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Archive for the ‘from the dark room’ Category

Where do you relax?

Posted in from the dark room, health, life, photography on May 21, 2007| 1 Comment »

We are all different and we all find different ways to relax or wind down. One of my colleagues always asks her patients to tell her what’s their idea of a great holiday. The answer can reveal a lot about a person’s coping strategies. I think it’s important to know what makes you feel good, where you feel good, when you feel good. We often get fixated on our problems and one way to not get stuck with problems is to focus on possible solutions. The solutions come from what works for us, the places, times and situations that help us to feel good.

This boat (for many people a boat is a symbol of freedom) and the blue, blue sky, at the seaside represents a way of relaxing for many people.

Where do you go to relax?

What’s your favourite holiday?

 

boat and the sky, originally uploaded by bobsee.

 

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CCTV surveillance

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, photography on May 21, 2007| 1 Comment »

 

There are 4 million CCTV surveillance cameras in the UK. But who is at the viewing end? This camera is at the Floral Clock in Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh (no clock there! Long since gone! Just a patch of earth…)

This poor man looks like he’s bored stone rigid! No wonder, this camera’s video feed must be worse than watching paint dry!

But seriously, we live in a command and control society. Who’s in command? Who wants the control?

 

surveillance, originally uploaded by bobsee.

 

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Venus, the Moon, and Synchronicity

Posted in from the dark room, life, photography on May 21, 2007| Leave a Comment »

Saturday, 19th May was an usual night in the sky. Venus and the waxing moon were only about a degree apart just after sunset. I looked out of my window and took this photo.

moonvenus40.jpg

The following day I was browsing around Edinburgh and found myself outside the National Gallery on the Mound. On the spur of the moment I decide to have a look around. It’s a lovely building and I like many of the paintings there. Having browsed for a bit I went down to the gallery shop to see if they had any postcards of some of my favourite paintings there. Well, have a look and see what I found…….

Francesca

This is “Francesca di Rimini” by Dyce. I don’t recall ever seeing this painting before but look at the sky! Yes! There it is! The exact same configuration of Venus and the Moon.

So what are the chances of that? I love these synchronicities in life. I can’t explain them but they do add to the pleasure and the wonder of life.

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Colour and synchronicity

Posted in from the dark room, life, perception, photography on May 7, 2007| 2 Comments »

dsc_0039.jpg

Harry Eyres’ column in the Weekend FT this weekend was about colour vs black and white photography. He was making the point that he had always preferred to work with black and white, but when he printed some old colour slides of his father’s he found the colour made the photographs much more emotional. This is an interesting observation and I think it happened for him because the slides were about family, specifically about his last holiday with his grandfather. Our visual memories always seem to be in colour, don’t they? So colour photos, personal colour photos, can much more powerfully reconnect us to strong, emotional memories.

I think colour memories also begin to produce largely subconscious general responses to particular colours. I read this article while waiting for a connecting flight to Edinburgh in Charles de Gaulle airport this morning. The amazing thing for me is that the particular colour photos Harry Eyres was writing about were taken around Tain and Dornoch, exactly where I spent a few days with friends at the end of the previous week. My friends are South African and commented on how the colours of the north of Scotland were so reminiscent of the colours of Africa for them – until we came across the gorse in bloom. That incredible yellow is utterly Scotland for me, especially next to blues and browns. Later in the year when the heather comes into bloom it’ll be the shades of purple which will do exactly the same for me.

So that got me thinking (surprised?)……

  1. If memories are usually in colour, why do many people say they don’t usually dream in colour? (I always dream in colour!)
  2. Which colours create which emotions for you? (I know that psychologists have ascertained common colour influences but what about your personal responses?)
  3. Yet again, I am struck by synchronicity. What are the chances that first of all, Harry Eyres would have been to that particular part of Scotland and the photos from that very holiday were the ones which stimulated him to write this particular piece? And secondly, what are the chances I would read it? (I don’t buy the FT, just happened to be one in the airport lounge). And, thirdly, what are the chances that I would have just taken photos in that very same part of the world mentioned in the article?

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Creating an impression

Posted in creativity, from the dark room, from the living room, life on May 4, 2007| Leave a Comment »

footprint, originally uploaded by bobsee.

I took this photo last week up in the North of Scotland. I don’t know whose footprint it is but it reminded me why I started blogging. I think it’s important to remember that we don’t go through life without leaving footprints, without making impressions. But we don’t think about that as we live the average day. It’s not possible to live without making impacts on the world and on the other people who share it with us.

This is not a “carbon footprint” but it does make me think about that whole issue – how we change the world by just living in it.

You know, I think life is better when we raise our awareness of living, and that means noticing BOTH the way we are affected by the world AND the way the world is affected by us.
What kinds of footprints did you leave today? On the physical world? And on other people? Remember Yeats’ poem?

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

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Stirling Castle and Wallace Monument

Posted in from the dark room on May 4, 2007| 11 Comments »

Stirling Castle and Wallace Monument, originally uploaded by bobsee.

What does it mean to live in a place with a castle? I was born in Stirling, Scotland, and now, after a few years living in Edinburgh, I live in Stirling again.
The town of Stirling grew up around the castle and in my opinion it’s the loveliest castle in Scotland. I do like many other castles but for different reasons. There’s something of real beauty about this castle and the fact it’s not a ruin somehow gives it continuing power over the town and countryside around it. It has lovely gardens inside the castle walls and that’s one of its most unique features.
For me, this castle, which I see every day (unless I’m away on a trip), gives a sense of history, of roots, of durability, of strength and of constancy.
I BELONG here. I feel a sense of home that somehow stretches way back to long before I was born here.
For some people a castle is scary. They think of ghosts, or of soldiers, and, sure, there have been many soldiers in Stirling Castle over the centuries and there may well be ghosts (but I don’t know anyone whose ever seen one there!) Stirling Castle isn’t scary for me. I draw strength from it, power from it, a sense of reassuring calm from it.
If you look carefully you can see Wallace Monument behind the castle. It’s a powerful symbol of this area too but it doesn’t have the same impact as the castle for me.
I realise as I write this that our experience of our lived environments is complex, affected by both personal and collective histories. For every one of us a physical structure (like Stirling Castle for me) not only influences how we feel but we interact with it, imbuing it with our own views, our own perceptions, our own stories.
What physical structures influence you?

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Full moon

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room on May 2, 2007| 2 Comments »

Full moon over Tokyo

Here’s a shot from my 19th floor hotel room in Tokyo tonight. That bright light up in the sky is a full moon. One of the homeopathic remedies I’m teaching here tomorrow is Antimonium crudum, one of the key features of which is “sensitive to moonlight”. Most people who live in cities these days are pretty much unaware of the moon’s phases but the full moon has a longstanding reputation for influencing our moods.  Despite that reputation statistical studies have failed to prove any of those influences. However, what interests me is whether or not YOU feel any different at different times in the month (menstrual cycle not withstanding!). Are you aware of feeling any different around a full moon? Or a new moon? A waxing or a waning room?

It’s not that the moon’s effects need be physically mediated, it’s more the way our environments affect us. Our environments include not just the physical environments in which we live but also the psychological and social environments. The frequent mentions of the effects of a full moon on lovers in stories and songs doesn’t need to be confirmed by a physical explanation. Human phenomena, life experiences, are so much more than merely physical.

So, how about it? Any lunar effects in your life?

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Ben Ledi

Posted in from the dark room, life, photography on April 23, 2007| 5 Comments »

From the window of my apartment I can see across to the hills. One hill in particular stands above the others – Ben Ledi. I got to thinking the other day about how things change, how everything constantly changes, but how if something changes slowly we think its staying the same. You know what I mean. A plant changes quickly, growing from a seed to a seedling and blossoming under the sun’s rays to show its petals to the world, then developing its fruit or its seeds and withering away again, in endlessly repeating cycles. But mountains, now, they change so slowly they look the same for hundreds or even thousands of years. Don’t they? But then, as I gazed out of my window across the fields at the light and the shadow on the hillside, I thought to myself, actually, Ben Ledi looks different every day. OK, the rocks probably don’t change very much, but Ben Ledi is more than its rocks. The Ben Ledi I see from my window is not just the rocks, the slope, the shape of the peak. It’s foliage, the colours, the light and shadow. When I look at Ben Ledi I see something different every day. Here are four (of many!) photos of Ben Ledi all taken from my window.

Ben Ledi just after a storm.

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Ben Ledi with morning mist.

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Ben Ledi covered in snow.

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Ben Ledi in a winter setting sun.

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If you like these Ben Ledi photos you can find more on my Flickr page here.

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Creative space – commuting

Posted in from the dark room, photography on April 15, 2007| Leave a Comment »

train table, originally uploaded by bobsee.

For over ten years now I have lived over an hour’s commuting time from my place of work. I love it. What I don’t do is drive! Well, sometimes I do, but only if I really have to. I take the train or I take a bus. I should point out that I live in Central Scotland so commuting for me USUALLY means getting a seat. I know in some places commuting by public transport doesn’t include sitting down!
What this gives me is at least two hours a day to myself. I don’t have to do anything. Just sit there and be chauffered by either a train driver or a bus driver. I take my ipod (I’ll blog about that separately!), notebook, book and maybe laptop. I can sit and think, write, listen to podcasts, music, read and reflect, use my laptop. Mostly I have a low-tech commute, drlnking a coffee, reading a newspaper or a book, or using my notebook to jot down ideas, make mindmaps, do a bit of planning.
My commuting time can be for working, for relaxing, for reflecting and for creating.
It’s a gift

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Changing your perspective TWO

Posted in from the dark room, photography on April 2, 2007| 1 Comment »

basketballseye view, originally uploaded by bobsee.

Now look at this photo. To take this photo I crouched down next to the kerb. How different the street looks when you change your perspective! In the first photo you might not even have spotted the ball, but now, it becomes the main subject, as if it says “This is my street. See how it looks from where I live” (OK, probably letting my imagination run away a bit with me there, but, hey, that’s what heroes do, they find ways to stimulate and develop their imaginations)

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