3 Photographers

[music: High Wire – The Happy Hollows]

 

Update

29 June

What’s in a Box, Punch #1

Music Links open a new tab in You Tube

Coming over the next days:

– Remaining Cigar Boxes

– NLP Experiment

– Mindfulness Exercises

What’s in a Box?

[music: No Light, No Light – Florence and the Machine]

We all have special boxes filled with ‘stuff’, don’t we.

I’m not speaking of boxes with bank statements, electrical cables, or winter clothes. These are those boxes that we carefully put away somewhere for the purpose of future nostalgia; the things we want to keep with us throughout our lives, but we don’t necessarily want on display. They could be old letters, moments, postcards, children’s teeth, a lock of hair, some old photos, diplomas; things that were important enough for us to say at one point, “I want to hold onto this.”

I have been scouring the house for a lost bicycle pump and have come across 8 boxes: 4 cigar boxes and 4 ‘shoe sized boxes’. Over the next days, I will go through my boxes to see what’s inside of each of them. I’ll post the results in the ‘About Me’ section. The contents are probably not interesting enough for the wider blog audience, but they certainly will say something about me. At the very least they will say something about me in one of my past lives.

Have you had a look of what’s in your boxes lately?

As FATM sings “You can’t choose what stays and what fades away“… regardless of whether you pack them away in those boxes.

Fly Away

[Music: Lullaby – Book of Love]

See what you see: the mindful photograph

[music: Teardrop – Massive Attack]

Ever wonder why holiday photographs usually suck? Why those photos of your last party are pretty lousy? And why am I blogging about mindfulness and photography.

Good photography requires awareness. Running from one site to the next, a guide book or drink in one hand and camera in the other are not conducive to a level of engagement a good photo deserves.

Money can buy equipment, but as Chase Jarvis famously said: “The best camera is the one that’s with you.” Here are some of those of mine that can be found on Jarvis’ website:

Toronto to Hong-Kong

Florida Beach

Chicago Bench

Hydrofoil in the Argo-Saronic

The port of Kamini

McDonald’s on the Expressway

Tampa Pelican

The Seattle Space Needle

Winter day at the Atomium

I can find a distinct difference in photos depending on how involved I am with my environment. Engaging the shutter release takes no effort, understanding your surroundings, the person you’re photographing, requires active presence, or non-presence.

Here, Ken Rockwell will discuss the importance of composition (and he is right) and the irrelevance of subject (hmmm… not sure I agree). But scroll down to ‘Never Imitate’ and you will read that photography is an exercise in awareness of the present moment. Photographers must put themselves in the frame of mind of seeing, not only their surroundings, but what will make an interesting photo. In this sense, the camera can be a useful tool to engage more fully with the world.

Photos of people requires patience, an eye for a special moment, a mood, a look; the photographer has to notice. Even a candid photo is a relationship the photographer has with his subject.

Digital photography can also be a barrier to good photography; how often has a massive volume of photos become the objective? When sifting through thousands of pictures in search for something good becomes the goal, when speed and intent replace communion. With film photography, one needed a ritual, time to make all of the necessary adjustments; the result would only become clear after processing.

My experiment will be mindful photography. I would like to see if deliberate engagement can improve the quality and content of my photographs, regardless of the equipment used.

“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.”
― Ansel Adams

 

When you climb, just climb. Let the climb, climb. (new Buddhist saying)

Ever have the impression of spending a whole day working and wonder what you have got done?

There has been a lot of talk of digital distraction (link to an excellent article on Gwarlingo): one can easily be distracted by a little red number on email, a jumping icon, a Skype notification, ping, bing or buzz. Digital stimuli are distractions, but they can also be addicting.

For me digital distraction feels a lot like my reaction to visual stimuli, I have trouble concentrating, I feel tense, I can’t think clearly, but it differs in one crucial way: I run away from visual stimuli, I have been conditioned to react to digital cues.

For example, I can barely last 20 minutes inside an IKEA store before my brain shuts down and I start to feel like I am drowning. The same is true for department stores or those gigantic metal boxes on the side of the highway that are stuffed with shit nobody really needs. I want to run away.  On the other hand, I can’t go 20 minutes without checking my email, it’s the first thing I do after my airplane lands, or I wake up, I even check right after Yoga… a stressful email could ruin my whole evening.

And although, I have learnt that there are times when ‘airplane mode’ can also be used on the ground, these times are still to few and far between. I still have every means of communication open when I am writing or working (right now: Skype, SMS, email, telephone – all possible distractions).

I have two ways to cope with these distractions:

Unclutter: remove the distractions. For me this would be rid my environment of physical tchotchkes and close the digital more frequently. Dealing with the digital requires more of the self-discipline associated with going Cold Turkey.  Uncluttering sets the stage for productive work.

Connect: When you walk, just walk. Let the walk, walk. Focus on the task at hand, pay attention to what you are doing, be aware of the present moment. Connecting allows one to make maximum use of our capabilities.

Climbing allows me to do both. There is no sense in surfing on your iPhone as you are climbing a granite wall, neither can one allow oneself to be distracted by tomorrow’s ‘to do’ list. But outside of tasks that rely upon adrenaline to focus the mind, it seems as if concentration is becoming more elusive.

One of the questions we should be asking ourselves is about the importance of the task at hand. While walking may be a good time to ‘retune’ our minds, it may also be a good opportunity for other valuable activities, like thinking “Only those thoughts that come by walking have any value.” Nietzsche.

On the other hand, if the task is important, perhaps, the metaphor of climbing may be appropriate. We want to reach the summit, we don’t want the wall to win. The same goes for all activities: “If you don’t find a way to create a wall between it and the world, the world will always win.” Jonathan Safran Foer.

Any thoughts?

[music: Appassionata -Beethoven]

What’s next? – I don’t know

Worth spending 1 hour watching. A video of Jon-Kabat Zinner on Mindfulness.

It’s the 18th of June and I find myself in an unusual state; one that I can only describe as change. So many things are possible that a little work and reflection is demanded.

Day 1 – the beginning (perhaps every day should be Day 1, but this would make it difficult to follow any evolution that may occur).

So it’s rather arbitrary to call this Day 1 – there have been 15,135 days since my birth – but since most things are pretty arbitrary, I’ll call it Day 1. Thankfully, I don’t need to hold coalition talks with myself to get things moving.

I have spoken with many friends over the past weeks and I have sensed unsettledness: from work, to economic conditions, feelings of powerlessness, and difficulty in relating to others. This is my small contribution, writing about finding balance, and I am starting with this video from Jon-Kabat Zinner.

What’s next? – I don’t know 🙂

[music: silence]

[location: Brussels, Belgium]

The Scorpion & the Frog (and what it means for Greece)

Tortoise & Scorpion, Mīrzā Raḥīm, 1847

Crossing the forest a Scorpion found himself unable to cross fast flowing river. Frustrated, he began to walk upstream. After a short while, he came upon a Frog. As he raised his forked tail and prepared to sting, the Frog cried out “Please, don’t sting me! I’ll do anything.”

“Then, carry me across the river and I will spare your life.” the Scorpion replied.

The Frog, afraid of having a dangerous scorpion on his back, thought for a moment, ‘If he stings me while we cross, I will die from the poison and the Scorpion will drown.’ So he readily agreed to the bargain.

The Scorpion climbed on the Frog’s back and they started to make their way across the river. At the half-way point, the Frog felt a sharp pain in his back, and as he felt the poison course through his body and paralyze his muscles, he desperately asked the Scorpion “Why did you sting me? Now both of us will die.”

The Scorpion replied, “Because it’s my nature.”

The lesson for Greece: The Frog is future prosperity; the Scorpion is corruption and greed.

[music: Requiem – Mozart]

My favourite Greek joke

[music: For Emma, Forever Ago – Bon Iver]

One day, God looked down at his creation and was happy. “I will reward Man today” he thought to himself.

The first place he visits is France. “Good morning” God said to a a Frenchman walking his dog “I have seen that Mankind has done good things today, and I would like to reward you. You have a wish.”

The Frenchman thought for a moment and replied, “Well my neighbour has this magnificent wine cellar, hundreds of bottles, very nice vintages. All of us in town are quite envious of this wine cellar.” The Frenchman looked God square in the eyes. “I would like a better wine cellar, more wine, better vintages.”

God made it so. The Frenchman was delighted when he saw thousands of bottles lining a magnificent cellar, vintages so rare that even the Baron Rothschild himself would not posses. “Now the whole town will be envious of my cellar” the Frenchman crowed.

Pleased with his work, God decided to visit Germany. He repeated his story to a middle aged German grilling wurst in his garden. “You have a wish.”

The German thought a few minutes, “My neighbour has this beautiful BMW, the whole neighbourhood listens to the powerful sound of this car’s engine, it is like music to our ears.” Turning his wursts, the German continued, “I would like a nicer car, with a bigger engine, more powerful, I want the whole town to notice me when I drive by.”

God made it so. When the German saw his new car, he left his wursts to burn. He squealed at the roar of the engine and it was so mighty that in the next town over they started to hum. “I am so happy” he said, squeezing God’s hand, “it is the most exquisite machine I have ever beheld.”

Pleased again with his work, God spotted a Greek island villager gathering wild grass for dinner. He repeated his story to the Greek. “You have a wish”

Without hesitation the Greek replied, “My neighbour has this beautiful goat, it produces liters and liters of delicious milk and they make a cheese that is known across the whole island. Some even ship it to Athens”.

God interrupts, “So you want a goat that produces more milk, even more delicious, whose cheese will be know across all of Greece?”

Indignant, the villager raised his arms and cried,”Of course not! I want to you to kill his goat.”

Corinth Canal and a Vision for the Future

The Corinth Canal links the Saronic Gulf with the Gulf of Corinth. Completed in the late 19th Century, it was a mitigated engineering success and, tragically, a commercial failure. It’s now a tourist attraction with it’s hodgepodge collection of ill-suited souvlaki stands, fast food outlets, tourist shops, and abandoned buildings. Uncoordinated development of the area has turned a potentially interesting site into a five minute pit-stop: jump out of the car, cover your eyes until you reach the bridge, snap a few photos, dodge the cars while crossing the street and we’re on our way.

It’s as much a tourist failure today as it was a commercial failure a century ago.

Greece has some natural advantage: sun, sea water, coast-line, islands. But like any collection of assets, they need to be organized in order to produce something of value. These assets attract tourists, but they also create the condition for competitive advantage in solar power and water treatment.

Desalination technologies are desperately needed by the islands in Greece, however, closely knit local cabals prevent the economic incentives that would stimulate the necessary investments. Water boats, such as the Dimitra (picture below) supply islands with water that is pumped into local water systems or sold to individuals. Rumor has it that certain local individuals have a vested interest in keeping this antiquated system alive and actively work through the local councils to prevent newer and more efficient systems from being installed. This is the crux of the coordination problem in Greece, the economy is organized informally to benefit a few and harms the majority. It is not a zero sum game; the benefit to these powerful few is far smaller than what could be realized if the interests of society were taken into consideration.

3 June 2012, on the port of Hydra

With over 2,750 hours of sunshine annually, Greece is the perfect place to re-stock our depleted stores of vitamin D. It’s also an ideal place to install solar technologies. Instead, the local power company, aptly named DEI, seems to prefer less renewable sources of energy.

Creating the right economic incentives and conditions would be a tremendous benefit, however, the country could go further. With a population of 11 million inhabitants, local Universities and Technology Institutes cannot be leaders in research on all fronts; the country is simply too small to have the critical mass in terms of money and research talent. Focus is required, so why not expend energy on the few areas where Greece can both benefit locally and through the export of this knowledge: water, solar power, efficient water use for agriculture, and tourism.

Coordinated research funding and competitive investments would not only bring benefits to Greece through lower costs for water and energy resources, but would create the necessary conditions for competitive advantage from research, through development, to commercialization and exploitation of solar and water technologies.

Unfortunately, contemporary political discource  is full of populist sentiment but noticeably devoid of any vision for the future. The building of the Corinth Canal was the realization of a 2 thousand year old idea that held hope and promise. One cannot fault these early policy makers for lack of ambition and a vision for a prosperous future for their country. Today, Greece desperately needs a successful Corinth Canal.

[music: Shhh – Panthalassa – Miles Davis]