photography | Heroes Not Zombies

Archive for the ‘photography’ Category

Eye-catching red

Posted in from the dark room, photography on June 2, 2009| 1 Comment »

Red is such an eye-catching colour in nature.

Bridges, paths, connections….

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, philosophy, photography on May 25, 2009| 2 Comments »

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how everything is connected. Amy wrote a post about the relationship between Deleuze and Guatarri’s rhizomatics and social networking today (we’re often in tune that way!) I’m also reading Michael Frayn’s “The Human Touch” which wonderfully explores our embedded, connected existence, the centrality of our subjective perspective, and our active participation in the creation of the world we experience. The chapter I just read was entitled “Why the marmalade?”, a crystal clear examination of how we attempt to explain events (all explanations are partial, developing, multiple). This is the same ground of thought I’m also reading in an ancient two volume set of Alexander’s “Space, Time and Deity” which I just got through abebooks, having read about his work in Michael Ward’s “Planet Narnia” where he described how C S Lewis took on board Alexander’s idea about two kinds of experience – enjoyed and contemplated.

Well, I could go on….see how once you start to a pull at a thread you find it’s connected to everything else?

Here are some bridges and paths which caught my eye recently……

Read Full Post »

Living stone

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, perception, photography, tagged japan on May 21, 2009| 2 Comments »

It strikes me that in Japanese culture there is a great and sensitive understanding of the life, or the spirit, of stone. I was struck by that as I wandered through a couple of Japanese gardens recently. You just don’t see rocks like these in UK gardens, and there’s something about them which makes you SEE them when you might never have been used to seeing rocks before. Take a look at these examples and see if they change the way you notice stone over the next few days.

Read Full Post »

Time to reflect

Posted in from the dark room, from the living room, life, photography, tagged japan on May 20, 2009| 4 Comments »

I am a great fan of Japanese gardens. They have a design aesthetic which is quite different from the one which is the basis of most UK gardens. One of the elements I especially enjoy is their use of water. There is something amazingly calming about reflecting on the reflections……

Read Full Post »

Fushimi Inari-Taisha Shrine

Posted in from the living room, from the viewing room, life, photography, tagged inari, japan, kyoto, shrines on May 9, 2009| 6 Comments »

Today I took a short trip on the train from Kyoto to Inari.
When you get off the train in Inari Station, turn left, then immediately up the first road on your right you’ll see the first two of 10,000 Torii gates winding up the hillside on which the shrine is built.

Once you’ve climbed to the top of the hill you can look back to where you started and out over the whole of Kyoto.

See the same two gates in the distance?

That photo is taken with my zoom lens at full stretch. Look what happens as I pull it back up.

……and finally…..with minimum zoom…..(can you still see the gates?)

This shrine was originally dedicated to the God of rice, but is now more generally dedicated to prosperity. Each of the 10000 gates is donated by an individual or business hoping for prosperity. Foxes are believed to be the animals which guard the shrine and there are lots of stone ones to be seen (but I didn’t see any live ones).
The gates wind up and up the hillside. It’s quite a climb, especially on day like today when the temperature was 26C, but the gates are so close together that they form long shaded tunnels.

The gates thread their way through the wooded hillside and near the top you can wander off through forest paths…

I have never experienced anything quite like this. I’ve talked before about “emerveillement” and I strongly believe we need for re-enchantment in our overly materialist attitude to world. Places like this are known as sacred places. To walk in them, to sit in them, to breathe and listen and look around in them, it’s not hard to understand why. Magical.

Read Full Post »

Helleborus in the rain

Posted in from the dark room, photography on May 7, 2009| 1 Comment »

Read Full Post »

little BIG inspirations

Posted in from the dark room, perception, photography, tagged nature, plants on April 23, 2009| 2 Comments »

This tiny little plant is only about the size of my little finger. It’s so small, it would’ve been easy to miss it, but I’m glad I didn’t.

It inspires me for so many reasons.

I love the fact that what catches the attention is the spaces. They’re the first thing you notice. Almost as if when looking at a net you’d see the holes first, then the thread. And what was in those spaces? Some kind of seed I expect. This framework was most likely the structure that held the seeds in place, raised them up to the sky and waited till the wind blew and took them away to settle somewhere else. That got me thinking about seeds, and how many amazing ways plants have to spread their seeds around the world, how they’ll use the wind, insects, birds, really pretty much any way they can to hitch lifts, travel far and wide without any power to move in the seed itself. This set me thinking about the interconnectedness of everything, of how the world is a vast interconnected network, how really you can’t understand anything or anybody without knowing something of the world they live in and some of their vast web of connections, influences, links and bonds.

Then I got to thinking about how this little group of circles held up the past for inspection. Look, said the plant, here is where my sons and daughters were, and now they’ve all flown and I’ve only the spaces now in my life, where they used to be. And that’s just how it should be.

I had other thoughts too, but I’d be interested to hear if this little plant inspires any thoughts of your own!

Read Full Post »

What do you see?

Posted in from the dark room, perception, photography on April 21, 2009| 4 Comments »

Read Full Post »

Emotional traffic lights

Posted in creativity, from the dark room, photography on April 16, 2009| 1 Comment »

I stopped at a junction in Aix en Provence. The traffic lights in France include a set fixed at car level, as well as a set higher up. This particular set has been enhanced by someone with a sense of humour.
Emoticons on the traffic signals, huh?
Nice idea!