Ikigai

Summer then Fall – some photos, Part 4

Inner volcanoes/Inner glaciers

I found this little tool in a Walter Murch book (“In the blink of an eye”). Murch is a film editor, a kind of genius – he’s the guy who edited Apocalypse Now. He quotes an Ingmar Bergman paragraph, who explained something about… Igor Stravinsky.

Stravinsky wrote a lot about interpretation, performance.

As he had a volcano inside, he was preaching moderation. And then he couldn’t tame his volcano, and some concerts were… fiery – which was very surprising for his readers!

Murch tells that we seek balance in our lives.

1. Therefore when we realize we have a volcano somewhere inside us, we try to temper the eruptions!
2. And the one who has a glacier inside will advise passions unbridling.

The danger, tells Bergman, is to read Stravinsky the wrong way : to moderate the glacier, or to wind up the volcano.

I think of this Polish idiom : “One shouldn’t butter the butter”.

 

I knowww it’s not a tool, it’s a seed for overthinkers…

When do we have to think this way? What are our volcanoes? What are our glaciers? Do we handle balance? Do we do it the correct way?

 

Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

The need of weakness and other subjects to think of : Chronicle 53

If we see the human mind as a layer of beast and a layer of culture above, what about people who never read? Index cards certainties…

To have the right to judge, one just has to announce that they never judge.

A secret is not made to be kept, but to give some importance to the information.

The suffering of children is the absolute evil.

If one wants to get the upper hand, it’s because one is under.

The stronger of all is the one who shrugs.

A unity made of neutralized contraries, an apparent immobility which hides a vertiginous and perpetual life : develop.

What is our “horrible need of weakness”?

The coward’s tantrum.

What is temptation, what is desire? How are they different?

Categories, what do they say?

If a soft bass voice is the sign of high civilization, what about loud people?

Is to transform a place into something it’s not (take an old church and make it a gallery, take a barn and make it a store) vulgar or painful? Why?

Someone is ugly because one was born ugly, someone is ugly because mediocrity shaped their face. Do we have the faculty to determine it? Which one scares you the most?

I read that one of one father’s role (purpose) is to save time to his child, to offer or show them the most checked boxes possible before sailing on existence. I terribly agree with this one.

Those for whom one of the greatest pleasures is to cancel a travel.

This age where you have a form, an index card for everything and everyone. Your neighbor, a singer, a recipe, a writer, a movie, a city. This exercise : to cancel it, to change it, to enrich it. How?

To make/keep someone shut up, three ways : to monolog endlessly, to make as if you don’t understand, to show that you’re not interested by what one says.

Our mother dreams about what?

Good masters open a chasm under your feet. In one sentence, they show it to you. For good or bad.

You know things only by differences, wrote Suares. Does it mean that we function with analogies?

If there are no rules, you can not transgress them.

The right to go away (Baudelaire). Develop.

To be conscious of everything and at the same time to keep our instinct alive : Art?

Mystery, but no obscurity.

A lack can be unconscious. It shows itself with instant tears…

Thanks! Have a good day!

All these stolen from J. D. – let’s spread.

Some photos, Part 3

 

Haiku : “The pear tree in bloom…

Some photos, Part 2

 

Some photos, Part 1

 

Proust’s quote : “When life walls us in…

“When life walls us in, our intelligence cuts an opening”

“Là où la vie emmure, l’intelligence perce une issue”

Marcel Proust

Autumn Trees

from Instagram: https://ift.tt/2OJ3UuJ

Unable to perceive the shape of you…

Unable to perceive the shape of you, I find you all around me.

Your presence fills my eyes with your love.

It humbles my heart, for you are everywhere.

 

https://blogs.loc.gov/catbird/2018/03/who-wrote-the-poem-at-the-end-of-the-shape-of-water/

 

PS :

It’s disturbing : I always hated, more or less, Guillermo Del Toro’s movies. Pan’s Labyrinth is a real shame, Pacific Rim is just boring, and Crimson Peak ridiculous. But The Shape of Water was a cool smart little movie (great actors, great music, great ideas). The last words put me in an awe…

Redheads (the fall)

from Instagram: https://ift.tt/2z9PeQ7

Isis

from Instagram: https://ift.tt/2FsHI8x

Proust & Valéry : Tropisms Unfolding

Proust is really different. This writer in France is really a milestone : long, hard to read, but magnificent like a cathedral for those who dared to explore his huge masterpiece.

Therefore there are two kinds of French people : those who read Proust and those who did not, or abandoned the discipline.

Today I talked with a Proust lover, and we agreed on this :

Proust was a blogger

Well : the way he explores the human mind and its tropisms (which are the “very subtle movements of the human mind”), like a… craftsman goldsmith, a jewels maker, is exhausting : on each page you’ll find ideas for one single evening of conversation (with a real conversation lover, I mean).

(I know : there are few)

Then we talked about Paul Valéry, who does the same in his Carnets (Notebooks), but not in the “novel” form : only thinking and explaining.

Both of them are craftsmen, goldsmiths, jewels makers. They find ideas so subtle and delicious that you have to stop and smile and think for a few hours. Intelligences of the highest range…

One (Proust) unfolds this in long (I mean : LONG) phrases running for pages in gorgeous French. It’s like spreading out in the novel, it’s so good that it can hurt you. YES : “that” good.

The other one (Valéry) works on jewels. He makes very very small paragraphs, a few lines, that makes you stop and think the whole thing :

Oh my God he’s so right I’ve never seen it written so well before!

Finding seeds, delicate ideas. Offering them to the audience, one in complex magnificent buildings made of words, the other in small boxes containing a splendid marvel.

Two ways, to means. Try both, if you dare!

Thanks for reading!

Jakub Rozalski, Illustrator

https://jakubrozalski.artstation.com/

Jakub Rozalski is good. He draws fantasy, monsters and werewolves, but his main talent is blooming when he imagine a Russian War Time Steampunk universe, with huge smoking machines in the distance…

Google his name to find more. I chose these for you :

 

My Gurushots Tips

I wrote an article on this funny social network photography site called GuruShots : Photo Contests & Artistic Choices

I work on it since a few weeks, trying to find if I could “climb” without paying… and without perpetrating the “Bad Taste Colorful Über-contrast” Winners sins.

1. If a challenge need 4 pictures, don’t post all of them at the beginning. Wait. One per day. Or even wait for the last day for the last one. This way seems to get you much more votes all along the process.
2. On one challenge, Combine a Swap (change a picture with less votes) with a Fill (maximum views).
3. Don’t use the daily free boosts. Use them in the last hours of the challenge.
4. On the Web page, sort the challenges by date. When you win a little thing (a fill, a swap, a boost), THINK. Choose carefully where you will apply them. Read the datas : you can climb to another level with a simple Swap, just an hour before the end of a challenge. This will bring you more little tools you’ll apply, then, on later ending challenges.
5. Think about what you want : to win with your talent and sensibility, or to win with awful “what people like” horrors (oversaturated colors, long pauses, killing-eyes contrasts, over-processed pictures)?
6. Vote a lot : it gives you visibility, and you’ll watch other people photos.
7. There are many other “tips” you’ll find on the web, like how to produce pictures just to please one Guru. Why not…
8. Don’t forget you compete with people who PAY to win; they can swap many many times, for example, and you have almost no chance. Whatever, right?
9. Think about the HOUR you’re making choice. If you think most photographers are in America, you’ll get more views when people are not sleeping there.
10. When you POST a picture, and when you BOOST a picture, I think it pulls it near the top : you can get hundreds of votes in a few minutes. It’s why you should think about the hour and the DAY you’re acting. Sunday seems to be cleverer than tuesday in the middle of the night.
11. It seems that the battle for one challenge’s winner gets wild near the end of the challenge. Therefore it can be clever to boost, fill, or even post a picture near the end. Swapping has the same effect as posting : it could be useful to keep a swap to activate it on your photograph ten minutes before the end.
12. If you have enough, swap in the last hours, when people are boiling and vote a lot. It works petty well, and you can almost post an average picture in the beginning of a challenge, because you know it’s in the last hours that things happen.
13. But you have to think about Guru Picks. If you have great pictures for a challenge, don’t hesitate to swap a lot, even if you have good votes – just to be show pics to your Guru.
14. It’s maybe sad, but I tried this : I took a door handle with a good angle, added some HDR effect, then another double effect (a Lomo one, who changed the frame and added a vintage mood); I posted on Sunday and it got like a thousand votes, climbing to the pretty difficult All Star level (usually reached in more than a week with many “fills” to help) in… two hours! This means that the guys who win, here, are the pros who edit their picture a lot. Why not, but… these are not the pros I love – this will be another article.
15. You need Guru picks to climb the ladder. Collect them! To become a Guru, you need to win a challenge OR a Guru Top Pick. There are more chances to get a GTP, so don’t lose patience : work, make good pictures, and wait.
16. Have fun. Work! Don’t lose your soul, though, OK?

PS : I’m not sure about all of these. I’m just experimenting. They are maybe seeds for your own thoughts, OK?…

I wrote a Part II of this article, see the link downstairs?…

Have fun!

Nadav Kander, misty distant structures Photographer

Nadav Kander is “known for his portraiture and landscapes”. Interesting portraits (it’s what you find first on Google Images), but what he does with landscapes (here, in China) is fantastic.

People and architecture, maybe staged melancholy (loneliness?), misty distant structures or cities. It’s very “prepared”, artificial, too easy or maybe just meticulous. This is what I choose to show you today.

Have a nice day!

 

Carl Larsson, Swedish painter

I discovered this girl, reading on a bench with her cat and her dog, something like 30 years ago. I remember I took a picture… But what? No Internet at this time. I was let alone with a name. I forgot the name but not this watercolor masterpiece.

This week I found another picture, a red apron, and my instinct clicked : it’s the guy who painted the girl on the bench. I checked on Pinterest and found it quickly.

Carl Larsson (1853-1919).

Yes it’s an “academic pleasure”, like Rockwell or Hopper. When Christmas comes closer, it’s a good thing!

Have a nice Swedish day!

Numbers in France…

The Insisting Many Angles Exploration Tool

Imagine you want to explore a part of history. The US Civil War, for instance.

First you have to find your “entry level”. Political? Military? Daily life in the country? Chronology? What happened before? Slavery?

Then what do you read? Documents from the era? Historians? Biographies? Novels happening at this time? Hmmm…

What is the size of your magnifier? Do you watch structures and big pictures, or do you focus on one day in the war?

 

I discovered that my best way to explore a field is to gather a few books and to focus on one little element.

It can be a sole day in the war, or one battle only, or one person of the time. But it can be one “element”, for example : railroads during the Civil War, or the way this war has been represented in movies along the century.

Then : insisting. Many angles. Many sources. Etc. And little by little you’ll find… a fabric, a texture, something…

Then you’ll know if you have to go on, and which way. Another “zoom” or a big synthesis, whatever.

Have fun. Thanks for reading!

 

“Consider other doors, gallivanter!”