Running After My Hat

Ridiculous pursuits, matters solemn and less so

“Worth the Faff!”

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  • Establishing shot (color)
  • Establishing shot (B&W)

[The title of this post comes from a comment by a UK-based photographer I know on Instagram, after I’d posted this mini-slideshow there. The caption on that IG post focused on various practical annoyances I’d encountered during setup — not least, all the blessed lint present on the black backdrop, which I didn’t notice until I viewed the photos I’d taken on a large computer monitor.]

Like many people during the pandemic, at least in the so-called “developed world,” photographers have been turning to their hobby to keep their minds occupied, not wanting constantly to sit around watching TV, scrolling through social media, and the like. Idle pursuits, y’know, in idle times.

Not to suggest that such photographers are even remotely the ones suffering the most. In fact, the years 2020-21 may well be remembered as a period of creative-photographic explosion in response to various lockdowns and restrictions. Why? Because all the familiar subjects are out of reach. Public buildings and even outdoor common spaces shuttered. Travel restricted. Social distancing, masking, and other reasonable limits on spending much time with anyone other than the handful of people you’d already chosen to spend time with (only not, perhaps, quite so… exclusively.) But a recurring theme behind much Instagram posting over the last several months, at least among those who seem to take photography “seriously” (whatever that means), everyday if possible, has been — well, to put it simply: What the hell do I have left to take pictures of? And even if I find a new subject, how the hell do I shoot it so I’m not just repeating myself?

I’m lucky: I have experience with taking pictures going back far enough, without much in the way of training — or, to be honest, of practice! — that I feel somewhat renewed by all the time at my disposal. I can also, for now, set aside my guilt and/or embarrassment about photographing human subjects, especially candidly. I’m used to taking photos of the inanimate. (Let’s not speculate too much about what might say regarding my own, er, inanimation.)

Nonetheless, back in the fall I did pick up a sourcebook of ideas for photos and photo projects. It’s called The Photographer’s Playbook, and was edited by two professional photographers: Jason Fulford and Gregory Halpern. Over about 380 pages, they offer ideas — mini-projects, cloud seedings so to speak — from just that many of their colleagues in photography and other arts. Each idea is simply printed, verbatim, from the responses they gathered (one per page).

I’d almost forgotten I even had the book until a couple of weeks ago, when I found myself spinning my wheels — twiddling my thumbs — about what to do next. So I opened the book at random and directed my attention to the first page I saw. There on page 72, I decided, I found my assignment, “Object Lesson,” contributed by Sarah Cwynar. It says (in abridged form):

Look for five to ten objects that are somehow related—it could be by color, type of object, quality of surface, even a theme like “tropical,” or from the same place, like, “stuff from Mom’s basement”… See what your chosen objects look like photographically and how they related when they are placed together in one image. Narratives will develop between the objects.

Shoot a roll of film of your objects placed in different arrangements. Take some out, put new ones in, move them around…

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When Does a Photographer Know an Image Is “Done”?

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  • (1) Original…
  • (2) as shot (i.e., cropped by camera)…
  • (3) as manually cropped and edited…
  • …and (4) as converted to B&W

[Slideshow: partial screen captures from the Adobe Lightroom program, showing four basic phases in the editing of a photo I eventually posted on Instagram. The first two really required little if any “manipulation” on my part; they happened in the camera itself. My involvement didn’t even click in until step (3). For some technical details, see this separate page (opens in new tab/window).]

Instagram is typically counted among the social media, but it doesn’t in fact quite “fit” among Facebook, Twitter, etc. After all, it focuses (ha) not on the social — not on human interaction — but simply on visual representations of the world: pictures. The general nature and purpose of a given picture depends on the person or institution who posts it: it might be self- or product-promotional, or artistic, or more — or less — clever, or topical, or whatever. Within each of those general categories are various more precise ones: landscape vs. portrait, for example, or pure photography vs. photography-of-other-media (paintings, calligraphy, video, and so on).

Still, after you’ve been on Instagram for a while, it’s hard not to find yourself interacting, via comments and replies, mostly with a consistent group of people — maybe people you know from elsewhere online, or those whom you first found on IG (as it’s sometimes called) and gravitated to based on a common interest — subjects, genres, media, whatever.

One of the folks whose daily posts and commentary about photography I always look forward to seeing recently posted this photo:

[Image used by permission of Chris Sutcliff (Instagram: oldmansutty77). Thanks, Chris!]

…accompanied by this caption:

I’m interested in how you guys edit your work – do you wing it or do you know what you’re doing? Do you use presets or, like me, hurl yourself at edits with no plan or talent? I feel like I’m winging it with occasional flashes of actual insight. I don’t want to tell you how long I spent on this tree (and the alternate shot before it which ended up in the bin under a hail of verbal abuse). I went to the extreme edges and back again, and I suppose I must have learned a lot along the way; lessons like never ever photograph a backlit tree. Everything about this shot was a total bastard, and I have hated every second of editing it. I’m glad it’s dead. It can’t be just me that experiences this level of frustration. Please share your own tales of woe, join me in ineptitude. Thanks.

As it happens, I thought the photo of the tree was just fine as posted — no post-processing recriminations “necessary.” But I also recognized the misery — boy howdy, did I ever!

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Dancing Nimbly in a Tangle of Overlaps and Abutments

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[Image: “Manhattan Cocktail,” by John E. Simpson. (Shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.) This was #682 (2019-08-09) in my series of one thousand “#everydaybandw” posts on Instagram. As you can see, they weren’t always 100% “B&W”; I told myself I was honoring the spirit of the label rather than the letter. (Or maybe I was just making vague, hand-waving excuses of the sorta-kinda-close-enough variety.)]

From whiskey river:

“Monster” is derived from the Latin noun monstrum, “divine portent,” itself formed on the root of the verb monere, “to warn.” It came to refer to living things of anomalous shape or structure, or to fabulous creatures like the sphinx who were composed of strikingly incongruous parts, because the ancients considered the appearance of such beings to be a sign of some impending supernatural event. Monsters, like angels, functioned as messengers and heralds of the extraordinary. They served to announce impending revelation, saying, in effect, “Pay attention; something of profound importance is happening.”

(Susan Stryker [source])

…and:

When you observe that today’s controversies often reveal not relevance but the clash of the untaught with the wrongly taught, and when you can endure this knowledge without cynicism, as a lover of humankind, greater compensations will be open to you than a sense of your own importance or satisfaction in thinking about the unreliability of others.

(Idries Shah [source])

…and:

Is there
any way we can purely touch the world again, the way
a salamander does, breathing through its skin? Can we
become the strands of this shrine we weave ourselves into
hoping to emerge into a world where — where what?
There is no end to desire, which means no end to regret,
no end to our need for an ending, so that even the sky refuses
our touch, that sky which, at its bluest, is the most empty.

(Richard Jackson [source, apparently (unconfirmed); the last several lines of a poem called “Benediction”])

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How to Make the Trip from Unsatisfactory Here, to Vaguely-OK There, While Living with All the Godawful Stuff en Route

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[Image: “Dry Summer (Until It Wasn’t,” by John E. Simpson. (Shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.) This photo is among those in the “#oneoffs#” album at my SmugMug site.]

From whiskey river (all but the last sentence):

I hate endings. Just detest them. Beginnings are definitely the most exciting, middles are perplexing and endings are a disaster.The temptation towards resolution, towards wrapping up the package, seems to me a terrible trap. Why not be more honest with the moment? The most authentic endings are the ones which are already revolving towards another beginning. That’s genius. Somebody told me once that fugue means to flee, so that Bach’s melody lines are like he’s running away.

(Sam Shepard [source])

…and:

You go on by doing the best you can. You go on by being generous. You go on by being true. You go on by offering comfort to others who can’t go on. You go on by allowing the unbearable days to pass and allowing the pleasure in other days. You go on by finding a channel for your love and another for your rage.

(Cheryl Strayed [source (#24)])

…and:

The narrator is well aware of how regrettable is his inability to record at this point something of a really spectacular order—some heroic feat, or memorable deed like those that thrill us in the chronicles of the past. The truth is that nothing is less sensational than pestilence and by reason of their very duration. Great misfortunes are monotonous. In the memories of those who lived through them, the grim days of plague do not stand out like vivid flames, ravenous and inextinguishable, beaconing a troubled sky, but rather like the slow, deliberate progress of some monstrous thing crushing out all upon its path.

(Albert Camus [source])

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The Mysterious Experience of the Sirens’ Song

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[Image: “Yam awely,” by Emily Kame Kngwarreye. (1995; synthetic polymer paint on canvas; approximately 16 feet wide by 5 feet high. For more information, see the site of the National Gallery of Australia, where the original resides.) From the essay where I encountered it this week: “It is not our cultural differences that strike me when I look at this painting. I know that a complex set of ideas, stories, and experiences have informed its maker. But what captures me is beyond reason. It cannot be put into words. My felt response to this work does not answer questions of particular cultures or histories. It is more universal than that. I am aware of a beautiful object offered up by its maker, who surely felt the beauty of her creation just as I do.”]

From whiskey river (although there it omitted a crucial sentence on the next-to-last paragraph):

One day Dostoevsky threw out the enigmatic remark: “Beauty will save the world.” What sort of a statement is that? For a long time I considered it mere words. How could that be possible? When in bloodthirsty history did beauty ever save anyone from anything? Ennobled, uplifted, yes — but whom has it saved?

There is, however, a certain peculiarity in the essence of beauty, a peculiarity in the status of art: namely, the convincingness of a true work of art is completely irrefutable and it forces even an opposing heart to surrender. It is possible to compose an outwardly smooth and elegant political speech, a headstrong article, a social program, or a philosophical system on the basis of both a mistake and a lie. What is hidden, what distorted, will not immediately become obvious.

Then a contradictory speech, article, program, a differently constructed philosophy rallies in opposition — and all just as elegant and smooth, and once again it works. Which is why such things are both trusted and mistrusted.

In vain to reiterate what does not reach the heart.

But a work of art bears within itself its own verification: conceptions which are devised or stretched do not stand being portrayed in images, they all come crashing down, appear sickly and pale, convince no one. But those works of art which have scooped up the truth and presented it to us as a living force — they take hold of us, compel us, and nobody ever, not even in ages to come, will appear to refute them.

So perhaps that ancient trinity of Truth, Goodness and Beauty is not simply an empty, faded formula as we thought in the days of our self-confident, materialistic youth? If the tops of these three trees converge, as the scholars maintained, but the too blatant, too direct stems of Truth and Goodness are crushed, cut down, not allowed through — then perhaps the fantastic, unpredictable, unexpected stems of Beauty will push through and soar TO THAT VERY SAME PLACE, and in so doing will fulfill the work of all three?

In that case Dostoevsky’s remark, “Beauty will save the world”, was not a careless phrase but a prophecy? After all he was granted to see much, a man of fantastic illumination.

(Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn [source])

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In the Unmapped Land Between Me and Not-Me

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[Image: “That’s not me in the mirror,” by Anais Gómez-C (whose Flickr username seems to be sweet_vengeance; found it on Flickr, and use it here under a Creative Commons license. (Thank you!) I don’t usually select watermarked images for these posts: certainly it’s up to the photographer or artist to embed a signature or not, yet I find it distracts from the work in order to highlight the work’s creator. (Again, it also may indicate just a touch too much insecurity about their work being “stolen.”) But this image was too apropos to disregard, and the watermark, too discreet to worry about.]

From whiskey river:

Between two and three o’clock—at the half-way house of night—I heard slow hoofs below my window, and leaning out, saw under moonshine two great cart-horses wandering down the road together. They were enjoying a phase of their existence unknown to us. They conversed in little sounds and when one stopped, to snort and sniff at the water of a duck-pond by the way, the other also stopped, raised his head and looked steadfastly up into the starry sky. I saw the moonlight in his big eyes. Presently they put their noses together. Then one gave a slight start—perhaps at the opinions of the other—and side by side they sauntered away into the night-hidden land.

One knew that they were revealing much about themselves concealed from their masters, and meditating upon life in their fashion while man slept.

(Eden Phillpotts [source])

Not from whiskey river:

There is such a dreamlike quality to snow as it falls heavily and piles up, transforming our regular world into an uncanny landscape. Sitting here, watching it, one feels the urge to remember what is underneath, just as when waking from a dream.

Sometimes it isn’t easy to see into what is there in front of us. We know that our dreams are just ways we have of telling ourselves about ourselves when we are asleep, and yet we have learned to keep from ourselves so much of who we fully, truly are that our dreams seem strange. Amazing, isn’t it? What we tell ourselves about ourselves must be told with so much secrecy and arcane symbolism that we can’t remember it, and if we can, we can’t understand it. At such moments our inner world seems shrouded, muted, alienated, as the natural world seems when it is covered with snow.

Isn’t it sad to realize that we have learned not to accept who we fully are? And isn’t it wonderful to remember that gradually, with courage, we can come to accept and include even what at first had appeared so strange, so horrible, so not-me in our dreams?

Can we be resolute about facing, with bare attention, the reality of things? Even when we discover that the old, narrow myth of who we are no longer holds, and the emerging, fuller person is so unexpected?

(Sylvia Forges Ryan [source])

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It Can Go Either Way (Hint: So Can You)

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[Image: “Every Day a New Balancing Act,” by John E. Simpson. (Shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.)]

From whiskey river (last three stanzas):

what they did yesterday afternoon

they set my aunts house on fire

i cried the way women on tv do
folding at the middle
like a five pound note.
i called the boy who use to love me
tried to ‘okay’ my voice
i said hello
he said warsan, what’s wrong, what’s happened?

i’ve been praying,
and these are what my prayers look like;
dear god
i come from two countries
one is thirsty
the other is on fire
both need water.

later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?

it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.

(Warsan Shire [source])

…and:

I am of the order whose purpose is not to teach the world a lesson but to explain that school is over.

(Henry Miller [source, apparently (unconfirmed)])

…and:

Do you remember the happiest day of your life? What about the saddest? Do you ever wonder if sadness and happiness can be combined, to make a deep purple feeling, not good, not bad, but remarkable simply because you didn’t have to live on one side or the other?

(Ocean Voung [source])

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Waiting Many Moments to Grab Just One of Them

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[Image: “Catch of the Day,” by RAMH favorite Tom Waterhouse. You’ll not be surprised that I found this on Flickr, nor — of course — that I use it here under a Creative Commons license (thank you!); follow that link to read the story of the photographer’s patience.]

From whiskey river:

You really don’t have to lose everything and travel to a remote valley to discover that the world is always rushing forward to teach us, and that the greatest thing we can do is to stand there, open and available, and be taught by it. There is no limit to what this cracked and broken and achingly beautiful world can offer, and there is equally no limit to our ability to meet it.

Each day, the sun rises and we get out of bed. Another day has begun and bravely, almost recklessly, we stagger into it not knowing what it will bring to us. How will we meet this unpredictable, untamable human life? How will we answer its many questions and challenges and delights? What will we do when we find ourselves, stumble over ourselves, encounter ourselves, once again, in the kitchen?

(Dana Velden [source])

…and:

We can live any way we want. People take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience—even of silence—by choice. The thing is to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way, to locate the most tender and live spot and plug into that pulse. This is yielding, not fighting.

(Annie Dillard [source])

…and, from whiskey river’s commonplace book:

Remember
That to have the eyes of an artist,
That can be enough,
The ear of a poet,
That can be enough.
The soul of a human
just pointed
in the direction of the divine,
that can be more than enough.
I tell you this to remind myself.
Every gesture is an act of creation.
Even empty spaces and silence
can be the wings and voices of angels.

(Michele Linfante [source: couldn’t trace to original, but found here])

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You’ve Got to Blink If You Want to See

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[Image: “(Half-)Shoeless in Paradise,” by John E. Simpson. (Shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH). This was #779 (2019-11-14) in my series of 1,000 “everyday black-and-white” posts on Instagram (a series which I wrapped up in June, 2020).]

From whiskey river:

For the crust presented by the life of lies is made of strange stuff. As long as it seals off hermetically the entire society, it appears to be made of stone. But the moment someone breaks through in one place, when one person cries out, “The emperor is naked!” — when a single person breaks the rules of the game, thus exposing it as a game — everything suddenly appears in another light and the whole crust seems then to be made of a tissue on the point of tearing and disintegrating uncontrollably.

(Václav Havel [source])

…and:

But there are other people, people who choose to be crazy in order to cope with what they regard as a crazy world. They have adopted craziness as a lifestyle. I’ve found that there is nothing I can do for these people because the only way you can get them to give up their craziness is to convince them that the world is actually sane. I must confess that I have found such a conviction almost impossible to support.

(Tom Robbins [source])

…and:

Reality Is Always Freshly Born

The more successful a technique, the more it is guaranteed to produce certain results.
But reality can never be known in advance.
Creativity is not a matter of just applying know-how in order to achieve ends that have been figured out in advance.
Indeed, we may say that if you know what to do in any situation, it’s the wrong thing.
Living truth has to be created in the act of living and even the means have to be created in the act of giving ourselves to the task.
If you know what to say, it’s a lie.
If you know how to teach, you’re a propagandist.
If you know how to compose a verse, you’re not a poet.
If you know how to get along with your husband or wife, you’re not really married, you’re simply applying psychology.
(If you know how to heal your client, you’re not a real therapist.)
Reality is not gained by know how.
Reality is always freshly born.
Whenever a relationship or action is real, it is being created and re-created from moment to moment.
The real question is not what to do, but
How can I give myself more completely to the situation, to the task, to the person at hand?
As one learns how to give oneself more and more unreservedly, one is led step by step and
Discovers what to do

(Bernard Phillips [source (anecdotal/hearsay)])

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Complicated Answers Tend to Follow Complicating Questions

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[Image: “don’t ask for permission,” by Alexandre du Launoy. (Found it over on Flickr (of course), and use it here under (of course) a Creative Commons license — thank you!) The complete text of this stenciled poster says in English, more or less: “If you want to be great, stop asking for permission.” I love that the hipshot, masked human figure depicted holds (a) a can of spray paint and (b) a stencil for one of the words spray-painted on the poster — apparently caught in the act of creating the very poster on which she’s shown.]

From whiskey river:

A Contemporary Fable: Upstream/Downstream

It was many years ago that the villagers of Downstream recall spotting the first body in the river. Some old-timers remember how spartan were the facilities and procedures for managing that sort of thing. Sometimes, they say, it would take hours to pull 10 people from the river, and even then only a few would survive.

Though the number of victims in the river has increased greatly in recent years, the good folks of Downstream have responded admirably to the challenge. Their rescue system is clearly second to none: most people discovered in the swirling waters are reached within 20 minutes—many less than 10. Only a small number drown each day before help arrives—a big improvement from the way it used to be.

Talk to the people of Downstream and they’ll speak with pride about the new hospital by the edge of the water, the flotilla of rescue boats ready for service at a moments notice, the comprehensive health plans for coordinating all the manpower involved, and the large numbers of highly trained and dedicated swimmers always ready to risk their lives to save victims from the raging currents. Sure it costs a lot but, say the Downstreamers, what else can decent people do except to provide whatever is necessary when human lives are at stake.

Oh, a few people in Downstream have raised the question now and again, but most folks show little interest in what’s happening Upstream. It seems there’s so much to do to help those in the river that nobody’s got time to check how all those bodies are getting there in the first place. That’s the way things are, sometimes.

(Donald Ardell [source, apparently, but I was able to confirm much of the full text here])

…and:

I wanted to ask you about your vision of perfection in an imperfect world, or what side of the earth calls out to you when you touch a physical globe, or maybe about your greatest heartache and how you still go on as your world continues turning, or what you do with a memory once lodged inside your bones that’s still breathing, and burning.

But you’re still a stranger, and I’m overly polite, so I’ll ask all about your day when I’d rather know about your life.

(Victoria Erickson [source])

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