memories and photos...

After the Inner Mongolia trip, we collated 6/8 of our photos together (chris has a fancy 35mm camera and Keren doesn't have one), and put them on CD and dsitrbuted.

wow! its absoultely fantastic to see how other people have seen the same things as you, to see what they have taken, how they have taken the pictures and so on. Indeed its also interesting to see different styles, and to see what appeals to what people. Some of them even used the 'sepia' functions (etc) on the camera to tint the photos, and many of them look great.

Its very nice to see their photos, and some of them are very good, very different to me, and, well, you can tell how great an idea i think it was.

As I sit here looking at them, listening to Virgin Radio over the internet, severals songs have come on; 'time of your life' -greenday and 'its my life (...its now or never)' -Bon Jovi, ironically enough. So it has led me to think about memories..cause often is only through relection that you can think and realise the value of things. From realising how much fun I had this past weekend through to the fantastic, absoultely fantastic times we had in Mongolia, I realise how particular moments isolated mean so much, how when you put moments into a context they mean even more, and how different things combine to define that moment. From the tree that someone is leaning on, to the now flakes or reflection of the sun, to the smile or tears, to the strange person in the photo and the looks between people, from the arms over the shoulders to the sunglasses blocking out someone's eyes (read 'soul').

All of these and millions more elements make a photo, and the best photos are not the most carefully framed, they are just the ones that capture all of this -that you cannot plan, and cannot even see until you look back in hindsight. Not only is it so fufilling and often funny looking at these recent photos, its also exciting, thinking of the next adventure (this weekend up a holy mountain, to the birthplace of Confucius and to the origin of China's most fmaous beer).

Anyway, my thoughts are racing, and i'm still looking at the photos. In fact, its reminded me of some calssis moments from the trip:

-the girl in the 'club', since there is a picture of her epileptic-like dancing
-the authenticness of China, since there are pictures of china's street life, of average chinese people on teh train, in the grasslands and everywhere else
-the bizarre china moments...like the driver lifting up his seat (where the engine is) and just playing with the engine (like it is a casette player) whilst also using his fancy, slide-up mobile phone
-the classic moments, with picture of people in great poses (on 'hanging seats', skimming stones, sitting on stone lions, playing cards, sleeping on trains,
-Keren's phobia of being in photos -the onese she is in are fantastic, rare and special! (and the photos of her and Joe in together now have new meaning since they started dating!)
-Chris's money belt; in that he keeps it around his waist, so unzips his trousers to take out more money
-meeting chinese people..in fields, on trains etc...with guitars, babies, 'v for victory' signs,

and so on .....

wow, memories. so great, so fleeting, so many of them. And yet talking on line to my friends from home (and i dont do this enough unfortunately), I remember that life is about people, and some of them aren't in China :(

thoughts and reflections. but on the whole, fantastic photos, and I'll upload the best of them soon, since some are classics.