Trong khi ở Dubrovnik, chúng tôi ở lại thành phố cổ. Nó giống như bước ngược thời gian. Đó là một thành phố có tường bao quanh và một pháo đài với những con đường lát đá cuội, tháp, quảng trường thị trấn, nhà thờ và rất nhiều chú mèo thân thiện. Đó cũng là nơi quay phần lớn Game of Thrones . Dubrovnik là ‘Đích của các vị vua’. Đây là một sự trùng hợp kỳ lạ vì tôi vừa hoàn thành việc chấm một số bài tiểu luận về cách kể chuyện đa phương tiện cho một khóa học về điện ảnh mà tôi đã dạy ở trường đại học. Nhiều sinh viên của tôi là những người hâm mộ cuồng nhiệt của GoT và đã sử dụng bộ truyện này như một nghiên cứu điển hình cho bài luận cuối kỳ của họ. Thật tuyệt khi đọc chúng vì các bài tiểu luận thể hiện sự nhiệt tình thực sự đối với chủ đề này và điều đó khiến việc giảng dạy trở nên thú vị.

Bản thân thành phố đẹp đến nghẹt thở. Nó là hùng vĩ trong khi vẫn ấm áp và hấp dẫn. Một số thành phố có tường bao quanh cổ kính lạnh lẽo và ảm đạm, nhưng Dubrovnik lại mang một vẻ nhẹ nhàng. Có lẽ điều này có liên quan đến loại đá sáng màu mà các tòa nhà được làm từ đó, hoặc cách mặt trời dường như bao phủ các quảng trường và tòa tháp. Tôi đặc biệt yêu thích những con đường nhỏ hẹp uốn lượn và những bậc thang bằng đá dốc đứng cũng như nhiều nhà hàng và quán cà phê quyến rũ lấp đầy chúng.

Chúng tôi đã có một số món ăn tuyệt vời – giản dị và thoải mái. Tại một nhà hàng tên là Kopun, chúng tôi đã ăn súp đậu lăng, mì ống rugusa, capone nướng (gà trống non với cam và quả sung), và cơm risotto rau lúa mạch. Nó ở đầu một dãy cầu thang dài, chúng tôi ăn ngoài trời và một con mèo chạy vòng quanh chúng tôi suốt thời gian đó với hy vọng được tham gia vào hành động.

Last Sunday we climbed the wall and walked the perimeter of the city. Looking in on the city the sight of tightly packed three and four storied builds and the cluster of red roofs brought to life the image of a bustling 13century city. Looking out toward the port I could also see how old Dubrovnik was it was a stronghold against invading forces. Its narrow port would make invading ships clearly visible from the wall and its towers. This however was of no use when the heritage-listed city came under attack in the 1990s from the Serbian army who bombed the city with shells from the hill above. Thankfully the city was repairable and survived.

Last week I pulled up the garden because Poppet and I headed to Croatia to meet up with his dad for a European vacation. So far we’ve been to Zagreb and Markaska and now we are in Dubrovnik. More about Zagreb, Markaska, food and gardening later. Today we took Poppet to the beach in Dubrovnik so he could have a splash before heading to colder weather in Wales tomorrow. While there I saw something very peculiar and somewhat spectacular.

Not five metres from where Poppet was wading there was a man, in a neat red sweater, fishing. It wasn’t long before he caught a little fish. As he took the fish off the fishing line he let out a couple of loud whistles. Suddenly this black cat appeared from behind a rather well to do hotel about 50 metres away and bounded toward us. When he was a couple of metres away the man tossed the little fish in front of him. It was wiggling and thrashing about as it flew through the air. Just as it landed the cat grabbed it and raced off. I hadn’t even had time to take out my camera. However, about fifteen minutes later he caught another little fish and I quickly grabbed my camera. He handed the fish to a young friend and as he whistled to the cat I got ready to shoot. And this is what happened…

I get a real kick out of making food in the colours of the Italian Flag. Red, white and green. My favorite pizza, the Margherita, is made with basil, tomato and cheese. It was invented in Naples as a tribute to the Italian flag, also known as the Tricolore.

In the dish in this photo I used Basil from my garden and combined it with, tomato, bocconcini and prosciutto to create a Tricolore antipasto. I only wish I could share it with my cousin Antonello in Italy. Its been too long since we’ve shared a meal together.

Here is a link to more Tricolori dishes https://www.google.com/search?q=Tricolore+food&client=firefox-a&hs=y3r&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=sb&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=_Z_-U4UOiJ2MAumogBA&ved=0CFcQsAQ&biw=1441&bih=1060

Whenever my mother received a bunch of carnations she would pinch out the green shoots and plant them in the garden. Within a few months they had turned into small plants and soon after flowers would follow. My parent’s garden was always full of plants but I never saw them buying any of them or going to a nursery. It was always a matter of exchanging seeds with other Italians or taking a cutting and propagating it. There was something miraculous about this because it was making something out of almost nothing. I remember being enchanted by the idea of propagation and would pinch new shoots from plants on the way home from school and try to grow them. I found it wasn’t that hard and had a lot of success. I still love the idea, but pushed for time, I often end up buying seedlings off the shelf. However, a few years ago a friend gave me a small pot of ornamental indoor lilies. When they died off I dug the bulbs into the garden and that small pot has become around 50 plants and every spring they pop up underneath the mango tree and put on a show.

Yesterday, at the Sydney Royal Easter Show, I was entranced by the people flying through the air. Not simply because they were so high and moving so fast, but because it’s just wonderful to see people having so much fun.

At a distance Grevilleas look like old dry brushes, but up close they look lush, soft and sensual. With a mass of curly insect-like antennae they almost look like they come from another planet. However, I found these in the tiny courtyard of my good friend Cathie P today while we were testing out my macro lens on her camera.

A few weeks before we left for China I pulled up most of the vegies from the garden. I didn’t want our guests to walk out to a garden full of weeds so I scattered flower seeds randomly in the garden bed. Some of these were sunflowers and they sprouted immediately. We saw the first flowers bursting through just before we left.

Our guests tell me that they loved walking out and seeing a patch of bright colour everyday. By the time we got back the sunflowers were at the end of their life so I replaced them with basil, eggplants bok choy and spinach. However, they were not ready to give up the garden totally and soon enough seeds from the old sunflowers started to sprout amongst the basil. I was so glad because I’ve always loved sunflowers.

When I was a child I would plant the seeds in any nook and cranny. Then when the flowers were spent I would dry them out and eat the seeds with my mum. I’m going to try this with poppet when these flowers go to seed.

I love the way the flowers turn with the sun. In fact the Italian name for them is Girasole, which literally mean ‘turn with the sun’. Curiously, they also seem to follow me around. Where ever I go I come across them. Maybe it’s just that they’re common or that they grow almost anywhere or that I notice them because I love them so much. In any case, over the years they have kept me company and cheered me up in my travels.

I took this photo in 1991 in Kwinana, an industrial suburb in Perth on one of my first photographic adventures with poppet’s dad. This was long before digital photography; when you used film sparingly. This was the only shot of the sunflower I took that day and I can still remember the moment the shutter clicked.

When we went to Italy in 1999 we ran into an enormous field of sunflowers driving from Venice to Rome and had to stop and get amongst them. (This is a much younger me.)

I kept seeing them in China but sadly I didn’t take any photos.  However, it did make me think about Ai Wei Wei’s installation Sunflower Seeds. I haven’t seen it but the idea of it excites me. The work is made up of millions of hand crafted porcelain sunflower seeds. Apparently, sunflower seeds were one of the few treats during the cultural revolution and friends would catch up while indulging in this simple pleasure. I noticed that this practice continues today in other forms. Once when we went to dinner with a group of friends in Shanghai bowls of sunflower seeds were placed on the table at the end of the meal and everyone began cracking the husks open. It reminded me of my childhood when I would dry out my sunflower seeds and them munch on them with my mum.

I’ve added these links to Ai Wei Wei’s Sunflower Seeds.

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/unilever-series-ai-weiwei-sunflower-seeds

http://artasiapacific.com/Magazine/72/SunflowerSeedsAiWeiwei

I didn’t have my canon with me with me at the opening of the Chicks on Speed exhibition last night so I used my iPhone. It’s a bit tricky taking photos of movement with the phone as you have to anticipate where the movement is going to compensate for the shutter delay. And then there is always the soft images and the blurring… but their performance was so outrageously fun that I had to snap away.

I’ve had a kind of bloggers block over the last few weeks, except writing is not the problem; images are. I’m still struggling to find my eye in an Australian context. I decided to look at some photos I’d taken in Australia over the last few years for inspiration. I came across a series I started working on about 5 years ago I called Australian Gothic. While the images of Australia that populate ad campaigns and soap operas focus on beautiful beaches, lovely sunshine and suburban bliss there is also a literary and filmic tradition that focuses on Australia as a harsh, uninhabitable place full of the unknown. Think Picnic at Hanging Rock, Wolf Creek or Mad Max and you will get a sense of Australia not as a country of endless fun and relaxation but as a harsh, unnerving and ghostly environment. Even the idea of Australia as a place of endless sunshine is turned in on itself, as it becomes something that is overwhelming, blinding, scorching and fatal. There is also a tradition of Gothic architecture that peppers the Australian landscape; churches, schools, tin sheds, rusty windmills and gargoyled buildings. This was the Australia I wanted to reference when I took these photos and I think it might be the one that helps me look through the lens again.

Chúng tôi đã trở về sau chuyến đi được khoảng một tháng và tôi cảm thấy thật tệ khi chưa viết blog. Tôi đã mất một thời gian để vượt qua cú sốc khi trở lại cuộc sống hàng ngày ở quê nhà sau cuộc sống sung túc ở Trung Quốc. Tôi luôn yêu thích Trung Quốc nhưng lần này tôi đã ‘phải lòng’ và việc rời đi có cảm giác như tôi đang kết thúc quá sớm một mối tình lãng mạn mãnh liệt. Tôi đã khóc khi đến lúc rời khỏi căn hộ. Tệ hơn nữa, trên đường đến sân bay, người tài xế đã bật bài hát “I’ll say Goodbye” của Madonna khiến tôi lại xúc động, mặc dù điều đó cũng khiến tôi cảm thấy nực cười. Trước khi Khu vườn Ý nhỏ bé của tôi trở về nhà ở Úc, tôi nghĩ rằng tôi sẽ thêm một vài bức ảnh cuối cùng từ Trung Quốc.