The left ear is usually the most emotional ear …

And some people report that they feel unable to hear properly if they put their non-standard ear to the phone to listen to a call.  Some of us use a different ear in different circumstances. How fascinating is that?! 

I’ve been reading Kate Murphy’s You’re not Listening bestseller this month. Re-reading it, to be precise. And referencing it for a uni assignment I had to write recently.  Passed with a first and it felt mighty fine too. You don’t mind if I puff my chest there momentarily, do you? #bragard

55% of the emotional content of a spoken message is delivered non-verbally. Bowled over to learn that figure, I was.  And 38% of someone’s emotions are conveyed by tone of voice.  In some conversations, just 7% of the meaning is via the actual words themselves. Gulp. Jaw drop. Eye pop. Eyebrows overarch ..

And why is this pertinent to photography? Well, it absolutely is, of course, if portraits are what is being captured. Less so for a styled product shoot of potatoes, obviously enough.

Facial expressions of authentic emotion are discernibly different from those micro-expressions that people ‘put on’. And we all have our masks which we wear situationally, they’re broadly speaking inevitable. Unless you’ve a first in Poker Facing.

Bug or bird? Whatever you call them, coccinelles are always the Lady- and have no facial expressions that I can detect.  I’ve been photographing them with a new macro lens out and about. And using the lens on client shoots also.

Raising pounds for paws this month was Bentley’s Dog Groomers; via a Dogshow fundraising for two locally based rescue charities. Serendipitously, it meant I got to spend time in a field full of dandy dawgs on a Sunday afternoon.  A friendship shared with a dog is a precious thing indeed.

School commissions resumed and some outdoor theatre on a peachy skied soirée at Churcher’s College, that proved enjoyable and laugh out loud at moments. Thankfully, this was not a performance beset by pluie.

There has been an awful lot of pluie this month here. I’ve photographed big globules of the stuff teetering on the garden plants. 

Finally found a moment to process a shoot from Cumbria from earlier in the year. Talented Victoria from Feather & Wild and her brushstrokes of my motherland.

And a second human in the house turned 21. Shockingly. We celebrated, we ate, we drank. We reminisced. I captured the moment. Naturally enough.

Preoccupations

• Feel Better, Live More .. Rangan Chatterjee’s podcasts are firing my editing sessions. I am loving too many of the guests to mention by name here.
• Alfalfa. We’ve got trays of it growing here, along with red clover. Super nutritional boost blasts of sprouting seedlings.
• Peaches are plumping up beautifully on the warm wall of the garden, garage side.
• Ray Lamontagne, I am liking his lilting voice and he sings a song about a Sarah & I happen to love it, so I do!