Karen Strunks Photography

Now you see me! Now you don’t!

“Hey Karen! What’s with the disappearing photo?” 

I’m glad you asked!  

Well, I’m going in to hibernation, I’m knuckling down, and entering a period of solitudinal(yes, I made that word up) busyness. For the next month or so, I’m throwing all my efforts into the 4am Project.  So, in order to do this I really need to concentrate my efforts. I’m cutting down on going out. The social Karen is going to have to take a bit of a back seat & chill out whilst the focused creative Karen goes into overdrive. I’ve explained to some friends that they may not see me as much over the coming weeks, and they have been very understanding. I love getting invites to events/parties/tweetups/etc, (and keep the invites coming!)  but please don’t be offended if I have to decline sometimes. 

So! The 4am Project! Well, it’s soon going to have it’s first birthday – Yay! If you haven’t heard, the next global 4am date is the 4th April. Please put the date in your diary and set your alarm clock and take part in the global photographic project! You can even grab a bit of code and put the 4am Project countdown clock on your blog or website. If you blog about the 4am Project, give me a shout and you can follow the project on twitter too. 

As you can probably tell, I’ve got lots to do for the 4am Project. One of those things is organising an event for Birmingham! I’m liaising with a few venues at the moment and waiting for a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. If you have any suggestions about the venue in Brum for this year, let me know. Or if you are a venue and would like to host the 4am Project event, please get in touch and we can have a chat! 

A big boost for the 4am Project was provided last week on a Crossover Lab 3 day course. From the Crossover website: 

Screen West Midlands, in collaboration with Crossover, is delighted to invite archivists, archive rights holders and producers with experience in film or television, social media, web design, games,mobile and location based services to participate in an intensive 3 day ‘creative lab’, with a specific focus on developing innovative digital archive projects. 

I was invited to apply for a place on the course, and I’m so glad I attended! It was held in the gorgeous Coombe Abbey. 

Taken with my iPhone

Taken with my iPhone

It was an inspiring, intense and invaluable! I spent three days with other creatives and met some great mentors too.  Tons of fresh ideas were generated (perhaps too many haha), and I would certainly recommend it. 

What else….? Oh yes. I know I’m waaaaay behind on photo blogging, and I’ve still got tons of photo shoots from last year to blog about. I *promise* I’ll be addressing this soon and catching up!  

AND, I’ve started a new blog! Wake Green Park Blog. I quite fancied having a try at hyper local blogging after being inspired by Nicky Getgood from Digbeth Is Good and Talk About Local. It’s still in it’s infancy, but I hope you enjoy it! 

Also, last year I went on a press trip with Nicky Getgood to Belfast that was sponsored by bmibaby and the Belfast Tourist Board. I blogged all about it here. Well, I shall be heading to Nice this year with bmibaby! I haven’t set a date yet, but it will be sometime in April or May most proabably. This time I am taking my Mother. I can’t wait to have a break and an adventure with my Mum, and share it all with you. 

Oh, and as if I haven’t got enough to occupy my mind, I’ve got a notion to spend a month in NYC. Now, this isn’t more than a notion at the moment. Well, more of an growing obsession really. I spent a few days in NYC a few years ago. It wasn’t enough. I felt so at home there. I love the city and the people. The last time I went there I didn’t use the world wide web for anything other than sending a few emails and looking up stuff. I didn’t use it to connect with people, I certainly didn’t have a blog, and social media hadn’t even registered on my radar. 

Things are different now. I practically live my life on the net! I have connected and made friends with so many people since getting all social media’d up.  I can’t imagine things any other way now. I feel like I’m using the net for what it was designed for. 

I’ve started following some NYC blogs: Brooklyn Heights Blog, Brownstoner, Curbed NY, Dumbo NYC, McBrooklyn, NewYorkology, NYC Menu Girl, Queens Crap, Brooklyn Paper, and Gothamist. If you have any NYC blog recommendations, let me know! I really want to start getting re-acquainted with the place and be ready to throw myself into the city when (if!) I get there. 

Apart from having a trip of a lifetime, I’d like to use my time there as a way to document the city. This will take the form of photographs, videos, interviews and of course blogging. I want to delve into the life of New York City and experience everything it has to offer and share it. The sights, the sounds, the food, the streets, the people, the culture - all of it! I’d like to document the experience, perhaps take up a few challenges along the way, and I’d love to hold a 4am Project event there too of course. 

I just have to figure out a way of doing it! Suggestions on a postcard, PLEASE!  

In the meantime I’ve put together a little creative wish list over on Amazon,and included some things that will be useful for NYC. If you would like to surprise me, that would be great and I would really appreciate it, but please don’t feel obliged  

So, I *think* I have enough to keep me busy for a little while yet! 

Let’s connect! @karenstrunks, Facebook,Flickr, youtube,  hello@karenstrunks.com

A big thank you to Supercool Design

As some of you may have read in this post, my Dad passed away last month.

One of my Dad’s old school friends wrote  some words for the priest to read at out the funeral. He told the story of when my Dad was taking one of his English exams. At the end of the exam paper my Dad wrote. “PS The Rest Is Silence”. This is a quote from Hamlet.

O, I die, Horatio;

The potent poison quite o’er-crows my spirit;

I cannot live to hear the news from England,

But I do prophesy the election lights

On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice;

So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less,

Which have solicited. The rest is silence.

This story and those words have stayed with me and I had the idea of typing them out and putting them in a frame. I particularly wanted the font to be in a Shakespearean style.  Although I thought I knew what I wanted, I couldn’t really get it any further than the idea stage as much as I pondered upon it.

I got in touch, via twitter, with my friend Katie Parry from Supercool Design in Birmingham. She asked me to drop her an email and I gave her my vague idea. Soon after, this beautiful design arrived by email!

By Katie at Supercool Design, Birmingham

I must admit to shedding a tear or two when I saw it. It was PERFECT. Just how I imagined it, but couldn’t quite put into words. From the font, to the background colour, the vignetting and the important words ‘The rest is silence’, it was exactly what I had hoped for.

Thank you Katie for your instinctive, wonderful design skills, and for this beautiful memento that means so much to me now and will mean so much in years to come.

Proud owner of a Julian Kimmings Print

I made the acquaintance of the talented artist Julian Kimmings on twitter. I have always loved his work, and the wonderful characters he conjures up in his art.

From Julian’s website: Julian’s themes are born from a childhood consumed by sci-fi, comic books, cartoons, graffiti and boredom. Often conceived in varying combinations of aerosol, acrylics paint, ink, graphite and/or emulsion on various surfaces including canvas, wood, walls and board his images combine abstract portraiture and hints of pattern, implying a measure of illustrative prose.

I like to think that all the characters in his paintings inhabit a strange, slightly darker world than ours.

When Julian asked for my address I was naturally curious. The postman delivered a long cardboard tube, which I opened excitedly. I was blown away to see that Julian had sent me a limited edition print! WOW!

I LOVE IT! It’s being framed at the moment and will soon be hung on my living room wall and admired every day.

Not only am I the owner of a print from one of my favourite artists, it’s my first limited edition piece of art too! I feel all grown up now.

Pop over to Julian’s website and have a browse of his original and limited edition prints, and you can follow him on twitter.

So, it’s just left for me to say a huge Thank You Julian! I will treasure my picture.