8/365-3 My Gear

"The Write Stuff"

By education and profession I am a musician (clarinetist and professor of music theory and composition). And obviously photography is a much loved hobby. But it is really the pencil that is the most important piece of gear I own. I use it to write music, to make performance markings, to take notes of all kinds, to journal, to underline important things in photography books and manuals. That pencil is truly the key to my success in everything that I do. Yes, I am still a big fan of paper and pencil though I have and use all of the technological gadgets.

7/365-3 Solitude

"Circles of Quiet"

I am an only child.  Only children, at least those few that I have known, are content with solitude for the most part.  When I was little, I remember spending countless hours creating with my Spirograph, often when there were no neighborhood kids around with whom to play.  Its possibilities were endless, always a new design.  In all those hours, I bet I never even came close to creating the same design twice.  It was like magic as the beautiful geometric forms emerged just from moving a plastic circle round and round and round inside another circle.  I don't know what happened to my original Spirograph. We parted ways sometime along the way.

This year for Christmas, Weber got me a new Spirograph.  It is a little different from the 1970 version, but it still has its magic.  No longer do you a need a piece of cardboard to stick pins to anchor the big circle guide so that it doesn't move.  The Spirograph now comes with that sticky tack stiff like you use to hold posters on the wall.  You can stick the plastic piece right to the paper.  This small set also only comes with two colored pens, red and blue.  The big set from my childhood had a black and green pen as well.  That doesn't matter so much.  I have a plethora of pens in way more than four colors!  And the sticky tack stuff is also a nice improvement.  Everything else is as I remember it, the clear plastic wheels and rectangles just waiting to combine and make beautiful shapes.  And all of this in a cool little tin box making it more portable than my original version.

This morning after I finished writing my morning pages, the brightly colored tin box with my new Spirograph caught my attention from its perch on the corner of the dining room table. I pulled out random pieces, stuck the wheel to my paper and off I went, making magic.  As I circled that wheel round and round moving my pens from one hole to the next, I was struck with how calming, how peaceful, how meditative this whole process was.  I now know that what I was creating forty-five years ago with my first Spirograph and what I made this morning are mandalas - sacred circles.  This morning I was overcome with calm and peace in my moments of quiet and solitude.  I suspect that the quiet circles of the Spirograph had the same calming effect on me all those years ago, I just didn't realize it. 

I wonder what children would be like today if they spent more time playing with Spirograph and less time playing video games.

6/365-3 Where I Stand - January

"Where I Stand Sit - January 2015"

I'm still trying to heal from my pre-Christmas "photography" injury so I am supposed to be taking it easy on my leg.  Yesterday I took down the Christmas decorations and this there was not much resting  so today was a day off of me feet...except for a little vacuuming.

5/365-2 Ensemble

"A Duo of Duos"

It's bad enough when people start looking like their dogs, or couples start looking like each other...but when a couple starts looking like Lego mini figures????  Scary stuff.

4/365-3 A Reflection of Me

"Give and Take"

I am see to be in my introspective period...

3/365-3 Open Possibilities

"Possibilities"

We had a great day with friends today.  We went to see Into the Woods.  I thought it was well adapted to the big screen.  Despite its basis on fairytales, it is not a children's movie.  Oh wait, fairytales were never really intended for children.  Someone forgot to tell this to the family in the back row with the screaming baby.  They did finally take the unhappy little person out to the lobby.  And then there was the pre-schooler in the second row... The other thing is, and this is rather sad, most children today do not know the stories of the fairytales well enough to understand or appreciate the mastery by which this particular story was constructed.  

The movie, because we went to the "earlybird" showing (translation: cheap) was over at 3:30.  We all had "lupper" together at a local Italian restaurant.  By the time we had finished eating, I had missed the good light for taking pictures.  Oh well...Weber and I went out to see what we could see.  I had fun playing with the possibilities.

2/365-3 Think Over

"Don't Think.  Just Be."

The left-brained academic in me often overpowers the creative free-spirit that also resides within but only occasionally is set free to come out for recess.  I am always thinking, planning, trying to learn, hoping to improve whatever I think needs improvement, which often feels like almost everything.  

For Christmas I was given the book Photography as Meditation by Torsten Hoffman.  I picked it up early today just to take a peek.  I was sitting near a window that seemed more like a percussion instrument thanks to the heavy rain beating against it.  I closed my eyes.  The rhythm, and even the melody, of the raindrops was mesmerizing.  So random yet measured, chaotic yet peaceful.  

When I opened my eyes, I looked down at the book that I realized that I had rolled into an arch in my hands.  The abstract landscape image of its cover served as a warp upon which the reflections of my window, my rain...my now...became the weft.  Like the raindrops, the lights and darks of the jumbles images were both random and peaceful.  I reached for my camera to capture that image.

When I looked at the photo on the computer, the picture that I captured was exactly what I saw with my eyes, but it did not stir the same sense of wonder an awe as it did when I held the book in my hands in front of the window only moments earlier.  I wanted that feeling back, at least for a moment.

I sat in front of the computer trying to name what it was that I felt in that previous "now" that which was gone in the image.  I decided that what was missing was the randomness, the unpredictability, the impermanence of every moment.  And truthfully, all of those things are antithetical to photography,  which seeks to preserve the fleeting moments of our lives.  With those thoughts bouncing around in my head (that I was trying to not use to think), I decided that I wanted to try to create a photo that some how might elude to the idea of impermanence. 

Today's image is that photo that I mentioned above, the one that left me emotionless.  I pulled it into Photoshop and began playing, trying things whose outcome I had no way of predicting.  You can see where I landed.  In reality this image will never change, but in its abstractness, and with the ever-changing state of my own perception, each time I look at it, there is the potential for something new to be revealed to me.  I like that.  And with that, I accomplished my goal for today's photo without too much thought.

I have yet to read a word of Hoffmann's book, but if the material in the book is as inspiring as is simply holding it in my hands and looking at the cover, working my way through its contents ought to make for quite a journey.