Time out for tea

I must say that the debate over the last few days was one of the most spirited that I’ve had on this blog ever. Much thanks to those of you who commented. When I woke this morning, I was thinking about tea for some reason. I no longer wonder why, I figure that the reason will be known eventually.

As I was doing a bit of light surfing this morning, after eating breakfast, I came remembered a Zen parable that I liked:

A Cup of Tea

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!”

“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

This is one of a very few Zen parables that I actually understand where it is pointing. Many are very simple in their statements, but profound in meaning. And, it was very appropriate for statements that I had made earlier. It was a great reminder to come to the table with an empty cup.

Again, thanks for all of your comments and the great participation. It was enlightening and gave me lots of food for thought. I shall be chewing on that ‘food’ for a while!

Near the end, Gordon showed up with some more tea. I had to empty my cup several times and, upon filling and drinking more, found that I liked the taste of some of the teas that were presented.

I wish that I had said that

Fear to make a step into the Great Unknown because the fear to loose everything is still greater than the hope to win everything.

I found the above words in this post and the words were so stirring and rang so true to me. Sometimes, someone can just summarize things so succinctly and with such clarity that it leaves you breathless, or at the least, knowing, on some deep level that they spoke ‘truth’.

I was going to go into a post talking about my personal experiences with this, but I don’t think that I need to, the quote says it all. It’s something to think about … Do yourself a favor and go and read the post.

Another tool for the bag

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!

SoFoBoMo:Last year. This year.

I didn’t finish my book this year. I started on May 10th and here it is June 23rd and still no book. Oh, I have one in progress. The title is Amor Fati: Accepting what comes your way. I have about 20 of the required 35 pictures, perhaps a few more.

It had been on my mind for a very short time: Why didn’t I finish? Yet, it was a question that I easily dropped and continued on with life. I did not and do not consider it a failure. A so called failure is really a learning experience if you take the time to dissect it. One thing that I have learned is that questions are always answered, but not necessarily when and how we want them answered and we have be willing to hear and understand the answer, even if we don’t like it.

This morning I awoke about 6:00 AM. As I lie there, my body wanted to go for a walk. I tried to dissuade it, but it was not hearing me, so we went for a 40 minute walk. It was invigorating. As I walked, I listened to Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth. This morning he was talking about being in the moment, as he is wont to do! Anyway, he was talking about creating gaps in thought streams by noticing your breathing, inhaling and exhaling. So, I fell into that rhythm as I continued my walk. When I got back to my apartment, it hit me suddenly …

I didn’t finish because I was not enjoying the process. I was so focused on the destination. I was no longer there just shooting, enjoying, exploring. The thoughts of doing something different, better, more clever than last year, of secretly wanting some external praise for my efforts, were foremost in my mind. I was in competition with a memory. It became a chore and the last thing that I wanted was another chore.

Last year, I was really into the journey. I was exploring a place that I had never seen and was giddy with excitement. I didn’t care what the final outcome of the book was. Of course, I wanted it to be nice, but that wasn’t important. What was important was exploring Van Landingham Glen, which I did and it is a place that I frequent now … still exploring.

I do plan on finishing the book, but it has to be at its own pace and it will most likely be done entirely with film. So, finally after a shower, my body says to me: Now, aren’t you glad that you went for that walk! Yes! I am!

By request: The process

In response to the The value of critique post, Scott C said:

What I’ve found the most helpful are sites where a photographer posts a picture and then walks through their thought process in choosing the subject, composing, lighting, post-processing, etc. That type of talk-through helps me see into the photographer’s ideas. I can accept or reject the outcome, but at least I know why choices were made. This in turn helps me rethink my choices when I shoot because I have new ideas.
–Scott C

This statement has been at the back of my mind for several days and now, as things bubble up to the surface, I think that I’ll make an effort to answer it. Certainly, this speaks to my specific ways of doing things.

I am an intuitive shooter. That is to say that if I feel something, which sometimes gets distilled down to a single word, I’ll take a picture of it. While framing, there may be a mental discussion on how best to convey that one word. That word might be: awe, funny, tender, sweet, amazing, profound, or a number of other words.

But first, I have to be able to really see it, whatever it is. Our eyes play tricks on us. If you don’t believe it, just go here and have a look! Having that knowledge, I think is one key to ’seeing’. I realize that my brain seeks to fill in the details with what it believes should be there based on prior experiences. It sees labels and assigns prior knowledge to that thing: “That is a blackbird. Over there is a tree. There are some people fishing, etc.”. Basically, it’s telling me that I already have ‘knowledge’ of what these things are, so I don’t need to explore.

When I’m out, most times I try to form a disconnection between the label and the thing. This is accomplished quite easily, sometimes, if you are patient. Have you ever written your name over and over and over again? Soon, the letters don’t even make sense anymore. They become gibberish. This is the same thing that happens when I sit quietly in a location. First, when I arrive, it is Azalea Park in Summerville, SC. Next, it is a bench in a park. Next, some trees and a path. Next some light, shadow, and a breeze, etc. Then it starts to fade into a bunch of abstract things. Soon, I start to see only shapes, colors, and activities with no labels attached. I can feel this shift. That’s when the single words, more like ideas than labels, start to appear. That’s when the shooting begins in earnest. It usually takes me about 10 or 15 minutes to get there, sometimes less, sometimes more, sometimes it just doesn’t happen. Prior to that, the rest is just warm-up on the way to that state. I’m easily brought out of this moment. All it takes is a word or two from a stranger, which happens frequently, or perhaps a call on my cell phone. *Poof*, back to left brain mode and thinking.

Sometimes, simply staring at something causes this transformation. Staring at a puddle, for example, that has plants sticking out of it suddenly becomes an exotic island full of possibilities. This is letting the labels drift away. Perhaps you have done this yourself. Have you ever found a nice place to lie down and have a look at the sky as the clouds drift by? Suddenly, after a period of relaxation, they are no longer clouds but all sorts of other shapes. If someone distracts you and you try to continue to see that other possibility, it’s difficult. You’ve slipped out of that moment. Thought and labeling have resumed. Back to clouds they go!

As for post processing, that too is a different realm. Again, I’m seeking to portray an idea that I had, rather than an actual photo of some ‘thing’. Sometimes what I see during the shot and what I see during the post processing are quite different and I come up with a different intention than when I started.

About this photo and the process: When I first arrived at the park, it was my intention to take a few photos, read a bit, walk a bit, then head home. I sat on a nearby bench for a while, read a little, then moved over to brick wall just at the head of this small path and continued to read. I stopped reading for a bit to have a look around. It was then that I noticed the different intensities of light and how this small path looked very inviting. So, I took several pictures using different focal lengths. In post processing, it looked pretty nice, but in color it looked ‘nice’, but it didn’t seem to portray what I wanted, which, I think was an invitation to walk down this path, or perhaps just look down it. I tried several variations of toning and finally landed here, giving it the proper amount of nostalgia, I think, and an inviting look.

Well, Scott, I hope that gives you a look into my process. A brief summary would be: I go. I wait to see what happens. I try to capture it.

Is burn-out possible?

Winter Light

There is another issue that I think needs to be kept in mind and allowances made. This issue is mental health. Pushing ourselves in certain ways, may not be in our best interest. There are many theories and best practice guidelines out there and it is difficult to know what is best for each individual. Here is one that I think works.
…
I think we have all heard of “burn out”. You don’t want this to happen for those things that you enjoy.
–Bob Wong

In yesterday’s post, The work of it, Bob Wong came up with a very interesting comment. An excerpt is above. You can see the entire comment here. I’d like to state the Bob is a much welcomed contributor here and has provided me with several ideas of posts. I like when he visits.

His post made me wonder if indeed we can get burned-out doing what we love, our passion. So, I did what I usually do and went to the dictionary for a consultation to make sure that I really understood what burnout meant and here’s what the dictionary had to say:

Physical or emotional exhaustion, especially as a result of long-term stress or dissipation.

Mozart, who many deemed as a musical genius, was, in fact a seriously dedicated student and practitioner of music. It was said that, by the age of 28, his hands were deformed for all of the practice that he had done over the years. I think, too, of Michael Jordon and his legendary practice routines and love some of his quotes, especially this one:

I can never stop working hard. Each day I feel that I have to improve. Hard work…Determination…I gotta keep pushing myself.

–Michael Jordan

Here, I don’t think that Michael Jordan was talking about pushing himself to do something that he didn’t love. He just kept expecting better things from himself and kept delivering. He wasn’t naturally gifted, but he just outworked any and every person around. As far as we know, he never burned-out on basketball

On a personal note: I’ve been a software developer since 1982. I’ve probably produced several hundred thousands of lines of code, perhaps over a million. I have no idea. Although I do it day in, day out, each and every day, I’ve not become burned-out of software development. I have become burned-out at a particular job because the expectations were much too high, unrealistic is more the word, but the love for development, no matter how much I learn, has never left me in 27 years. It’s the same with photography. I practice several times a week and always want to know more. I don’t always do the work because I “let” life get in the way, sometimes. Yet, every time that I recover, I’m glad to have that camera in my hand.

Frequently, I’m disappointed … sometimes, severely, but I never feel burned-out. I may be overwhelmed by other aspects of my life, as I have been lately, but the passion has never died in all of these years.

I think that burn-out, so to speak, is the culmination of the mental stress that you put upon yourself to achieve something great and not having it happen. It’s not doing it for the love, but for the outcome. If you get no outcome, or perhaps no accolades, the stress builds and you try harder to prove that you are worthy. You’re not doing it for the love.

With these thoughts in mind, I really don’t think that burn-out is really possible. Any other takes on this? Have I missed something?