October 16, 2016

Marc Riboud, "Taking pictures is savoring life intensely, ever hundredth of a second."

This haze of doubt and anxiety interferes with you living in your present moments.

Perceptual conformity through learned approaches to organize our external reality.  Your brain molded in a standard of a collective control.  When we react to external stimulus our brains search for a clear path of understanding to project on the external subject.  We interpret our world as either safe or dangerous.  Control over nature is only a control over fear.  And by relying on ingrained structures of seeing an external subject we limit ourselves to a dutiful life of stereotyping new and life enhancing experiences.

If you can break through this window with its blinds narrow slits of an approved way of seeing life then you will open up your view point and create a new visual horizon of visual content and new ways to make images of them and words to describe your new intuitive visual designs.

There is so much bombardment of information delivered to us in overwhelming amounts it creates a filtering system in our consciousness to judge quickly to ignore and then retreat to what we deem safe and secure in our singular perspective.  We like the warm calmness of judgments so we don't have to think outside our structured existence.

Thoughts are formally placed strategically for all to use and abuse.  No one can own a thought until that thought enters society as your own unique vision.  Whether it is words, images, paintings, sculptures etc... Once your thoughts are manifested then there is a little thing called copyright.

But until then if a thought feels right and it fits your daily needs make it yours.  Try on other thoughts always loosening your grip on a narrow perspective.  There are bright colored thoughts tailored for fun.

Racks and racks of thoughts to put on.  Dark, moody thoughts that can deter you from experiencing a connection with a new subject. Your perspective needs to be in tune to infinite choice.  Don't get uptight with over thinking everything. Relax, prepare and let go!

Do internal thoughts create feelings or do feelings create thoughts?  Do we get thoughts as reaction to external stimulus? Could it be simultaneous?  If you see something that doesn't fit your structured sight filters then do you automatically say no and then a feeling of calmness appears? Because you have denied access to a new thought or feeling that might create anxiety and worry of what to do now.  This feeling only lasts as long as you try and hold on to your past decisions but once you change your minds outlook the fears will dissolve.

We live in cubicles not of our own making.  We examine life through a media lens that gives us what we think we want to hear.

We are tame beasts of burden.  Our species is falling into a spiral of selfish persona's.  We are not together when we have social media separating us from our neighbors.  Yes, we are individuals but we are linked with everyone, it is called the human race.  Don't let a selfish ego determine your fate.  Open up to the universal.

Don't let media dull your senses.  Stop waiting to be told what to think and view.  It seems now all we do is receive select information from corporate media and we assume that that is the truth.  Seek your own truth.  Don't let corporate media tell you what to think.

Your mind thrives on balance both visually and emotionally.  If there is a disruption in the force of balance then anxiety and fear emerge.  And it is a question of flight or fight.  In today's culture of hand held devices complacency is becoming the new internal instinct.

We seem to relish in the past moments to justify our inability to move ahead.  We have to begin creating imagery from our own personal history.  Not a history given to us through generations of unquestioned behavior by the lords of money.

We have an intuitive attraction to the external stimulus in our earlier lives.  As we mature we lose our connection to the outer world and life takes us on it's own ride not our intended journey.

We begin to retreat away from the chaos of infinite space and time and close down our hearts for a safe structure of money and religion. As we build onto these limiting structures of illusions we create a canyon between our inner purpose and the outer flow of nature.  We lose fluidity of thought and action and our individual power is diminished for a TV dinner life of prepared responses to our changing world.

We have now memorized the names of things even though our lives are not as we were and neither are the objects you once defined.  You have cemented your eyes to one perspective which never allows you to feel your inner desires to make changes and attract your true self to become visible under your skin.  You have followed the standard walk of a constrained life and reduced your senses to the conformity of other visions of what life is with more power to control you and your fearful stasis.

We need to regain our own vision of awareness that doesn't allow fruitless acceptance of stereotypes.

We have internalized the structure of other's forms of behavior and sight and accepted the life as a casual historical story easily changed to fit the suffocating adherence to someone else's demands and through their narrow perceptions we destroy the very paradise that surrounds us. If we could only open our eyes and truly see beyond our filtered perceptions.

Your true calling is like a train speeding by on a track and we are expected to jump on and ride it to our true destination.  The problem is that we don't recognize the train as our true calling and we are afraid to jump and now we sit at the station waiting our whole lives to catch that train again. If you call for that train it will return again and again.

Photography can release your inner vision and take you to places you can only dream of.  Don't dream your future, make your future.  Flow in time and in your special space and accept your choices as necessary to get you further to the open arms of life and image creation.

October 2, 2016

Susan Sontag, "but essentially the camera makes everyone a tourist in other people's reality, and eventually one's own. When we are afraid we shoot but when we are nostalgic we take pictures."

A loss of wonder, old eyes closed, can't take in the whole scene only a narrow perspective.

Approaching a subject through mental selective focus before you even sense the scene destroys connectivity and lessens the chance for a meaningful image.

Photography can become similar to a writer who doesn’t live his life but settles for words detailing his experiences and forgets that these details taken individually are moments of his life and what he has done and not done. 

These snap shots are only fragments of a life, parceled out in an objective voice and destroys the cohesive wholeness of the life your are living.

Living these details is less important than writing them down for others.  The people reading these words reap benefit from your objective self that can inspire them to listen to their own inner voice and express their unique vision.  

While you the originator, of their momentum, observe yourself every second of the day, ready to post anything and everything to the social media sites and add to the banal overflow of unnecessary trivia that now has replaced conversation about who we are and who we want to become.  

Photography today is embarrassing and vulgar.  Why do we accept the human predicament as a photo op?  Instead of a meaning revelation of the the destructive nature of media intent, to keep us off balance, afraid and living in anxiety. 

Desirability is enhanced by distance.  A natural flow of a growing relationship with your subject. Not an overpowering presence that overpowers any connection to your visual idea that has been brewing in your internal consciousness. 

The idea in photography is to connect the dots between you and your subject.  Not alienate your subject by your demanding presence. You need to step back and let the scene evolve and become an interaction between you and the scene and with growing intimacy you bring forth the fruits of your patience.  

Most photographers, and I am guilty of this myself sometimes, is to hide behind a lens as a license to barge into a scene and snap away and then leave without ever really seeing what was going on and missing the true moment with your back turned, moving onto the next exploitation of your next experience.

A photographer that has purpose will make images of himself objectified in the landscape he has been intuitively drawn to. With purpose you expose yourself through the details that combine to create the final image of the scene.

Your created image is a document of the power of being present, interacting with the scene on a personal level and as a human being, attentive to the smallest details that made you stop and look in the first place.

Are your barriers to seeing and living an open life a simple attachment of fear to an action?

Action contains in it a responsibility and new actions contain a sense of bewilderment, a sense you are moving out of your past shell and into a bigger world of oppressive information that you will have to sort through in order to focus your attention on your relationship with nature that is growing. And this focus is a self realization that can be scary at first.

Anxiety is habit, a continuation of your childhood defeats. This feeling of anxiety limits your ability to communicate with the scene. You must focus on the good things that brought you here. If you approach the scene in fear, your ability to express the growing connection you are having with the subject can be broken.

Honestly, we all live in constant anxiety but you have to will yourself, through the gift of photography, to allow yourself a safe place to explore your inner workings that are connecting you to a scene that has your attention. 

The ability to explore a scene even in trepidation shows your inner strength and each new scene will get easier to relate to as you control and ignore your anxiety on your way to bridging inner and outer realities.

Fearing life and not embarking on it. 

Go out and just look at the beauty that exists in every footstep you take.  Act responsibly but do not get overwhelmed by the negative energy that continuously surface through your past memories and present fears.  You must act with openness and purpose as you begin to find new paths that will move you to subjects that once seemed nonexistent but now communicate to your very soul.