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Author Topic: Quo Vadis, Coffee Corner  (Read 5257 times)

Rob C

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Re: Quo Vadis, Coffee Corner
« Reply #60 on: November 11, 2018, 11:22:40 am »

Do some documentary photography where you live or can visit.  Think a little outside the box and get out of your comfort zone.  I don't know how much I will be able to do during the winter months but I do want to go to some of the parts of West Virginia that are economically desolate and see what things are like; a lot of these are only about 3-4 hours away by car.  It's too easy to live inside one's bubble.

EDIT:  meant to add that there was a really nice documentary film by Alexandra Pelosi where she did just what I was talking about.  A really funny thing happened at the end of the film where one of the people she filmed made a comment about Nancy Pelosi's grandchildren and he didn't realize that they were right on the beach where she was filming.  She brought him over and introduced the two children.


Photographically speaking, I no longer have a comfort zone; I did what I did when it was career, and photography, to be brutally honest about it, inspires me less and less to do it.

I derive pleasure from looking at the works of my favourites, and that's about it. It doesn't take much time to discover that people, in general, are not much good at it, which reduces the potential value of the Internet a great deal. One soon runs out of sites where repeat visits offer much joy.

I have two sets of "favourites" lists that were built up over the lives of several computers; now and again I revisit these, and after checking some sites out again, I just delete them. You'd be surprised how many quite successful photographers have left their sites in limbo, neither updating them nor having the heart to delete them once and for all. It seems that it is an occupation that can buoy you up for years, and then, one fine day, just run out of steam altogether.

It's not really surprising, when you think about it. Photography is actually quite hard, labour-intensive work, even if just sitting at a computer. Your body may not be doing much other than harming itself, but the brain and nervous system are both working hard. It's all well and good when it's business, but when you realise that nobody really gives a damn whether you take another snap or not, yourself probably included, there's a certain amount of madness in keeping on truckin' like the rabbit in the battery commercials. Of course, stopping leaves that dreaded vacuum, and so the treadmill starts to turn again.

Projects simply provide focus; of themselves they do nothing to provide deeper justification for the sweat and tears. This will probably sound strange to the casual or hobbyist shooter, but then that person inhabits a different memory/experience space that has little in common with its alternative. I wouldn't really expect a Formula 1 driver would get much kick from driving down to the local supermarket, or a deep sea diver to spend a lot of time at the local swimming pool.

KLaban

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Re: Quo Vadis, Coffee Corner
« Reply #61 on: November 11, 2018, 11:51:22 am »

Rob, it's that time of year.
« Last Edit: November 11, 2018, 12:18:53 pm by KLaban »
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Rob C

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Re: Quo Vadis, Coffee Corner
« Reply #62 on: November 11, 2018, 12:18:15 pm »

Rob, it's that time of year.

Right again, twice.

:-)

KLaban

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Re: Quo Vadis, Coffee Corner
« Reply #63 on: November 11, 2018, 12:19:25 pm »

Rob, I could counter with positives of my own but what's the point, it's not going to change how you feel about your yourself or your attitude towards photography and life in general.

Here's hoping you can find a more positive outlook in the near future.

faberryman

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Re: Quo Vadis, Coffee Corner
« Reply #64 on: November 11, 2018, 12:24:25 pm »

Projects simply provide focus; of themselves they do nothing to provide deeper justification for the sweat and tears. This will probably sound strange to the casual or hobbyist shooter, but then that person inhabits a different memory/experience space that has little in common with its alternative. I wouldn't really expect a Formula 1 driver would get much kick from driving down to the local supermarket, or a deep sea diver to spend a lot of time at the local swimming pool.
I guess I am fortunate that I have never been a race car driver or deep see diver, so metaphorically driving to the grocery store or spending time at the swimming pool, particularly when I am working on a new photographic project provides much needed satisfaction. Deep justification (or justification of any kind) is not necessary.
« Last Edit: November 11, 2018, 12:28:14 pm by faberryman »
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32BT

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Re: Quo Vadis, Coffee Corner
« Reply #65 on: November 11, 2018, 01:25:44 pm »

Rob, I could counter with positives of my own but what's the point, it's not going to change how you feel about your yourself or your attitude towards photography and life in general.

Here's hoping you can find a more positive outlook in the near future.

Well, you could always send him the red batch thingy! That should cheer him up some. Probably doesn't even need the camera attached behind it. He has no use for it anyway. Unless of course his excuse for procrastinating his roadtrip is finally sold at a reasonable price. Maybe we should do a crowdfunding campaign, just to see if he dares to put our money where his mouth is...

;-P
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Two23

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Re: Quo Vadis, Coffee Corner
« Reply #66 on: November 11, 2018, 01:31:19 pm »


This will probably sound strange to the casual or hobbyist shooter, but then that person inhabits a different memory/experience space that has little in common with its alternative. I wouldn't really expect a Formula 1 driver would get much kick from driving down to the local supermarket, or a deep sea diver to spend a lot of time at the local swimming pool.


I've come to think that the secret to happiness is to be content with where you are and what you have.  I've spent my life being in awe of what a miracle it is that I exist at all, and what's more knowing that I exist.  I think people get caught so up in the trifles of the day to day that they don't appreciate what a fluke they are in the universe and fail to appreciate that.  Yesterday was a dreary, cold day with a vicious north wind and yet I was out with my camera (Chamonix 4x5 and Ilford FP4.)  I stood alone beside a derelict grain elevator and abandoned railroad tracks in a small fading town.  I was thinking of how once this was a thriving village, before that open wild prairie, and before that it was covered by a sheet of ice a half mile thick.  What will it look like 30,000 years from now?  Maybe that's the secret to happiness--not losing one's sense of perspective and wonder of it all?   I still find a great beauty in the world.  Sometimes I find it right on Youtube, carefully hidden amongst the cat videos :

Mozart Piano Concerto #26, Larghetto:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llRpSkA5Sys


Kent in SD
« Last Edit: November 11, 2018, 01:54:21 pm by Two23 »
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Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris,
miserere nobis.

Alan Goldhammer

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Re: Quo Vadis, Coffee Corner
« Reply #67 on: November 11, 2018, 01:45:44 pm »

I wouldn't really expect a Formula 1 driver would get much kick from driving down to the local supermarket,
I think Stirling Moss was quite famous for getting lots of speeding tickets in 'normal' driving on English roads.
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Rob C

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Re: Quo Vadis, Coffee Corner
« Reply #68 on: November 11, 2018, 03:48:43 pm »

Rob, I could counter with positives of my own but what's the point, it's not going to change how you feel about your yourself or your attitude towards photography and life in general.

Here's hoping you can find a more positive outlook in the near future.


I don't think it has anything at all to do with being positive or negative, as a mindset or person; it just is. Other aspects of life have little bearing on it, really. The act and value of making a picture is very much exaggerated as a thing, an action. (I'm speaking, again, from the non-commercial point of view.)

There's the notion that we are sometimes bursting with this creative essence that shrieks for manifestation in some image or another. But does it? Or is it, pehaps, just a sense of obligation that we have to pursue because of the fact that we've bought all this stuff and feel deeply guilty if we don't employ it? It's certainly true that when very young, life is new, you believe in everything being possible - my 1960s - and go out to discover if you were right or not. That doesn't last forever, that sense of excitement. Especially when you draw your pension and know too many hospital staff too well.

That's a time when, as Kent describes, you are inclined to look at the greater world and its very nature, and particularly at your part within it. Suddenly, your anima, your concept of what you and your life are shrinks to a microdot. I'll recount a little incident concerning my mother. She came to live here for a period during her 80s, and one morning I found her in the corridor in tears. I asked her what on Earth was the matter, and she replied, simply, I feel I've lost my identity. I didn't understand. In that decade myself, I do; only too well. The certainties of everything collapse at your feet, and you realise that that went before was mostly a fluke, a turn of the cards, and that in the end you are but another grain of sand on the beach or, if lucky, a cowrie shell instead. A funny irony struck me last week: about a year ago I found this stationery store that sells a large calendar with space at each numeral to allow notes: I snapped it on the cellphone and went off to the shop to buy a replacement for next year (you see? positive thinking!). As I showed the lady the image, I realised that many years ago I was handing out my own calendars at this time of year... now, I'm hoping that I can find one that suits my needs! Oh boy, let's go photograph some more dirty windows and headless mannequins, and play at Saul!

Today was a beautifully sunny day, so I didn't have to go out and look for pictures, and just had lunch on the terrace instead. Tonight it's freezing my ass off. There was a saying in Scotland about Edinburgh women being all fur coat and no knickers; well, that's how a good, sunny winter's day is out here for the average retiree female: bikini through lunchtime, and layers of sweaters after four. I guess that was something worth working towards.

;-)

RSL

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Re: Quo Vadis, Coffee Corner
« Reply #69 on: November 11, 2018, 04:42:49 pm »


I've come to think that the secret to happiness is to be content with where you are and what you have.  I've spent my life being in awe of what a miracle it is that I exist at all, and what's more knowing that I exist.  I think people get caught so up in the trifles of the day to day that they don't appreciate what a fluke they are in the universe and fail to appreciate that.  Yesterday was a dreary, cold day with a vicious north wind and yet I was out with my camera (Chamonix 4x5 and Ilford FP4.)  I stood alone beside a derelict grain elevator and abandoned railroad tracks in a small fading town.  I was thinking of how once this was a thriving village, before that open wild prairie, and before that it was covered by a sheet of ice a half mile thick.  What will it look like 30,000 years from now?  Maybe that's the secret to happiness--not losing one's sense of perspective and wonder of it all?   I still find a great beauty in the world.  Sometimes I find it right on Youtube, carefully hidden amongst the cat videos :

Mozart Piano Concerto #26, Larghetto:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llRpSkA5Sys


Kent in SD

Well said, Kent. I too have spent my life in awe of the universe and my place in it. When I began flying fighters I really didn’t expect to remain in the world long. I had some terribly close calls, but again and again something at the heart of the universe lifted me out of danger – and certainly not because I deserved salvation. Here’s an example from gunnery school that I put in the history I wrote for my kids and grandkids:

“Before you accepted an airplane for flight you'd do a thorough walk around to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be. Checking the elevators wasn't part of that inspection, but one morning we were getting ready for a high-angle dive bombing mission and as I walked past the tail of my F80 I reached up and casually gave the elevators a flip. They locked in the up position. I went back to operations and reported the problem. They immediately grounded all the F80's and ran them through a thorough inspection. Mine turned out to be the only one with a problem. A counterweight had broken loose and was floating around inside the horizontal stabilizer. If I'd flown that airplane I might have ended up the same way [one of my close friends] did.” [who augered in when the stick came off in his hand when he went to pull up on a high-angle dive-bombing mission.] There was nothing in the checklist about flipping the elevators, and I don’t remember ever doing it before that walk-around, though I always did it after that walk-around.

It’s all a miracle. And you’re here in the heart of that miracle. Henri Cartier-Bresson understood where we are when he said, “Looking is everything.” You look with your eyes, and your ears, and your mind, and your heart, and the incredible beauty of it all is there at your fingertips. And unless you’ve closed your eyes to it all, that’s what you put into your photograph or your painting our your poem or your music. I'm not talking about pretty. I'm talking about beauty, which is in every atom of this magnificent creation.

The Mozart is, of course, magnificent. So is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3EZoDr6kqM
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dreed

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Re: Quo Vadis, Coffee Corner
« Reply #70 on: November 27, 2018, 09:11:34 am »

These threads are what we all make of them collectively.

If the best you can contribute is a complaint then why post?

There are many photography related threads in The Coffee Corner that have no other rightful home on LuLa.

One that comes to mind is this:
https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=68125.0

I would encourage everyone to read more and read wider in the hope that people doing so would have more interesting topics of an abstract nature to share here.
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Rob C

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Re: Quo Vadis, Coffee Corner
« Reply #71 on: November 27, 2018, 12:13:24 pm »

These threads are what we all make of them collectively.

If the best you can contribute is a complaint then why post?

There are many photography related threads in The Coffee Corner that have no other rightful home on LuLa.

One that comes to mind is this:
https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=68125.0

I would encourage everyone to read more and read wider in the hope that people doing so would have more interesting topics of an abstract nature to share here.

Good grief, man, that's the job of the Opposition!

Don't you believe in democracy anymore? (That's begging the question, by the way.)

;-)
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