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Archive for the ‘life’ Category

On reflection

Posted in art, from the dark room, life, perception, photography, Uncategorized on October 17, 2016| 1 Comment »

on-reflection

The sunlight reflecting on the leaves of the lilies caught my eye, but once I’d uploaded the photo and looked at it more closely I realised there were three completely separate areas of reflection in this one image.

There is the one which initially caught my eye. It’s so bright that the leaves are hardly green at all. They are like silver plates floating on the river. Right next to them is a reflection of the clouds passing up above. The ripples in the river give these clouds the appearance of a water colour painting. Quite beautiful.

Between them, these two reflections put me in mind of Monet’s paintings of lilies in the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris….which is definitely one of those places to put on your bucket list.

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To stand in one of those galleries with Monet’s astonishing paintings filling the entirety of your visual field is one of the most amazing experiences you could have in an art gallery.

Finally, right at the top of the photo, there are the reflections of the old watermill, the entrance to the park, and a bridge, all seemingly a much more literal kind of reflection somehow.

I hadn’t really thought much about different types of reflection before, but this one image has inspired me. I hope it does the same for you.

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The colour blue

Posted in creativity, from the dark room, from the living room, from the viewing room, life, perception, personal growth, philosophy, photography, Uncategorized, writing on October 13, 2016| 3 Comments »

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I recently came across Rebecca Solnit’s contemplation of the colour blue through the Brainpickings site.

The world is blue at its edges and in its depths. This blue is the light that got lost. Light at the blue end of the spectrum does not travel the whole distance from the sun to us. It disperses among the molecules of the air, it scatters in water. Water is colorless, shallow water appears to be the color of whatever lies underneath it, but deep water is full of this scattered light, the purer the water the deeper the blue. The sky is blue for the same reason, but the blue at the horizon, the blue of land that seems to be dissolving into the sky, is a deeper, dreamier, melancholy blue, the blue at the farthest reaches of the places where you see for miles, the blue of distance. This light that does not touch us, does not travel the whole distance, the light that gets lost, gives us the beauty of the world, so much of which is in the color blue. For many years, I have been moved by the blue at the far edge of what can be seen, that color of horizons, of remote mountain ranges, of anything far away. The color of that distance is the color of an emotion, the color of solitude and of desire, the color of there seen from here, the color of where you are not. And the color of where you can never go. For the blue is not in the place those miles away at the horizon, but in the atmospheric distance between you and the mountains.

and

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If you can look across the distance without wanting to close it up, if you can own your longing in the same way that you own the beauty of that blue that can never be possessed? For something of this longing will, like the blue of distance, only be relocated, not assuaged, by acquisition and arrival, just as the mountains cease to be blue when you arrive among them and the blue instead tints the next beyond. Somewhere in this is the mystery of why tragedies are more beautiful than comedies and why we take a huge pleasure in the sadness of certain songs and stories. Something is always far away.

I got to thinking about a couple of photos I took recently in Spain, one in Grenada and one in Segovia.

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She talks about how artists used the colour blue, and cites the following classical paintings amongst her examples –

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Isn’t the blue of distance in these paintings really beautiful?

Here are another few examples from an old French book which we have at home –

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Colours which catch the eye

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, personal growth, photography, Uncategorized on October 11, 2016| Leave a Comment »

pink

I looked out of my window yesterday evening and saw the most beautiful and subtle shades of pink lying between the top of the vineyard and the blue sky high above.

When I went outside to look to the West I saw this –

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How a small change in perspective, a shift in the direction of the gaze, can reveal such astonishingly different views…..

I think if I was asked to give one single piece of advice about photography I’d say move. Don’t just stand and point your camera straight ahead at eye level, but move around. Climb up on something, or crouch down, lie on the ground even, look in different directions, move in different directions and turn and shoot your photos from different places, even if those places are just a few steps apart.

Small changes in your position can reveal to you astonishingly different potential photos.

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The beauty of water

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, personal growth, philosophy, photography on October 5, 2016| Leave a Comment »

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Autumn can be such a beautiful season. In the early morning everywhere I look I see spiders webs turned into chandeliers and sparkling jewels.

The water reveals what is already there. I don’t think spiders spin their webs only in the autumn. The webs are there, but they are invisible to us as we hurry by. The water does more than decorate the webs. It turns them into the most eye-catching feature of the landscape.

I love the variety of drops you can see on a web like this one. There is a huge range of droplet size, from the tiniest beads to impossibly large spheres. A close look reveals that each drop contains a view of the world around it. Every one of them is like a lens, gathering all the surrounding light and colour, turning it upside down, and showing us a completely different perspective on the world.

This one reminded me of a fountain I recently photographed where the water droplets seem to be strung along invisible threads as the curve up into the air, and back down towards the pool.

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What strikes me about both of these images is how the water droplets are individually beautiful, but the greater beauty is revealed in their relationship to each other. Those invisible lines and threads create something quite magical.

People are like that too, aren’t they? Each one unique, and each one connected to the others by invisible threads of relationship.

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Eight pointed stars

Posted in art, creativity, from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, personal growth, photography on September 28, 2016| 1 Comment »

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I seem to have developed a fascination for eight pointed stars. I’m seeing them everywhere.

Up on the ceiling like a kind of night sky.

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Or constructed from pieces of wood with emblems in the middle.

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Cut into the roof to create star shaped sources of sunlight.

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On the floor.

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or on the walls.

Aren’t they beautiful? In their variation, in their detail, and in their design.

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The way we frame our worlds

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, personal growth, photography on September 25, 2016| Leave a Comment »

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This summer I did one of those things I’d really, really recommend anyone to do at some point – put it on your bucket list. I went to see the Alhambra in Grenada.

Many of the windows and doors in the Alhambra are beautifully arched. What struck me was that I took a lot of photos, not just of what I could see, but what I could see either through a window or a door.

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Looking at them again now it seems to me that they are enticing….they spark your curiosity and invite you to go and explore more.

That got me wondering about how we frame our views of the world. Not just physically, although it does make me think about the architecture and built environments in which we all live, but emotionally. Because I think we enter each day in a certain frame of mind. Maybe we change that frame (or maybe it feels like somebody changes it for us) during the day, but I wonder just how aware we are of those frames and how much they influence what we see.

Is it possible to just pause now and again and think about what frame is active?

Is it a frame of fear, or one of curiosity for example? Because each of those frames make the world look VERY different.

 

 

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When day becomes night and the sea reveals the land

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, personal growth, philosophy, photography on September 18, 2016| Leave a Comment »

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We are drawn towards the edges….

Sunsets attract us. How many of us gather at the viewpoints to watch the setting sun? There’s something deeply appealing about both the disappearance of that fiery sphere as it mutates from a full circle, to a semi-circle, to a rapidly diminishing crescent. Then when it drops below the horizon there’s a period of time when the sky can glow with shades of red, orange and pink, or some tobacco tints until gradually night has fallen. When did you last stand and watch this happen?

It’s a great meditation practice. Just to focus your attention on the changing light and try to become aware of the point where day turns into night. That’s a trick, of course, because there is no such point. The transition of day into night is far more nuanced, way more gradual than that. But keeping your attention on it is calming, delightful and connects you to one of the deepest rhythms of life.

In the second photo here (both taken one evening in San Sebastian, Spain), as day turns into night, the street lights glow in the calm sea as the tide recedes revealing the wet sand below the water. You can see a few people wandering at the edge of this transition. There’s another edge that attracts us. The edge between the land and the sea.

And that’s another edge which is not exact and is certainly not fixed.

Strolling along the ebb or the flow of the sea is deeply pleasing. As is gazing down at it from a promenade, or a viewpoint.

We are drawn towards the edges….you could say that’s how life proceeds, moving towards difference, exploring the boundaries and connections, discovering the new, playing in that “far from equilibrium” zone where growth occurs.

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Can anyone interpret this symbol?

Posted in art, from the dark room, from the living room, life, photography on September 16, 2016| Leave a Comment »

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I noticed this painting high up on a wall inside the cathedral in Segovia, but I don’t know what it means.

In the centre is this interesting cross of what looks like a plume and a cross with three cross bars tied together with a blue ribbon. It’s painted as if it is flying high in the clouds and surrounded by three pairs of cherub-like angels.

Have you ever seen a symbol like this before?

Can you interpret it for me, please?

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The edge of the weather

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, perception, photography on September 13, 2016| Leave a Comment »

storm

It’s not so often you can see the edge of the weather so clearly, but there it was, the storm was on its way.

Wow! Was it a big one! Thunder rattling the windows, lightning covering the entire sky, rain hammering down on the earth, and the trees and bushes blown this way and that.

Clouds are fascinating in many ways, not least because you can’t usually really see their edges. You can at first glance, but you only have to watch for a few moments and the edges change, building or dissolving before your very eyes. A big, heavy, thick cloud like this one though holds its edge for longer. I think that’s one of the things that makes it so impressive.

 

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The shape of a life

Posted in health, life, perception, personal growth, photography, science on September 10, 2016| 2 Comments »

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Look at the shape of this tree!

It heads up from the ground, reaching for the sky just as pretty much all trees do, then suddenly it’s taken and almost ninety degree swerve to the left, but not for long, because then it turns abruptly upwards again, only a little later to take another almost ninety degree turn to the right, after which is takes a much more relaxed ascent, bending slowly upwards.

It caught my eye.

It caught my eye because it was so unusual, so striking, and so unique. None of the other trees around it had shapes or trajectories even remotely like this one.

So what happened? What’s the explanation for the particular shape of this tree’s life?

I realise that’s a question which lay at the basis of my consultation with patients. An individual’s life story has a distinct and unique shape. Are there any explanations for that shape? Which life events made the biggest impact? What kind of impact did they make and, crucially, how did the person respond to those events?

But even without the context of illness, I think life is like this for all of us. We are gaily living in one particular way when, bam! someone happens, there’s a change, an event, and life continues afterwards but in a completely different direction.

What shape is your life story? What changes of direction has it taken and why?

I love how no two life shapes are the same, because no two lives are the same.

And there’s something else to consider when gazing at this tree…..you couldn’t predict it. If you were taken to the forest and shown a seedling, you couldn’t draw the exact shape it will manifest as it grows. DNA analysis isn’t going to give you your answer. Generalising to say most trees of this type will grow this particular way isn’t going to give you an accurate answer.

Every single life is unique, and the shape of every life emerges in the living it.

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