photography

The Design of a Summer Field Guide

| Sheree

The aim is to create a field guide for summer which prioritises play, curiosity and wonder. Dreaming and imagination.

I want to be intentional around who I want to {BE}/ want to do over the next few summery months.

Become consistent in relation to turning up for myself in play and wonder.

Now is the time to prioritise my joy. No responsibilities but feed my inner child.

Traditionally, a field guide is something created to provide information for a reader to identify birds, flowers or trees. Or other aspects of the natural environment.

With this energy in mind, I want to create a summer field guide that identifies areas of play and curiosity that I can explore.

This field guide is an invitation to lean into what lights me up, steeping myself in the mystery and magic of it all.

Blig Blousey Peonies

| Sheree

This is not a zoomed in image. These flowers have not been magnified. Enlarged through the lens.

I could not believe the size of these peonies’ heads. And not a one off. Multiple big, bouncy peonies alll in a row.

White, cream, blush, pink. A feast for my eyes and nose. Getting in my steps for the day, my senses have been heightened. I’m becoming aware of summer really coming into her own.

Big bursting peonies blooms.

Are these a special variety of the flower or have they been artificially altered? Bigger, more, massive.

I’m gonna take my lead from these peonies and not dim my big bold, blousey attitude and {being} out of fear of being seen as too much. Too blod. Too in your face.

These peonies can pull it off, so why not me too, as we are kin.

Plotting is about questioning the scripts

| Sheree

“Plotting, like learning, is about “invention and re-invention…the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other,” says Brazilian educator Paulo Freire. Your plot, too, doesn’t have to mean committing to only one thing. Whether digging deep or sowing seeds far and wide, plotting is about questioning the scripts you’ve been handed and scheming with others to do and be otherwise for the collective good of all.”

— Ruha Benjamin, Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want (2022), pg. 23-24