Elizabeth Joy, Christchurch (2025)

03/08/2025

I’ve been ranting on Substack again ... link in bio will take you to my home page. In my latest article I explain (using a hearty dose of mental-health enhancing sarcasm) some of the methods our Western media and politicians use to blow smoke in our eyes about what’s going on in Palestine so that as many of us as possible remain confused, befuddled and even a little bit bored about those people who are ‘always fighting over there’.

And the reason they work so hard at this is because if the majority of the population knew what Israel had been up to for the last 76 years - never mind what they’ve been up to since October 7 - then Israel, and its Western backers, simply never would have gotten away with it.

21/07/2025

Two of the special beings in my life walking in the Hanmer Forest last weekend - hubby Kevin and our 11month old Airedale pup Figaro. Kev has just retired from 34 years lecturing at Lincoln University so we decided to celebrate by going on a wee trip away - our first for a long while. Our daughter and her boyfriend came with us and we had a lovely time walking in the forest and wallowing in the hot pools. Precious times ❤️

09/07/2025

I was lucky enough to be asked take some photographs of a gorgeous family a wee while ago - a mix of portraits and photo-documentary style images. What made this session particularly special was that the Dad - Dylan - featured in the very first 'Day in the Life' family sessions I ever did. I photographed his Mum, Ariana, Dylan and his brother Liam (who was just a baby at the time) as part of my final project for my Photography Diploma at the Christchurch Polytechnic. Dylan was around the same age as his son Awa is now.

It feels weird to share these images in amongst my angst over Gaza. That we all live such comparatively charmed lives here in NZ is - of course - not fair but as a much wiser person than me once told me - 'It doesn't do anyone any favours, least of all those suffering, for you to resist feeling joy or happiness when a chance for it arises' - and I've tried to take that advice to heart.

Dylan and his wife Georgie gave me permission to share these photos so I hope it gives you as much joy to see this lovely, loving family spending precious time together as it gave me to photograph them ❤

I'll share some colour photos from the same shoot soon.

26/06/2025

Here is a quiet scene from one of my river walks with Figaro recently. I’m trying to stay calm and walking the dog by the river is one of the methods I use to decompress and try to maintain my sanity. I am profoundly privileged to have such a place to walk - to have a dog, to have a home. So many people on this planet right now are suffering and it seems to be intensifying to a terrifying degree.

I haven’t been able to write anything for my Substack for over a month now because the weight of it all has become overwhelming. Israel attacking Iran and the world media running cover for it. The US attacking Iran and the world media doing the same. People who don’t pay attention and closely follow world events are left totally in the dark. My sister genuinely thought Iran had nukes and that Israel and the US were fully justified in bombing the country. Iran doesn’t have nukes. Every assessment done prior to Israel’s bombing raid attested to that but the media didn’t report it like that.

Meanwhile people in Gaza were being gunned down - dozens and dozens per day - at US-run ‘humanitarian’ aid points while the world’s attention was elsewhere. Some of the stories from people I follow from Gaza were so horrifying I had difficulty even comprehending the depths of the evil required to carry out such acts.

But our Western politicians and media continued to whitewash or even just plain ignore it all. I’ve known for a long time our system is evil but I honestly had no real clue about the depths of the depravity it was capable of.

My apologies for continually posting about Gaza on an account that most of you followed for photos of flowers and ramblings about the quiet life of a wannabe photographer / amateur opera singer in Christchurch but I have to do it. It feels essential to continue to pay attention despite the fact that paying attention seems to be doing nothing but driving me insane. I’ll keep doing it anyway because it is a moral imperative to bear witness even if I can do nothing else.

04/06/2025

My latest piece on Substack - a case study showing the specifics of how Western media launders Israel’s genocide using the example of a recent bulletin of TVNZ’s One News.

Link in my bio - will also share link in my Stories.

26/05/2025

When I’m not screaming into the void here on social media about Gaza my day job is working with small businesses and creatives on their online presence. I help them with social media and their websites, I set up and write newsletters, I design social media tiles, posters, fliers, business cards & anything else they might need and - the most fun of all - I take photos for their socials and websites 😍

I designed this graphic to advertise a workshop being held by the wonderful- and very talented- Celia Kennedy. Celia is a trained Pascha therapist and meditation facilitator who - in addition to running live workshops - also does weekly live group mediations online under the name of her business KAAIO.

There are still spaces available in this workshop so if you’re in Christchurch and you need a bit of TLC - pop on over to KAAIO’s Instagram and register!

Celia tells me the afternoon will unfold with guided meditations, creative journalling, spiritual connections, healing Oracle cards, relaxation, and music to lift and inspire you.

17/04/2025

Given state broadcaster Radio New Zealand has just released an ‘independent’ report and found itself to be “abiding by its own editorial policy as well as the standards and principles of the Media Council and the Broadcasting Standards Authority watchdogs” - I thought it would be interesting to track how the broadcaster dealt with one of the biggest stories to have come out of Gaza over the last several months - the IDF attack on a convoy of Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) ambulances, a UN car and a fire truck from Gaza’s Civil Defence.

Spoiler - Not well …

And yet I just saw an article in the Herald today in which RNZ was crowing about its recent “pleasing improvement in its trust metrics” Apparently the broadcaster is currently “the number one trusted news brand in the country.”

It’s enough to drive a saint to drink.

Link to the article in my bio - and in Stories

29/03/2025

I am posting this photo today to give myself hope - because just like ivy the human spirit is tenacious and it seeks to move always towards the light. I refuse to give in to despair because those who are at the sharp end of the horrors being inflicted on the world right now need us all to keep fighting for them in whatever small way we can fight. My way is to donate to Gaza fundraisers, write long Substack posts and rant on social media - not very effective, not very helpful in the greater scheme of things but better than nothing. We all do what we can.

On a more personal note - I took this photo while we were staying in a rental property on the river in the Beckenham Loop. It was a cold winter's day and most things in the garden were looking much the worse for wear - and indeed we were also the worse for wear because our darling Airedale Moss was sick and we were dealing with a fracas between EQC and our builders that looked like it may result in us losing our house. Not a good time for us but nothing in comparison to what so many people are facing in this world right now.

23/03/2025

It’s all easy to forget, now the bombs have horrifically started dropping again in Gaza, that Israel is still subjecting the trapped population therein to a campaign of deliberate starvation. Unbelievably, as Israel waged this campaign, The Jerusalem Post saw fit, on March 13, to publish a puff piece about the efforts of Israeli company ICL Group to ‘end world hunger’.

This Jerusalem Post article - so earnest, so progressive, so reflective of all the good things Israel likes to pretend it stands for, indeed, of all the good things our entire Western ‘civilisation’ claims to stand for - is the perfect encapsulation of the schizophrenic delusion of not just the Israeli state but of the West in general.

I discuss this - and more - in my latest post on Substack - link in my bio and in my Stories.

07/03/2025

Here - so you can rest your eyes a while - is a photo of some Autumn berries and fallen leaves in the rain. I took this photo two years ago. Before the horrors in Gaza began, before I realised that despite thinking of myself as a cynical old bag I really was quite naive about the world, before Trump lurched onto the scene for the second time like Frankenstein's monster, before my darling Airedale Terrier Moss died - indeed Moss was sitting patiently next to me while I was taking this photo - bless his patient little soul ...

It's been a long, long time since I posted anything unrelated to the horrific tragedy that has been unfolding in Gaza - and now the West Bank - on my Instagram. I originally started this little account as a place to share little pieces of beauty - and my musings on them, and then I also started sharing some of the work I've done for people - photos I've taken, graphic design jobs I've done and other such things.

I've decided - to maintain my sanity and fill my cup a little so I can return to the fray refreshed - that I will resume posting some of my own personal / professional stuff here because it is the only social media platform where I really do that - all the others (X, Substack and even FB) I tend to devote to politics and geopolitics.

I'll still continue to talk about Gaza here too - because it is the #1 moral blight on this world right now and I cannot and will not stop talking about it - but it won't be the subject of every post. So if you follow me here you'll get a weird interspersing of the horrors of the world with photos of nature and portraits of lovely people I've been lucky enough to be asked to photograph and maybe even some photos of my cute pup Figaro who came - very magically & unexpectedly - into our lives earlier this year.

Also - I've just discovered Instagram Threads - I know - better very late than never!! - so I will definitely be talking about Gaza and other geopolitical issues there too.

05/03/2025

My latest on Substack - link in bio - is an examination of the weaponisation of the tragic deaths of the Bibas family - killed by Israeli bombs in November 2023 - as a means of generating enough emotional heat amongst the population to recommence the genocide of the Palestinian people.

The atrocity propaganda spread by Israel since October 7 - ALL of it since debunked - the beheaded babies, the r***d women, the burned children and - now - the beaten-to-death-Bibas children - is intended to rob the actions of the Palestinian resistance - and indeed of all Palestinians - of any context and to render them incomprehensible. Beyond the pale. Indeed, this is what Israel has been doing with Palestinian resistance - and the Palestinian people - for over 76 years. And Western corporate media - who make up an indispensable section of the Hasbara Philharmonic - have dutifully played and replayed the Israeli narrative to Western audiences - for 76 years.

We need to stop allowing Israel and its Western enablers to write the script for what happened on October 7. We need to stop allowing Israel and its Western enablers to tell the story of what is happening in Gaza and in the West Bank. We need to stop listening to the manipulative melodies of Hasbara Philharmonic and start listening to - and raising up - the voices of the Palestinian people and the voices of those - like Francesca Albanese - who work tirelessly to support them.

03/01/2025

Reflections on what home means - Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toa. Israel and the US has destroyed home for Mosab and all the Palestinians of Gaza.

I wish there was some way of getting the magnitude of this - the sheer horror of this - through to people who just don’t seem to care …

Elizabeth Joy

03/08/2025

21/07/2025

09/07/2025

26/06/2025

04/06/2025

26/05/2025

17/04/2025

29/03/2025

23/03/2025

07/03/2025

05/03/2025

03/01/2025

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