…all the same. You & I
Recently on the set of The Flame Wars (a feature film I was shooting some stills for) I met a young girl Sarah, an acting extra, who at the tender age of 19 had lived such a tumultuous life that, in few words, I got the gravity of it. For most of the day she sat to the side and quietly watched. She had sad but soulful eyes—a resonant presence so solid that at the same time could also make her invisible. Sarah doesn’t attract attention to herself, she sits equanimous and only talks when spoken to…and even then she dims the lights. —you’d never know just how much this girl had lived and suffered, and how right there, staring out at you, is a raw and tender grief…Naturally, I turned my lens to her— Fostered at eleven years of age, for a while there she moved from house to […]
How do you bliss…
Two days ago I had the fireplace roaring. January in Melbourne. It’s true. But I live in the mountains and it’s an average 4-6 degrees cooler just 3kms from the bottom of the hill to where I live. Despite this, it has been cold. Well below 20 degrees for so many days. It’s been more than a week of completing projects, working into the night, quoting on new jobs and trying to keep warm. Today I opened the backdoor and couldn’t believe the stroke of warm air that kissed my face like a full-lipped mouth from someone much-loved, expected but so long overdue that it shocked me. And the sweet buzz of insects at play in my ear—like that someone said, ‘I love you, I’ve missed you’ over and over. I gasped. ‘Really. You’re here…Well come on then!’ Out in my slightly overgrown yard I spotted butterflies dancing between the […]
The year of losing my health and gaining my self –
2013 was a year of great lows and great leaps of transitions into joy – Battling sickness since June 2012, which at the time, gave me no indication it would still be lurking almost 18 months later I came into the start of the year nauseous, exhausted and with constant sore throats and aching ears. After many test, visits to doctors, naturopaths, specialists and procedures—ultrasounds, endoscopies, and including an iron infusion (iron drip-fed over a period of about 9hrs) we were all still scratching our heads to explain it, my doctor sat back in her chair stunned when I told her I worked the equivalent of two full-time jobs and drove from the Dandenong Mountains to Rosebud every day for “work”. When my doctors suggested I give away my “job” I just about scoffed, “yeah right. And how exactly will I pay my bills, how will I live…how will I buy […]
© Antoinette Dakota | All rights reserved