Thinking a lot about creativity at the moment and wondering how people do it ... certainly in the visual area, which is way outside my home base. So I was perusing Luminous Landscape and came across an excellent essay by Alain Briot. The following is an excerpt and the full piece is here>>>
Being ready means being able to dedicate time to being inspired, something that in today’s society, and in the life of a majority of people, is rarely the case. In other words, if you hear yourself saying “Yeah, right. Like I can really drop everything just because all of a sudden I feel inspired!” you are actually expressing how most people feel. There is little room today for inspiration in most people’s lives. However, if your goal is to create artistic photographs, if your goal is to be an artist, in short if your goal is to create art, you must make room for the muses to visit you, or for when inspiration strikes, whenever that may be.
Thursday 24 May 2007
Monday 14 May 2007
The pleasure of not quite understanding
Was it "'scuse me, while I kiss the sky" or "scuse me while I kiss this guy"?
There have been loads of songs and lyrics I either didn't hear properly or just plain didn't understand. When foreign friends asked me to transcribe the English lyrics of songs for them I often found myself unable to explain what they meant.
For the last 20 years or so Brazilian, Portuguese and Spanish-language music have been big in my playlists. And as with the English lyrics, my understanding is sometimes pretty complete but often patchy and impressionistic. And I've recently realised that there's great pleasure to be had in not quite understanding things. It leaves space for words and images to establish themselves and take on a life of their own. And when you think about it, that's how everyone learns their native language as a child.
There have been loads of songs and lyrics I either didn't hear properly or just plain didn't understand. When foreign friends asked me to transcribe the English lyrics of songs for them I often found myself unable to explain what they meant.
For the last 20 years or so Brazilian, Portuguese and Spanish-language music have been big in my playlists. And as with the English lyrics, my understanding is sometimes pretty complete but often patchy and impressionistic. And I've recently realised that there's great pleasure to be had in not quite understanding things. It leaves space for words and images to establish themselves and take on a life of their own. And when you think about it, that's how everyone learns their native language as a child.
Thursday 10 May 2007
Unforgettable
A morning workshop with David Thomas, a red-headed ex-fireman from Halifax who has dramatised his competence - memory - by learning and reciting Pi to 22,500 places without a mistake.
An ordinary-looking man with a sly sense of humour and a mastery of memory techniques that he quickly taught the group. While we were memorising a list of 20 items in four minutes, he memorised a deck of 52 cards!
Highly recommended. (Oprah like him too)
An ordinary-looking man with a sly sense of humour and a mastery of memory techniques that he quickly taught the group. While we were memorising a list of 20 items in four minutes, he memorised a deck of 52 cards!
Highly recommended. (Oprah like him too)
Tuesday 8 May 2007
Us and Them
Sometimes, just very occasionally, it hits home just how amazing it is that individual human beings manage to communicate with each other at all, let alone pretty constantly. After all each of us assembles our own version of "reality" inside the light-proof box of our skull, picking and choosing from the deluge of information supplied by our sensory organs.
I remember finishing a 5x4 day course, when 120 or so people were asked to take paper and crayons and draw a representation of their experience. We had all sat in the same room those 20 days, heard the same things, gone out for lunch and drinks together, and yet looking round the 120 visuals hung on the wall, no two were even similar. All were different. And that was just 120 people.
The fact is, every other human being out there is "Them" and Us is really just "Me". If I'm going to kid myself that "Us" includes my family, my friends, my colleagues or my countrymen, then I may as well keep that "Us" boundary flexible and recognise that it's down to me who I regard as "Us".
I remember finishing a 5x4 day course, when 120 or so people were asked to take paper and crayons and draw a representation of their experience. We had all sat in the same room those 20 days, heard the same things, gone out for lunch and drinks together, and yet looking round the 120 visuals hung on the wall, no two were even similar. All were different. And that was just 120 people.
The fact is, every other human being out there is "Them" and Us is really just "Me". If I'm going to kid myself that "Us" includes my family, my friends, my colleagues or my countrymen, then I may as well keep that "Us" boundary flexible and recognise that it's down to me who I regard as "Us".
Monday 7 May 2007
Beauty in depth
Sometimes you just get lucky. Take yesterday.
I was surfing round some of my favourite online haunts when I stumbled onto an article in Luminous Lanscape called Taking Your Photography To The Next Level. Part 1
Original and stunningly aesthetic photos along with thoughts and words that both made sense and inspired. There are two more articles on the same subject by the same author, George Barr. He talks about assessing where you're at technically and aesthetically.
I went to bed thinking about his images and thoughts, I woke up thinking about them and I reckon I'll be thinking about them for a long time to come.
Jump here to his gallery
I was surfing round some of my favourite online haunts when I stumbled onto an article in Luminous Lanscape called Taking Your Photography To The Next Level. Part 1
Original and stunningly aesthetic photos along with thoughts and words that both made sense and inspired. There are two more articles on the same subject by the same author, George Barr. He talks about assessing where you're at technically and aesthetically.
I went to bed thinking about his images and thoughts, I woke up thinking about them and I reckon I'll be thinking about them for a long time to come.
Jump here to his gallery
Sunday 6 May 2007
In support of Alan Johnston
He's the BBC's reporter in Gaza who was abducted in Gaza on 12 March.
You can pick up an Alan Johnston button here >>>>>
You can pick up an Alan Johnston button here >>>>>
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