Paul Lester Photography

Childhood memories

This weekend, as I walked around my former elementary school, McEbright Elementary, I was aware of a number of feelings. Feelings of nostalgia. Feelings of joy. Feelings of sadness for innocence lost. I wanted to keep these feelings alive because I thought that they would make a great project. Certainly, I didn’t want to slow down the process by writing. It’s too cumbersome.

I had been thinking of purchasing a digital recorder. So, I went to the only place that I was pretty sure would be open on Sunday morning, Walmart, and purchased a Sony 1 GB digital recorder for about $60 USD. It’s compact, very easy to use, and has a number of features to make organizing one’s thoughts fairly easy. You can organize your thoughts into folders: A, B, C, D, E.

After I made the purchase, I came back to the school, got back into the mood, walked around the playground, the building, and recorded my thoughts and memories. All through the rest of the morning, I simply pressed the record button to record any thoughts that I had. It’s a great way to take notes, etc. of those great, yet fleeting, ideas that you have along the way. I think that this will be my constant companion from now on.

When I returned, I sat down and, as I worked on my book and listened to the snippets that I had recorded. It was fantastic way to recapture those on-the-spot feelings that often soften and even disappear after a very short time.

The downside to this particular recorder, as well as other Sony recorders, is that it is a proprietary format and has only Windoze software available for it. There is no Mac equivalent that I have found. I did see a post on a forum of a work-around. Plug the output of the recorder into the Mac and record it directly to the machine. Yeah, it’s digital to analog to digital, but at least it will be captured on your computer. Also, I found in that same post that Olympus recorders are Mac friendly.

I can say that I would have bought an Olympus, if Walmart would have had them AND I would have known about the Sony Windoze-only issue. However, it’s not a show stopper. I’m glad that I bought it. However, I could have saved about $20 by getting a 512 MB model.

Another non-photography tool for the bag. I think that I’m now officially multimedia!

It’s almost 6:00 PM and the temperature has cooled down to a chilly 91 degrees. On my way home, about 4:00 PM, it was 101 degrees and quite sunny. As you can probably guess, I’m not so interested in going out and shooting in this weather. All thoughts of going to the beach, marshes, or anywhere quickly dissipate when I walk outside and am wrapped in the loving arms of 101 degrees and a good bit of humidity. I think: “Hmmm! Looks like a good day to do some more post processing!”.

While I was in Akron, OH this weekend, I did enjoy the 60 degree mornings and 80 degree days. It was quite pleasant. I took a number of photos, too. I took quite a few at my niece’s graduation as well as quite a few for a photo project that I’ve been wanting to do for a number of years. I started it last night!

I’ve started walking again. I reserve the mornings for that. It’s amazing how much better I feel through the day after a 45 minute walk in the morning. It’s slightly over 2 miles, but it is invigorating. So, I’ll have to figure out a time when I can go shooting. Perhaps on the weekend. Perhaps occasionally I’ll tough it out and brave the heat, but it seems as though my creative juices have trouble in that kind of weather, or perhaps they don’t … maybe the juices just boil away in the intense heat!

I’ve noticed that the natural June/July slowdown of blog postings is in full effect. Northern Hemisphere summer play time, I suppose.

I went to Akron, OH this weekend to attend my niece’s graduation from Brown Mackey College where she earned here Associates of Applied Business in Criminal Justice. While I was here, I took the opportunity to catch up with a friend and former coworker, Robert Terry. Robert and I worked at York Steak House some 27 or 28 years ago and have, some how, just caught back up with each other this year through Facebook. I guess that it does work!

On Friday evening we spent a pleasant 4 hours together at Bob Evans restaurant talking about old times, new times, the current economy, jobs, family, but mostly photography. It was a pure, unadulterated geek fest! You should have been there. We set outside on the bench for about an hour and compared D300 settings. Something that only a photographer could love! Wait! You say! You had a digital camera with you? But, I thought that you were all film and what not! Well, not completely. I needed this camera to capture these important moments as well as to geek out with Robert. LOL!

Overall, it was a great time and great to catch up. We both made promises to keep in touch. I’m sure that that won’t be a problem as he visits the blog and I’ll be sure to look him up each time that I come to Akron!

I enjoyed my family as well as all of the ‘drama’ that they bring to the table. They certainly are an interesting group of folks, as I’m sure that most families are.

The photo is from my sister’s small garden out front. Not bad for hand-held shot … I did fell totally lost without my tripod, though!

A couple of posts ago, I had mentioned the possibility of being mentored, specifically, by George DeWolfe. As a first step in the process, George asks that you call him on the telephone so that he can discuss the process with you and see if he might be able to help you.

I completed this first step last night. I spoke to George for about 15 minutes. As expected, based on what I saw of his photos, he is a soft spoken, kind person. He told me that he’d been doing this type of mentoring for 12 years. The length of the commitment is 1 year and consists of a number of assignments and contact with him, via telephone, about every 2 weeks. The next step is to provide him with a group of 20 photos with a common theme. The theme could be anything that you want. Along with that I needed to provide a page telling him about my passion for photography. After I told him that I have an online gallery as well as a blog, he said that he’d look at the pictures as well as read the blog. Further, he indicated that he is going to build a blog of his own. I look forward to that. It’s always interesting to see what’s behind the curtain.

Using these 2 items, he will make a determination as to if he thinks that he can help me along my journey, assuming that I want to go ahead with it. We did not discuss price. I, for one, didn’t want that to come into play until I had the chance to decide if we were right for each other. The student and teacher must be a good fit to maximize the learning … on both parts.

Immediately after the call, I sat quietly and just started writing without thinking. That is, letting the words flow through me from wherever they come. In the end, I was rather surprised by what I’d written:

From the time that I picked up a camera, a Minolta SRT-101, back in 1980, I was hooked. Photography, for me, is something that I have never tired of. I am constantly seeking out new, better ways to portray a feeling. It is a means of sharing, of discovering, and often times, a way of working things out.

In recent years, I have been deeply touched by reading such books as the Tao Te Ching, Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth and The Power of Now, and various books on Zen. This has changed my outlook on life and my photography. It has caused me to look deeper still into the world, not simply the world of labels, but the that which exists beyond the label.
Certainly, the passion is still there, probably more entrenched, but the desire to see deeper is there as well. I’m no longer looking for the surface prettiness or the perfect light, but looking for that something more.

My goal, I think, or more aptly, journey, would be to, first, hone my vision to a razor sharp edge, then to teach this type of photography to beginners and advanced beginners. To help them master the technical aspect of photography and to help them delve into spiritual realm within their own understanding. I seek to find a better way to express this deepening understanding of the world as I see it.

I photograph for myself, not in the selfish manner, but as I mentioned, to discover new things. I am not concerned with outside praise and competitions, as a matter of fact, I find them distracting. I photograph for the pure joy of it.

I want to bring greater power to my photographs. There are those moments of clarity, of lucidity, when I feel that I have reached the apex of my photography, when I come back with some photograph so sublime that I wonder if I was the one who took it. This is one of my favorites.

It causes a stillness in me when I look at it.

There are those other moments when I think that I fall miserably short, yet, the passion continues to drive me to do better. To dig deeper. There’s nothing like picking up the camera again, revisiting a place that you’ve visited dozens of times, and discovering something new, something amazing, something truly worthy of awe.

My passion drives me to attempt to catch the magic of the world that few people ever take time to stop and notice.
Paul

I had a devil of a time sending it to him because of Time Warner’s Road Runner service kept blocking my e-mails saying that I was a spammer! It finally got through! I had to send it from work and just received a confirmation from George.

So, I’m interested in hearing what the next steps entail. I’ll keep you informed …

I really like to look at other photographer’s work and writings. My tastes seem to be constantly changing as I grow and discover more. Currently, I really like the work of David Ward as well as George DeWolfe; Both really resonate with me. Both seem very contemplative and just seem to be able to grasp and hold my attention. I don’t think that I want to ‘be like them’, but I sure find their work appealing. Their work seems to transcend the object that they are photographing and becomes something else.

What I would like to know is whose work you find interesting/fascinating/attractive, and why, if you care to share. It also gives me more links to look at and more points of view to consider. Please feel free to include more than one link!

Thanks!