“Oh soul,
you worry too much.
You have seen your own strength.
You have seen your own beauty.
You have seen your golden wings.
Of anything less,
why do you worry?
You are in truth
the soul, of the soul, of the soul.”
~Rumi
I liked this too much not to note it somewhere.
Sometimes, people you respect so immensely, stun you by writing delicious things about you that just floor you ...
Laura wrote .... of me, after she wrote of Eric.
Thank you.
Sometimes, it is the most excellent fun photographing people you know for serious things ...
We are so many selves - daughter, mother, wife, the person we need to be in our work.
Sometimes, a photography shoot has to be about taking the time to find the personal Self, that one that is Us.
Ridicule is a terrible whitherer of the imagination. It binds us where we should be free.
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Found over on David du Chemin’s blog ... brilliant post. He is writing wise words from his hospital bed in these days. He pulled me in when I read, ‘I don’t know a single artist that doesn’t wrestle with cycles of self-doubt, second-guesses ...”
He, in turn, linked over to Vincent Versace
I loved so much of his article too ... a slice: Every image you create is an expression of the artistic inspiration that moves you. You express your creative voice by developing the ability to show what moves you without screaming for the attention of others. It means getting out of your own way and, in the moments when your creative spirit is moved, trusting that what comes from those moments will be good. Your goal should be to trust what you feel and constantly strive toward personal excellence and elegant performance. When your effectiveness becomes effortless, your images will move the viewer solely by the power that caused you to be moved.
I apply my own professional oath, similar perhaps to the Hippocratic Oath taken by doctors ... although my oath is more of a commitment to not being photographed by anyone else.
And so it is, when I’m exploring a venue for ‘spots’ to work, I need models. I have variety, some get grouchy after the 50th location test shot but by crikey, I do know some lovely ones. The bride and groom photographed beautifully here the next day.
Dank u wel to my favourite model.
Sometimes, if we were fortunate, we had this dad who meant the world to us ... and it was enough just to sit there on his knee, hugging the hand that he held you with, while he talked to friends.
I had to share the work of this beautiful man
Take the time to visit this short youtube ...
So maybe I should get a nine to five
But I don’t want to let it go, there’s so much more to life
Tom Dice, extract from Me and My Guitar
There was me, the New Zealander with dual citizenship feeling the Belgian part of my identity, watching Tom Dice, my favourite new singer, competing in Eurovision 2010.
I ended up watching the show by accident ... only to find myself on the edge of my seat, as Tom slid up and down the placings from 1st to 6th.
But I love this song ... the ultimate artist’s song surely.
The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive. To them… a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death.
Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create — so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, their very breath is cut off…
They must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency they are not really alive unless they are creating.
Pearl S. Buck
Chance encounters change lives. Close friends, passing aquaintances and even characters who emerge from old books often leave footprints across my heart. By opening mysterious doors, the influence of others has inadvertently altered the direction of my life.
Colin Monteath, from Under A Sheltering Sky
These last few days, I’ve been trying to capture the Genova I fell in love with while staying in Italy last year ...
There was a paragraph where I tried to describe the quietly sublime beauty of a Sunday morning spent alone in that city I love.
I wrote: Sunday, my first day alone and the city is emptied for football. Slipping and tripping through the air comes the sound of the most exquisite violin ... drifting from some open window. Delicate notes that create this perfect sound for an afternoon spent lying on a bed reading. I am lazy on this first day spent as a solitary creature, alone in a strange city where I know no one.
I wanted that music but stopped short of shouting from my open window to whichever neighbour was playing the music.
I came home and forgot it about mostly, just pulling the memory out in moments peace.
Yesterday I was in FNAC, thinking I might like one book to celebrate this month’s pay cheque when I had this idea about making a fool of myself and asking about a delicate solo violin ...
The shop assistant listened and then said ‘Bach!’.
She took me over to a listening post and she was right. If this isn’t the music I heard then it’s close enough to delight and carry me back into that place in time.
Below you can hear something of the music on the cd titled Bach 6 Solo Sonatas & Partitas, Viktoria Mullova.
I’m looking up and in the sky there is the shiny glint of a jet airplane caught in the sun’s grasp, pushing silently east; I’m thinking there are four hundred people going somewhere else. I’m hoping that most of them realise the freedom of being 38,000 feet up and headed somewhere new.
Anik See, from A Taste for Adventure