Letting Them Slip

Of the things that get my goat these days, the conflict between art and duty is at the top of the list. I kvetch often when I cannot seem to find, or to make, the time to attend to the acts of creation that I claim I need to sustain myself. It would seem to be inconsistent with my goals. It makes me wonder when I truly am going to pull a carpe diem and satisfy my intention.

My peace of mind depends on it, don't you think? And if peace of mind is that important it would seem imperative to follow those notions and impulses that feed it. I had the chance today. Make that two chances. I failed to act on both, and now I am disappointed.

The chances were nothing earth-shattering. There was no flash of insight leading to the cure for cancer or ending world poverty. No, these chances were more humble, intrinsic to me and me alone. Well, unless you consider that the chances had potential for me to gather something to share with the extrinsic world.

I had an assignment wherein I had the opportunity to do something constructive with my camera and earn payment from the results. The assignment was in a semi-rural area somewhat south of my current abode. When I had left the house earlier, on impulse I put my film camera in the car, in case I saw something scenic or interesting out in the rolling fields and farms. So it wasn't like I didn't have any equipment.

The assignment took longer than I expected, and I was tired, hungry and hot when I finished. My thoughts turned to getting home and finishing the task. I was in a hurry, for what in hindsight turned out to be not so pressing reasons. So I get in the car and head home, thinking too much about what I needed to do.

I passed a concrete plant at an intersection of two roads and what seemed like four cornfields. The interplay of light and shadow on the industrial structures was fascinating. I thought about the black and white film I had, but shook my head and muttered to myself "No time, gotta get home." I kept driving.

Nearby and across the road the top of a slightly derelict silo peeped up above a deep cornfield. Next to it were some barn buildings, also in need of sprucing up. Peeling paint, an old tree, cornstalks waving in the foreground. The light was hitting it all just right. The mood was of opportunities fading away, hard work needing to be done, and the unsettling openness of the prairie sky above it.

Perfect photo op, right? Great shots to be had, yes?

I watched it recede in my rear view mirror. I didn't stop. The velvet shackles of duty, the sure thing, the chore to be done, all convinced me to keep going by laying on the old saw of "There will be other opportunities, move along." What really bothered me, the farther down the road I went, is that the creative soul in me raised hardly a peep. It just let it happen.

The question turning over in my mind and heart while I sped down the highway back to the "city", was one of "If not now, when?"

Indeed. Opportunities may exist, but to assume a guarantee is to take them for granted. The voice in my head told me to drive, to follow the call of duty. My artistic life is in danger of atrophy, all because sometimes I listen to the wrong voice.

Sleeping Dogs In My Head

Crash! Clang! Bang the lids
Warbling yelps, claws scratch hardwood
while bastard me laughs

If I Could Speak My Mind (Sunday Meditation #25)

9:54 PM. At my desk, on  the cusp of what I hope to be a good nights' sleep. Poems and music in my head.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
   ~ from 'The Second Coming' by W. B. Yeats

Man I've had it up to here
Gear I wear got 'em goin' in fear
Rhetoric said
Read just a bit ago
Not quittin' though
Signed the hard rhymer
Work to keep from gettin' jerked
Changin' some ways
To way back in the better days
Raw metaphysically bold
Never followed a code
Still dropped a load
Never question what I am God knows
Cause it's comin' from the heart
 ~from 'Welcome to the Terrordome' by Public Enemy

I returned home about forty minutes ago, tired but content, from a social event where I got schooled in what in means to surround one's self with beautiful things that make one happy. In other words, Art. All I know is that I stood there admiring some prints, and thought "That is what I want to do. Please."

On the ride home I had a mashup going on in my head, poetry of two widely divergent decades swirling around in my head. W. B. Yeats in a church, sepulchrally intoning 'The Second Coming' intertwined with the staccato baritone of Chuck D. knocking out 'Welcome to the Terrordome'...and I couldn't stop marveling over the power of shadow and light and words. I couldn't help but feel a tad helpless in the face of such talent and skill.

I thought of my cameras and notebooks waiting patiently at home. I wondered, given what is out there and the sum total of powerful art that has been created, if my aspirations to be a shaman (of sorts) are wildly misplaced. I like to think I see things, hear things, that maybe no one else does in those creative moments of mine. But I have much to learn when it comes to pursuing and creating art, of any kind, be it written or visual.

Yeats, Chuck D. and an artist whose name I didn't write down. I can see them on the road ahead of me. I've miles to go, people, miles to go on the road to who I want to be.

Viewfinders

I am embarking on a trip today, a 'there-and-back' jaunt, same day service to back east. I was puttering around earlier trying to wrap up the last minute loose ends. I had to remind myself that I wasn't packing any clothes or travel gear...

...except I made sure I had a notebook and a camera.

I feel like I can't go on any travel anymore without one or both of those things. I feel something is missing if I don't have either with me. Will I use them? I don't know. But I'd rather have them and not need them, than need them and not have them. You know that is, don't you? Don't you?

Boundary Conditions (Sunday Meditation #21)

September 22nd, 2012. 7:31 PM. On the front patio, in the company of a dog. Serenaded by crickets, wind and faint barks from a few yard over. It is reflection.

Well. I see that it has been almost a week since I have administered the purge to my brain. There is no surprise here, but there is a tinge of melancholy. To write sometimes to me is to live. It is to feel. Feel in ways I occasionally have difficulty in allowing myself to experience, or perhaps, understand is the better term. The page or the screen, like the camera lens, affords me a shield and a filter on the world. It allows the parsing of what often seems unparsable. 

I find I am in a bit of a fugue state. Weariness, of the mind and the heart, is blurring my edges and smearing me over the landscape of my existence. Four solid days of work have shored me up and worn me out. This has kept me from the page, from the keyboard. Not for lack of ideas, mind you; I've had quite many. The lack of...ambition? desire? energy? has forestalled my getting them out of my head.

I am bored, fed up with current events, with politics, yet those things have been the fuel for the fires of my mind in overdrive. There has been much to consider, much to say, but two things have (wisely) reeled me in: a desire to free my mind from the attachments of righteous anger, and a loss of appetite for 'pig wrestling' in the social sphere. If I may crib from The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy in "Music and Politics":

If ever I would stop thinking about music and politics
I might be able to listen in silence to your concerns
Rather than hearing everything as an accusation
Or an indictment against me

That sort of describes my state of mind since the beginning of September. My attachments to certain beliefs and states of being had begun to mislead me, down a path of anxiety and negative emotions. And when I say 'current events' I include events not only in the world external to my life, but the one internal to it. Two events in particular have become signal bells in the cluttered temple of my mind.

The first was my visit back east for a long weekend with my daughter. The second was an evening stroll through an arts fair in my new, nearby, adopted hometown of Kansas City. Both made me rejoice, admire and celebrate. Both made me near to weep in humility and inadequacy. It was not until my afternoon break today that I had an inkling of why.

First thing: My daughter is beautiful, smart and luminous. She tests me, pushes me, exalts me. All that without guile or pretense or even true self-awareness. She is a mirror to my soul. It is one I gaze into frequently, when we are together and when apart. In that reflection I see the radiant joy and vampiric doubts that are peculiar to my fatherhood. The total of things I know about being a father is far outweighed by the total of things I don't know about being a father. On this last visit I wondered how I could be so lucky to have her as my daughter, and I hoped that someday she might think herself lucky that I am her dad.

Second thing: I have finally admitted to myself that perhaps, after all, I do have a modicum of skill and talent when it comes to photography. This led me to spend an evening, in good company, strolling amongst the light and sound and creative outpouring that was my first Plaza Art Fair in KCMO. So much wonder, so much beauty, so much expression of the creative urge. My encounters with two photographers induced the same exaltation and humiliation. Both had prints of photos I wish I had taken, from an artistic and a technical perspective. Both demonstrated to me that I have so much to learn about photography. I left the art fair in a slight brown study, which I hadn't quite left this morning.

So it was I found myself on break, leaning back on a bench, swaddled in shade with my head thrown back. I felt myself falling upward, pressured into a state of elastic resistance by the realities of myself and my circumstances. My daughter, those photographers, have shown me I am hemmed in by the knowledge I possess and the knowledge I wish to possess.  

I stared up between the gold-tinged leaves overhead, reveling in the electric blue sky tinged with its dreams of the coming fall. Thus was I illuminated: let go of the fear, embrace the unknown, and step through the boundary conditions of my soul.

The Truth About the Shutter

August 22, 2012. 8:29 PM. An afternoon in the sun has left me with a headache, photos and questions. Overall, not bad.

The questions started almost immediately upon arising this morning. Well, maybe not questions exactly, so much as whispers. What do I need to do? What am I going to do? Perhaps critically, what do I want to do?

Those questions were not to be answered in the morning, not with a shower to be taken and breakfast to be made and eaten. It is that initial rush of activity that I have so much trouble initiating yet paradoxically it makes me feel so much calmer to get them done. It is a quirk of mine that I usually feel a free-floating anxiousness until I shower. The day just does not seem to get off the ground until that happens. Consequently, the later in the morning that I take a shower, the longer I feel antsy.

I really should put that aside.

But it was done. Then it was a few minor life management activities interlaced with a wee bit much of web-surfing. The drawback to that crow mind I have. Next thing I knew it was lunch time. Crept up on me again, damn it.

Even lunch could not remove that vague disquiet I felt. I ate alone, chewing and thinking, trying to put my finger on that thing that seemed to be gnawing at me. No dice. I took a short nap, thinking I was just fatigued. While I was refreshed, I still felt like I was missing something.

The cameras decided for me. Two in a bag on the floor, one sitting on the shelf nearby, two rolls of film and a blank memory card. I stared at the bags for a few minutes, restlessly shifting my feet while chewing my bottom lip. The sun tracked across the floor.

That was it. I needed to be outside, looking through the lens or the viewfinder, chasing the light, diving into shadow. I scooped up the bags and headed out to my car. While driving into the city I felt my gut unwinding. The stiffness left my shoulders. I parked at the River Market and geared up.

Man, it felt good. A nearby trail takes me across the railroad tracks and down along the Missouri. The light was good, big blue bowl of sky with just the right amount of clouds. Hot day, but breezy. The air was humming with the sound of trains and birds. All I had to do was look, point and snap.

The truth was clear. The shutter gives me a raison d'etre, if I may be so indulgent as to say. Well, one of many raisons, this fascination with light and shadow and the capturing thereof. Like writing, the pursuit of truth as I see it through the lens is vital and necessary to my general well-being. 

I may never achieve artistic or commercial success by fulfilling this need of mine. But that is not the point my gut was trying to make. It was telling me to get out there and catch myself in the light and shadows. This is the truth of the shutter.

Echoes of the Madness

As I had a window of opportunity this morning, I set aside some chores in favor of a combination walk and photo safari through an abandoned factory building down by the Patapsco River.  The occasion was to experiment with a roll of very fast film (3200 speed for you photogeeks out there), black and white, which I could not resist purchasing yesterday while at the film lab.  The weather was warm, but decent sun, and to paraphrase, no one ever dies wishing they had weedwhacked a little more.

It was the call of the camera, and an intense need for some stress management.  It would not be denied.

I had my backpack, my digital camera, and my film camera.  Plus a flashlight and a hard hat.  Contrary to what my Ma and Da might tell you, my head isn't so hard it could resist a falling brick or shard of metal.  I'm getting smarter about that stuff these days.

So I am in the abandoned building, trying a different route than the one I have taken in the past.  There are some places in there I had not seen yet, and I was getting tantalizing glimpses through broken windows, of graffiti and industrial decay.  I was alone, or at least I thought so.  

I went down a flight of rusty metal stairs (very "Half-Life" in appearance) and was standing in a pool of light streaming through a large opening in the concrete slab overhead.  The path on both sides led into gloominess punctuated by shafts of light and the spectral outlines of ruined tanks, pipes and decaying machines.

It was while standing there adjusting the camera, that I heard it.  A voice, drifting from somewhere in the darkness of the warehouse beyond.  I had been about to walk in that direction, but the voice made me freeze.  It was garbled, muffled, but occasionally I could make out individual words.  Then, quite clearly it said "Oh, why, why, why!" followed by a faint sigh or groan that trailed off into nothingness.

At that moment, I felt the Fear.  An icy trickle in my gut.  I didn't start running, but I changed my mind about which way I was going to go.  I knew very well that this particular set of buildings is frequented by all sorts of people, hikers, photographers, homeless folks and those with less than noble intentions.  It was probably just someone hanging out or looking for scrap.

But I went the other way.  The hair on my neck was up, and I wasn't sure I really wanted to run the risk of finding out why the voice was asking "why, why, why".

I did get some good pictures, though, without needing a change of underwear.

I See Her Picture

Today I picked up some photos from the lab, three rolls of medium format color film that I had taken in the past month.  I have one roll of black and white still in process.  I can hardly wait to get them back, too.  These are pottery shards in the archaeological dig of my life.  Some of them are damaged, blurry and maybe don't tell much of anything.  But others, well, others are these glimpses of startling clarity through the mist of time.  Sometimes I hold a particularly good picture in my hands and think I am cradling a new Rosetta stone.  A stone that will allow me to translate the languages I see rather than speak.

What made these particular images significant was the relatively high number of truly good results I achieved.  By that I don't mean pure technical proficiency.  It is more an aggregate of all the things that make good photographs: light, shadow, mood, setting, subject.  In this set of rolls, I had all of those.

Particularly my family.  I took some of the best pictures I have ever taken of my parents and my daughter.  I even ended up with a pretty nifty double exposure of my nephew and his lovely fiance.  Pure accident, cool result.  I don't credit this to any brilliance in talent.  Rather, I think it was a letting go and being in the moment that allowed me to simply take the pictures rather than overthinking them.  And it worked.

The ones of my daughter in particular absolutely floored me.  Wee Lass and I went to the photo lab together to pick them up, and as usual she was excited to see them right away.  The lab is in a building that has a nice lobby with some seats, and she always likes to go sit there and leaf through the pictures.

We had a grand time of it.  She was smiling and commenting.  I was amazed and grateful.  Here's me, this oafish lad who fancies it to take pictures of stuff, and hopes his success rate is like that of a .333 hitter in baseball: you can be unsuccessful two-thirds of the time, and still be considered pretty good.

Looking at the pictures, those blue eyes and that megawatt smile...I got my grand slam.  Somehow I managed to get a snapshot of the heart of the sun.

Crocodile

---

Image of Mr. Boehner from the LA Times Opinion pages. 

A Thousand Words: Unbloggable

Proofsheet

I stand alone and watch the clock
I only wait for it to stop
 
One of those days where
the mind wishes it would stop
its going so slow it might as well

and in the room locked up inside me
 
be stopped, time isn't passing anyway
Yes, it is, I know that because the
little clock on my computer

the cutout magazines remind me
I sit and wait alone in my room

reminds me whether or not
I really want to know, and I,
resent that fiercely

I could not look, that is my right
but I never not look.
Anger at me, myself and I

Song from another life, long ago
reminding me of all the photographs
I took before I had a camera

I stand and watch the clock
I only wait for it to stop

now the negatives are piling up
against the doors in my head
crowding the hallways, blocking swing

the doors are shut and all the windows lock

of the panels and light and air.
Unable to process, not enough chemicals

the only sound is from the clock

trays, fixer, no, not enough fixer
or light, not enough light and its

getting hard to breathe

I sit and wait alone in my room

here in my room, my darkroom,
but I can't stop unloading the film
from so many canisters, they are all around me

in my room

Note: Italicized words above are lyrics without permission, from "In My Room" by Yaz.  I know you were murmuring fragments of the Lord's Prayer when you read it...

Sharing the Salt of the Earth

Assignment, Part Quatre:

No doubt, we live in a very visual world.  As part of the ongoing saga of the class assignment, we were asked to post a photograph on our blog.  Long time readers know I have posted many in the past (but not quite as many here, now that my photography blog has been up and running for a while), and the assignment was a nice reminder to post another here.  Ergo:

I discovered this in my photo archives while browsing.  I like it, a lot.  I enjoy its simplicity and homey elegance.  It also dovetailed wonderfully with the thematic swirl of thoughts in my head, now that I've been thinking so much about blogging and sharing online.

Salt may be ubiquitous to us, but there was a time in history where salt was a highly controlled commodity, with much more relative weight economically and symbolically than it carries today.  "Salt of the earth." "Worth his weight in salt."  These phrases used to mean so much more, when kings and countries controlled the production of distribution of the mineral.  Even the word "salary" has its roots in the Latin word for salt (sal).

What meant the most to me, though, was the symbolic presence of the salt.  In most cultures, in the folklore and social traditions, to share salt with someone, especially strangers, was an act of kinship and hospitality that was not taken lightly.  It meant something.  It implied an extension of trust.  It meant that those who offered salt were inviting those who were offered into their lives, families or homes.

I like that idea.  I like the idea of shared trust, of offering friendship.  After all, they are (like salt used to be) truly valuable things, not offered lightly and with the hope of reciprocity.

Not unlike the words spilled herein on these electronic pages.  Come, sit, read.  Let us share salt together.

Looking Glass

So much of our lives is seen through or on glass...

That I wonder if we are living on camera...

Actors in a security video...

Or maybe we are all just under surveillance...

Photo credits: Irish Gumbo

Stop Chasing It...

...be patient, serenity will find you.

I was fortunate, that day, that it found me.


Photo credit: Irish Gumbo

Train In Vain: Winter

I waited, and it grew cold...

 

...no lonely whistle sounded, and the trees offered no counsel. As the snow fell, wispy hands caressing my face while I stood and shivered, I wondered just how far it would have taken me anyway.

Down in the valley, the river chuckled and hissed, content to be on its way.

Photo Credit: Irish Gumbo

Let It Snow, Let Snow, Let It Snow...Somewhere Else, Da&%#t!

It was a lovely party...

...full of grace and beauty...

...but as with many parties...

...there is a morning after.

Uh, snow? You're cool and all...but would you just go home now? Please?

A Winter's Day - Branches and Stones

Michelle at Confessions of a Desperate Housewife and Irish Gumbo present their second edition of Pic and Prose, for your edification and delight. Enjoy!

“If on a winter’s day a traveler…”*

On winter walks, the boy always thought he would be caught by the branches.

On winter walks, the man fretted the distance he would fall.

Together, they joined hands and leapt.
The fall was not so great, the water not so cold, after all.
They had each other.

*Paraphrased from Italo Calvino’s book “If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler”.

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CONTEST ANNOUNCEMENT: The smack talkin’ has begun! The lurvely Petra has invited me to participate in a contest for the weekly “HeBlogs/SheBlogs” post that she runs on The Wise (*Young*) Mommy. I am up against seven dudes who will lose, er, strapping young lads competing for the honor, and you lucky readers will get to vote! Contest entries will be posted beginning Monday, February 9th on The Wise (*Young*) Mommy, two per day for the week. My entry will be posted Monday. Please make sure to read them all, voting starts the evening of Thursday, February 12th, after the last entries have been posted, and will close the following Sunday. I invite you, lovely readers, to drop by the other girls, er, dudes blogs and drop them some comments. Feel free to humiliate them. Don’t forget to vote (for me)!

A Winter's Day - Flower And Web

By the miracle of this here Internettyweb thingie, I have had the pleasure of making the digital acquaintance of Michelle at Confessions of a Desperate Housewife. I forget exactly how I made it to her site, it may have been through Heinous at Irregularly Periodic Ruminations, but I am very glad I did. Michelle has quite the eye behind the camera, and has posted some very lovely photographs on her blog. The following shot of a pheasant is a particularly good example:

Very nice, I think you would agree! Beautiful bird caught at the right moment. What makes this picture even more special is Michelle got her car stuck in the snow, going back to the same area to get some more pictures. That’s dedication! Thankfully, the car was extricated and everyone got home safe.

There was another picture she posted, the day after the pheasant shot, that not only looked great, but had a nice caption. It was called “The Flower and the Web” and it sparked some creative thoughts in my noggin. So naturally I wanted to write something about it. I commented to Michelle that we should do a collaborative piece incorporating the picture and some text. To my delight, she agreed: she supplies the picture, I supply the words. I created a short story, sort of a “1 minute writer” type exercise, to go with the picture. So without further ado, we present a Theme on The Flower and The Web:

SUMMER TO WINTER: THE FLOWER AND THE WEB
The Spider did not see the Pheasant, as the Pheasant plucked it from the Flower.
The Pheasant did not see the Hunter, as the Hunter raised his Rifle.
The Hunter did not see the cracks in the Ice, as they split beneath him.
In the Silence after, the Flower and the Web nodded.
They had seen it all. Only they remain, waiting for Summer and all new things.

We hope you liked it. It was fun, and a great way to get some creative juices going. Please visit Confessions of a Desperate Housewife and check out some more great photos, drop some comment luv and let us both know your thoughts!