What is it to be fully and positively human?

Introduction to – ‘1000 WAYS OF CELEBRATING THE HUMAN SPIRIT’

NB – All newest posts are below this fixed  ‘Intro’.  Use SEARCH for the subjects you are interested in.

.‘Animated’ racehorse by photographer Eadweard Muybridge -  Source WikiPedia

Celebrating the human spirit is positive, and anyway it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

In celebrating the human spirit we can also enjoy humour that is made possible from our foolish ways. Humour is a balm and gives us experience and healing that’s a bit like art or true spirituality.

What matters is whether we are fair, kind, creative, truth-telling and wise. Personally I don’t care whether a person is an atheist or religious.  What good things they produce is what matters.

Why 1000 ways?  Well there are many paths to the top of a mountain, but only one summit.

We either believe in a unitive force behind the universe, of which we are all one infinitesimal part, or we believe that chaos reigns supreme.  It doesn’t matter what we believe – what matters is what we do with what we believe.

We are what we think.  All that we are arises with our thoughts.  With our thoughts, we make our world.  (Buddha)

4th July 2009

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See HERE for ‘My other sites and their connections!‘

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INTRODUCTION:

“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” – Aristotle, in The Metaphysics.

Celebrating the good things about the human spirit is positive – at the very least it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness!

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I have found no better representation of my combined interests – Art: Science: Education: Photography etc – than Muybridge’s magnificent horse ‘animation’  .    I reflect on it HERE.

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In celebrating the human spirit we can also enjoy humour, made possible from our ‘foolish ways’. Humour is a balm that gives us experience and healing that’s a bit like art, or true spirituality, or carnivals.  Why does you work?  It release stress – and makes us whole again.

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What matters most is whether we are fair, kind, creative, truth-telling and wise.  Such virtues define the depth of our humanity, regardless of belief systems.

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Personally therefore I don’t care whether a person is an atheist or a religionist.  What ‘good things’ each person produces is what matters.  Regrettably many religions and belief systems don’t lead to light and love because they are corrupted with hypocrisy, manipulation and fundamentalism and a host of such curses.  The best of religion is however love and light – you’ll find it beneath the dung-heap of man-made distortions!

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Why 1000 ways?  Well there are many paths to the top of a mountain – but only one summit.

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We either believe in a unitive force behind the universe, of which we are all one infinitesimal part, or we believe that chaos reigns supreme.  It doesn’t matter what we believe – what matters is what we do with what we believe.

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WHAT ARE WE?

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“We are what we think.  All that we are arises with our thoughts.  With our thoughts, we make our world”. – Buddha

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We are a manifestation of energy – or if you prefer we are each a large bunch of atoms through which the life-force flows.

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See HERE for ‘My sites and their connections!’

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If you are hassled and frazzled why not take -

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60 SECONDS TIME-OUT

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Updated 20th Aug 2009 – NB – All the newest posts are below this continuously evolving ‘Introduction’

CNet Asia’s 10 tips on creating a photo essay

Below is a section of CNet Asia's 10 tips on creating a photo essay;

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We spent two days photographing the life of Balinese people, pointing our lenses at not just the sceneries, but also their culture. We visited obscure areas such as a small fishing village which was untouched by tourism, and participated in a religious ceremony that takes place once every 10 years in a temple.

Here, we're not just sharing pictures that we took while in Bali, there are also tips and tricks from Abbas on how to craft your own photo essay.

You must be interested	Catch the morning light
You can't be objective but you can be fair	Focus on the story
Break rules with intention	Take note of minor details
Composition skills	Think about how one picture links   to the next
Editing and sequencing	Use words to give viewers right   perspective

Tags: Photo Essay, Sony Corp., Indonesia, CNET Networks Inc., photograph

Tip #1: You must be interested »

Check out the article – HERE      

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Thinking of giving to Children in Need – read this first!

Last year my wife rang the Children in Need Line and said she would like to donate. £17.00

Later she checked her account to find £200.00 had been removed.

She won't be donating this year.

You might want to check your account if you do donate.

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Adopt a word – Paul has, so has Stephen Fry – to help children communicate

Paul McCartney Supports Adopt a Word

Sir Paul McCartney has adopted the word ‘Gift’. He says “People often talk about the gift of music. For many years, I didn’t realise how true that is. There is so much in life that is a gift for all of us and all we have to do is appreciate it.”

Visit the Adopt a Word website

Sam, aged 16 starting freedom in her neighbourhood.

via stopthetraffik.org

Click on link to find out more about the campaign for young people

Compassion. love and service – it’ll never catch on!

To visit the site click HERE

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Do you want to see the bankers pay?

Dear Alistair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer,

We call on you to draw up a plan for a windfall tax on banks

The tax-payer spent billions saving the banks, placing a major strain on public finances

If banks can now make billions in profit and award huge bonuses they can afford to start paying back the money spent to save the sector

The entire banking sector benefited from the Government propping up the sector, it’s only right that they all pay back the money spent to save them.

via 38degrees.org.uk

Check out the full article – click on link

How corrupt is your country? – check out the full list of 180 countries

Corruption Perceptions Index 2009

• The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) table shows a country’s ranking and score, the number of surveys used to determine the score, and the confidence range of the scoring.
• The rank shows how one country compares to others included in the index. The CPI score indicates the perceived level of public-sector corruption in a country/territory.
• The CPI is based on 13 independent surveys. However, not all surveys include all countries. The surveys used column indicates how many surveys were relied upon to determine the score for that country.
• The confidence range indicates the reliability of the CPI scores and tells us that allowing for a margin of error, we can be 90% confident that the true score for this country lies within this range.

via transparency.org

Click on link to check the full list of 180 countries

The BBC invited us to write a Six Word Memoir

YOUR SIX WORD MEMOIRS

Already hundreds of you have emailed your own ideas about how to sum up a life in just six words. Below are just a few of them. You can also submit your writing to Smith magazine, which is already working on a second collection.

Three sons, eleven cats, and Yvonne.
Michael Govan

Foetus, son, brother, husband, father, vegetable.
Dick Hadfield

Conceived,implored, employed, adored, retired, ignored.
Joy MacKenzie

Beginning, gurgly. Middle, sombre. End, gurgly.
Roger Noble

Jennie, Emma, Jane, Sophie, Rose, happiness.
Peter Graham

Slow lane. Fast lane. Hard shoulder.
Alex Hansen Today.

Bantam, Anglia, Midget, Alfa, Volvo Estate.
Neil Feldman.

PM. The World Tonight. Sleep?
Stephen Brady

Womb, Play, Learn, Work, Decline, Tomb.
Jacquie Smith 

Start – programme – error – control – alt. – delete.
Alan

Outside lavatory, worked hard, now flush.
Ashley Errington

Battered ball-bearing traversing pinball machine.
Nancy Connolly

Unravelled career reknitted as baby blankets.
Clare Hobba

Started, farted, stood up, faced the wind.
Helen Eclair

Dot, two, six, three, one, wicket.
Tony Powell

Head in books, feet in flowers.
Heather Thomson

Trust me, I did my best.
Ray Kemp
 

via bbc.co.uk

I know its out of date but – but they are wonderful.

Click on link to find more on the BBC site

Camera Club – How to take a Jane Bown portrait | Art and design | guardian.co.uk

via guardian.co.uk

Deism Defined, Welcome to Deism, Deist Glossary and Frequently Asked Questions

via deism.com

Elsa Dorfman, portrait photographer – see her extraordinary ‘life-map’

The portrait photographer Elsa Dorfman has this wonderful ‘life-map’ as a way into her extensive site

This is a wonderful alternative to the brilliant work of Paul Foreman – whose site is HERE

 

 

 

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via thespiritofphotography.wordpress.com

Is this the best ever DVD on photography?

The BBC made a series on photography that in my view was nothing less than brilliant.

 

To read other reviews and get more information click HERE

The BBC shop might actually be cheaper (untypically!)

via thespiritofphotography.wordpress.com

Iranian and Arab photography Brilliant exhibition – lens culture: Paris Photo 2009 – a must visit

via lensculture.com

Click on link to go to the Lens Culture site

Exhibition – 19 – 22nd November – why so short a time?

Lessons in developing a photographer’s compassionate eye – No 1 Eugene Richards

Recently the global Campaign for Compassion launched it’s Charter.

From the early days of photography great photographers have been re-presenting our world with a compassionate eye.

PHOTO: Eugene Richards

Fred—just returned from prison—cries as he greets former girlfriend Rose. Eugene Richards included this photo in his 1987 book, Below the Line: Living Poor in America, which is out of print.  (Source)

 

What a stunning photograph!

What is the punctum in this photograph?  Do we travel from the white of the woman’s eye to his tears, the set of his mouth.  His eyes that have seen so much and are looking into – what?

 

 

 

 

Eugene Richards discusses his approach to photography;

GENERAL QUESTIONS

Do (great) photographs make a difference?  Do they change things?  If so – how?

Are photographs just a great distraction?

In the UK a TV play so aroused concern that the major charity SHELTER was created?  Does photography work in a similar or different way?

Do they change us – for the better?

How might photographs play a part in a global appeal such as the Charter for Compassion?

The Campaign for Compassion and the photographer’s compassionate eye both center on the beating heart of being human in the world with others and recognizing our oneness.

via thespiritofphotography.wordpress.com

How strong is your sense of compassion – ‘Charter for Compassion’ is launched – check it out now!

via charterforcompassion.org

Karen Armstrong
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Sheikh Ali Gomaa
H.M. Queen Noor of Jordan
His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Dr. Abdul Sattar Edhi
Prof. Candido Mendes
Mohsen Kadivar
Paul Simon
Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell
Shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah
Pierre Omidyar
Meg Ryan
Rabbi David Saperstein
Vusi Mahlasela
Rev. Peter Storey
Prince Nikolaos of Greece and Denmark

These international people and 7,000 + ordinary folk have signed up so far – to find out more and add your voice click on –

charterforcompassion.org

Do your photographs help self-understanding or understanding of the world?

How do we read this photograph of the artist Alision Lapper with her son Parys?  Do Roland Barthes’ ideas help?

source

I am keeping a page as a list of responses to the seminal book Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes.  I will post additions as separate posts.  Questions that are motivating this include;

What is the spirit of photography?

What can we learn from Camera Lucida – in our reading and taking of photographs?

Do your photographs help you understand your self and your life more?

What is the relationship between photographic and mystical experience?

Here is a short introduction to the ideas behind the book from WikiPedia;

Camera Lucida (in French, La Chambre claire) is a short book published in 1980 by the French literary critic Roland Barthes. It is simultaneously an inquiry into the nature and essence of photography and a eulogy to Barthes’s late mother. The book investigates the effects of photography on the spectator (as distinct from the photographer, and also from the object photographed, which Barthes calls the “spectrum”).

In a deeply personal discussion of the lasting emotional effect of certain photographs, Barthes considers photography as asymbolic, irreducible to the codes of language or culture, acting on the body as much as on the mind. The book develops the twin concepts of studium and punctum:studium denoting the cultural, linguistic, and political interpretation of a photograph, punctum denoting the wounding, personally touching detail which establishes a direct relationship with the object or person within it. (WikiPedia article)

11th Nov 2009 – This is the first post on inspirations from Camera Lucida

1 The Barthes book is much more than the pair of concepts ’studium and punctum’ – but their importance cannot be ignored.  They give us a powerful, basic model with which to think about our responses in reading a photograph.

We have an overload of images everyday.  To most we are more or less indifferent – they have no point, because they have no ‘punctum’ – punctum for Barthes denotes the wounding, personally touching detail that establishes for us a direct relationship with the object or person within it.

To be moved by any work of art requires a degree of sensibility. Sensibility, the developed consciousness of the reader, is vital in the reading of a photograph or any work of art.  Most photographs deemed great are point-less for many.

2 The studium and punctum are special ways of referring to a) the apparent/evident context of a photograph and b) the emotional charge that (some) photographs have for us. The punctum is a text, or sub-text, within the con-text of the whole.

The emotional charge is not just ‘in’ the photograph.  Sometimes there is a specific object that is clearly vital, sometimes not.  The punctum as an identifiable object can vary from person to person. (Some of Barthes’ points are more those of a gay man).  And subsequent readings can shift what we see as being the punctum-object.

This photograph was instrumental in Barthes’ developing the punctum-studium mode – see HERE for an interesting discussion of Koen Wessing’s photograph and of its importance to Barthes.

I asked my wife what was the punctum for her – she said the rifle, and the nun looking in the direction of the rifle.   For me it is unquestionable the fact that the first nun is walking on regardless.

However with or without the punctum as an easily identifiable element in the construction of the photograph the punctum is wounding only to the sensibilty that can be wounded.

Cartier-Bresson spoke of the alignment of  eye, heart, eye and camera in the seeing and taking of a photograph.  The same is necessary for the reading of a photograph to provide you with an aesthetic experience.  Photographs that are mere representations or illustrations or documents rarely provide the transcendent experience that I call aesthetic.

For this writer the aesthetic is an experience identical to mystical experience.  The photograph takes you.  It takes you out of the boundaries of self. You are dissolved for a time into the timeless. There is no object and you as separate subject – only a unitive experience.

Perhaps the intensity is proportionate to the extent that head, heart and eye are attuned in experiencing the photograph?  Although, of course, great works of art are shattering.

3 The focus of meaning of Camera Lucida in English tends toward ‘mechanical device’. Source – WikiPedia

Is there a confusion between camera obscura and camera lucida in the title of Barthes’ book?  More likely

What if we literally translate La Chambre claire as clear room or room of clarity. Not just at the level of physical reality but as an inner space for experiencing (particularly) those photographs that lead to a greater understanding of our selves or of our world? To see more clearly, to gain in-sight.

Didn’t Picasso say something to the effect that he paints in order to see?  As ‘the clear room’ or ‘room of clarity’ photography becomes the means by which we can see clearly, gain insight into the world and into ourselves.

Here I’m suggesting that the experience of reading a photograph is of two kinds.  The first provides merely information about subjects that might or might not be one of our interests.

The second kind of experience, requires two elements. First there is sufficient sensibility. Secondly in the photograph there will be some element that acts like a terminal or lightning rod and causes not just high impact but deep and potentially transformative experience. The second kind of experience can ‘move the internal furniture around’ – and possibly extend the sensibility, at the centre of which is compassion. Both sensibility and a lightning-rod element in the photograph are necessary.

source

In the photograph of Alison Lapper is the punctum or is it the child’s hand, Alison’s foot, the kiss, the missing arm, the boy’s eyes that might be said to be staring into his future…… One of those or something else is the lightning rod – if we have the compassion and the sensibility.

The statue of Alison is called Alison Lapper pregnant, but it is we who are pregnant – the issue is whether we as a society can deliver ourselves of  the next higher level of consciousness.

If you don’t know of Alison’s story and the great and good public debate it generated just Google her name.

There is one good article HERE

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Scottish Parliament: to debate trial of Baha’is

S3M-05083 Christopher Harvie (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Scottish National Party): Imprisonment of Baha’i Leaders in Iran— That the Parliament condemns the continued imprisonment in Iran of Baha’i leaders Fariba Kamalabadi, Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naemi, Saeid Rezaie, Mahvash Sabet, Behrouz Tavakkoli, and Vahid Tizfahm, six of whom were arrested on 14 May 2008 and one detained since 5 March 2008, reportedly because of their Baha’i faith, and later charged with insulting religious sanctities, propaganda against the Islamic Republic, spying for Israel and spreading corruption on earth, the latter two charges carrying the death penalty; deplores that their trial has been postponed three times since their arrest, most recently on 18 October 2009 without a new date being set, and that internationally recognised protocols with regard to proper legal representation do not appear to have been followed nor any evidence brought forward to support the allegations, and urges the government in Tehran to facilitate the immediate release of the imprisoned Baha’i leaders and all co-religionists currently detained solely on the grounds of their religious beliefs and to end its active persecution and discrimination of adherents to the Baha’i faith, in accordance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which it ratified in 1975.

Supported by: Stewart Maxwell, Mike Pringle, Gil Paterson, Brian Adam, Dr Bill Wilson, Robin Harper, Ken Macintosh, John Wilson, Bill Kidd

Lodged on Thursday, October 29, 2009; Current

via scottish.parliament.uk

ne of the MPA – Master Photography Awards 2009 Presentation

via thempa.com

Click on link to see all of the other winners.

Shoulder Clips – Videos by Robert Genn -=- The Painter’s Keys

The Nude As Landscape

“The Nude as Landscape” came about in a normal studio session. The painting was conceived as a figure study, in acrylic on canvas, but as the work proceeded the landscape-like contours of the human body suggested a broader landscape. The female figure became surrounded in air as well as light, and a new idea was born. This “second-generation” thinking happens when normal orders of procedure are reversed, causing new angles to be discovered. Read Aspects of order

Changing the Light

Several days ago in the Queen Charlotte Islands I was faced with a particularly flat day. Overcast and grey, it wasn’t even foreboding. Not much was wrong with the small canvas I painted down on the beach, but during the windup strokes I realized it needed something more. Changing the light is a painter’s prerogative. Remembering the sunset of the previous evening–and the rain squalls passing through it–I thought, “Why not?” Read On

Lake O’hara

Sara and I were guided above Lake O’Hara to a remote ridge known to the “Opabin Shale-Splitters.” This was where MacDonald and his friends painted in the summers of 1924 to 1930. We could well see the appeal. Patterns of rock and snow in all directions. Light. Shadow. Atmosphere. Dramatic mountains all around. Lots of places to sit. Read On

Forest Spirit

I needed to get out of the studio. We jumped in the car and disappeared into the local forest. I set up and made a little painting while Michelle set up and made a little movie. ” Forest Spirit ” is another of those Shoulder Clips that we have shown you before , but this one is in real time, a bit languorous and laid back. For her first flick, I think she caught the feeling. It takes six minutes. Read On

The Secret

Videos: Looking south from Hale Ke Kai and Surf over lava at Hale Ke Kai.
A painter needs to think of the orderly processing of areas. As much as possible one should work from large areas to small, more or less setting up to hold these areas with negative areas. While doing this, keep in mind some elements of a painting cannot be handled this way, and must be painted topically. The artist should give a few minutes of thought before diving in. The idea is to decide on the approximate order in which the various elements are to be processed. Read On

via clicks.robertgenn.com

Robert Genn provides a wide range of support services for artists.

These are interesting over-the-shoulder videos of him working.

Interesting even if you prefer other forms of art.

Defining the spirit of art photography and bringing together Henri Cartier-Bresson and Eckhart Tolle

I decided to pull together and develop some pieces about photography.  Hence my new 'investigative journal' seeking the essence, the spirit, of photography – and the impact of discovered in-sights, and out-sights, on my photography, my consciousness and spirit.

It will inevitably also ‘touch base’ with some painting, sculpture, video and film.

My working definition of art says;

Art is culturally, and personally, significant meaning, skilfully

encoded in an affecting, sensuous medium.

(RP’s working definition  – after a definition by Richard Anderson quoted in Freeland (2001 p. 77))

My definition of photography is inevitably the same, but what is special and defining about photography?

The great master Henri Cartier-Bresson said;

To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression.

My working definition of art plus HCB’s definition will have to do for now.

However Cartier-Bresson’s definition may not stand up as a general definition.  It doesn’t work so well with great innovatory fine art photographers like Calum Colvin or Cindy Sherman

Both Colvin and Sherman can take days or weeks or months to compose a set of their images.

HCBs definition is about how he was as a photographer, the process he worked with, and the strange set of rules he imposed on himself – including  demanding the black edge on his prints to show that it was a full-frame and not cropped.  He was largely a street photographer, a hunter of the magic moment when camera and eye and heart were in perfect, and geometric, alignment.

Of course his definition and the rules by which he worked reflect each other.

How slippery it is to try and define photography is felt very strongly when we read the wonderful book The Ongoing Moment by Geoff Dyer.

To put my cards on the table – I suspect the spirit of photography can only be understood against the background of an understanding of the human spirit, something I undertook in my doctorate – summary is HERE.

What does the spirit of photography have to do with spirituality in its broadest sense?  Photographs are moments captured, fixed, plucked out of time and given eternality (or at least as long as the paper and chemicals last).  Spirituality in its mystical heart is beyond religion and culture.  It is about how we learn through stillness to unhook ourselves from the pain of past regret and future longing.  To take a photograph is to assert the now, only to become conscious that in all outward particulars the photograph is changing because it is an object back in the flow we call time.  But really the only reason a photograph changes is because we change.  We learn to read with more compassion, more in-sight, more wholeness.  Try it with pictures of yourself, your parents and family.

If there isn’t more compassion, more in-sight, more wholeness there is some serious work to do!  I hear that the guru Ram Dass says if you think you have made real progress spiritually try going home to live with your parents for a week or two.

When we ‘take’ a photograph that works we are participating in the very essence of human challenge, the challenge to live in the present without being thrown by the ‘radio interference’ of past regret or future longing – two kinds of ‘if only’.

Positive photographs point through surface particulars to this human, spiritual reality.

Negative photographs are ones taken in desperation to keep that which is slipping by, because we can’t face living in the now.

A great source to inspire us in this is Eckhart Tolle, especially his book Stillness.  One example;

When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself.  When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world.

Your innermost sense of self, of who you are, is inseparable from stillness.  This is the I Am that is deeper than name and form.

All great art nourishes most in these great universals.

In seeking to go deeper into photography, and other arts, – as celebration, as ‘connecting with’, as personal creativity – my special focus then will inevitably be a humanistic one.  It will be on photography’s place in the very process of being and becoming human, in the flow of the human spirit, and the gathering of eternal moments, along the tao of life.

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