Which is pretty friggin' amazing. Just at a time when the world is seeming rather Biblical - what are the odds? - LookBible is launched.

LookBible, for those who don't yet know about it, is an invite-only social platform, recently launched, which is purely for fashion and trends - like a private Pinterest, only better. I had been feeling rather.. flat lately, about blogging - I have all these photos I want to show, but I don't have the time to post, or to visit all the blogs I'd love to visit - but this is pure visual. With quick links to the post. And everything's connected by tags.. I'm really excited about it. I've only just started loading photos - it's so easy, you have your own button.. I'm too delirious from seeing the election results at a party at the American Embassy here in London to properly explain: sorry, I'm not making any sense, but just go to the site, and ask for an invite. Tell them that Jill sent you. 

premonition

Last August, while visiting our friends in Tranquility, New Jersey, they surprised us the first morning with a treat: a day trip to the Jersey Shore. They've know me forever, and know that heaven for me is swimming in the waves, and it was a perfect beach day. Even Maryann went in the water.

At one point, when my husband and Jim and Maryann took a walk around to see the houses in Ocean Grove (they're beautiful, multi-coloured Victorian wood sculptures - and Jim's an architect who's worked on several of them) I was frolicking in the waves, diving over and over until my head was clear of all thought - just pure energy - and suddenly, the sky turned dark.

This is a dream I've had - over and over, all my life. A perfect beach day, and suddenly, the world is about to end. And I try to tell the people at the beach 'it's not too late, we can still swim'.. sometimes in the dream, everyone is on the beach, afraid, and we're watching a giant wave moving in from the horizon, out of scale with anything you'd ever see.. in one of the dreams, I walked out into the water, and made it recede.

I've had these kind of premonitions before: I woke up in the middle of the Christmas night, before the Boxing Day tsunami, at the exact moment, it turned out, that it was hitting the first shores. I was dreaming of waves. And 9/11, I was at the beach of the Hurricane Hotel, near Tarifa, Spain, but that's another story. I know I'm not alone in having these feelings.. do you get them?

My heart breaks when I think that this pier might be gone, the houses.. this bird, who I had practically tamed, feeding him by my beach towel, I hope he was able to shelter from the storm.. the photos came out this bright, but even as it was happening, the day felt surreal, like a dream.

liberty

This is real.

Apparently this photo is real.* And once again: I didn't take this photo.

In the aftermath of Sandy, I am hearing story after story from friends that I love like family, amazing stories, focused always on how lucky, how grateful, and they're off helping someone less fortunate.. one friend, one of my closest friends from childhood, Linda, works in an ER. She said not everyone's been handling it so well, and has told me some of the really stupid or unkind things people are doing. And I know I have a lot of catching up on my own real photography to post, but I like the number three, so I'm rounding this trilogy up with a shot I found online of Liberty, just as the eye of the storm was moving onto New York.

Pretty unreal, huh? But all of this feels like a dream.

*It's not. It's a fake, gone viral, and I fell for it! Thank you, my dear friend Stephanie of Odyssey, for setting me straight. But then again - this isn't the first time.