Write Yourself Whole

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I just watched the recorded first episode of the BBC mystery series, “Grantchester”, based on fiction by James Runcie.
As so many good detective stories do, it wrapped with an “authors voice” statement delivered by the main character, Sidney Chambers :

“We cannot erase our pasts, however hard we try.

Instead we must carry them with us into the future.
We must carry them with us and look forward with hope.

We must look forward, because to look back is to waste precious time.

Someone recently said to me, ‘We should live as we have never lived.’
And we must all of us take heed and live as we have never lived.

For we are all mortal.

We are all fragile.

And we all live under the shadow of death.”

As it was spoken, I felt pulled to listen carefully, as I have my upcoming course, “Write Yourself Whole” in mind all the time, now. (my Facebook Event link)

How Perfect!

We must, indeed, unless stricken with amnesia, carry our pasts with us, though we do try hard to forget aspects that brought pain with them. Writing for healing is Not so much about “erasing the past”, as about becoming free to carry the memory, imprint, and lessons into “the now”… empowered, really, to use our pasts in creative ways and continue to mine the gold in them.

Or not..

I write this for communicating with you; I wonder what I might have written had I used the writing methods we’ll be applying in the course.

As always.. Tualk amongst yourselves.

So an image can sneak up on you. . .

…remember to play.

This is an image I made during a one week workshop at the Maine Photographic Workshop (now known as the Maine Media Workshop), in Rockport, ME, (years ago, now).

Maine-Summer-Day

I call that week a  turning point because of the facilitator, Sean Kernan, whose quiet guidance was more geared to seeing than to craft or method. Sean encouraged playing outside most of the “boxes” that some photographers want to get comfortable in..
elusive unself-conscious fruit of bold experiment was more valued than predictable formulae or safe technique. And, as I have posted before, he fostered a way of looking at each other’s work without ponderous and egotistical judgment  in feedback sessions.. not a bad way to see the world, either, eh?

Finally, he has a new book we’ve been waiting YEARS for, based on his lifelong curiosity and passion for finding and nurturing that state of fresh wonder and amazement we often refer to as “the zone”, or “the creative state”.
The new book is called “Looking Into the Light”, and is out on iTunes, so far, for download.

Follow the link to his companion site for info and dialog on the book; I think almost anyone in the creative arts will benefit from delving his/her own process with this book at hand. It certainly won’t replace being in one of Sean’s workshops, but try it.
I think you’re gonna like the way you look.. into the light.Kernan-IntoLight

 

 

 

 

 

Looking into the Light | 

Looking Into The Light: Creativity and Photography is a series of exercises and assignments that take photographers to a direct experience of their own creativity, then let them practice it in their work. It comes from a workshop that Sean Kernan has developed over more than 30 years of …

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the First Thing about Light: a workshop/playshop

Everyone now has a quite amazing camera of some kind with them at all times. That cellphone camera in your pocket is Smart! (in more ways than one). We use them to remember, and we use them to show what we’ve seen. Making an image that shows how we felt in a profound or fun moment depends on how we use the light.

This coming Saturday, November 30, I will lead a workshop designed to accomplish a couple of things:

A) Tapping into what you do know.

People make intelligent use of light often, already, but when it comes to making a photo, new camera users seem to have stored that ability in  every mental “compartment” but  photography.

B) “Love the Light You’re With”

Compounding that, there’s the notion that to lift a photograph above mediocrity requires “professional”,

photography-only lighting gear. Most of my best photos of  my cats, over the years, have been made with window light.

[pro-player repeat=’true’ autostart=’true’ type=’video’]https://fb91be.p3cdn1.secureserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Chai-by-Window-Light.mov[/pro-player]

 

How does this workshop help you use lighting better?

(So glad you asked)

When you know what light does, and can see how it plays in the world around you, it’s MUCH easier to create the look you want with the lighting gear you have at hand, and to know what kind of gear you may want for transforming existing scenes with the light you envision.

 

Using studio lighting, I was able to create a softer kind of light, to help make the food look appetizing. How might different lighting have made it look more rustic? or romantic? or maybe even disgusting?
Using studio lighting, I was able to create a softer kind of light, to help make the food look appetizing. How might different lighting have made it look more rustic? or romantic? or maybe even disgusting?

 

Here, I used light for two different looks.On top, i wanted to highlight the catepillar-eaten seed pod, more than anything else.On bottom, I like the airy, floaty feel of blowing out the background, by overlighting the backdrop.

 

 

Becoming intimately familiar with light, the ideas occur to me more  readily, than they did when I was trying to “reason” my way to good lighting (i.e. without using my eyes and feelings).

My personal conclusion is that learning to see light and it’s character, qualities, possibilities put the “cart” of making the image appropriately behind the “steed” of inspiration and direct seeing.

As Always, Play On.

If  you’d like to take Your relationship with Light to the next level, contact me, or go to my Google+ Event

The day will begin at the Longview Center (also the home of Unity Church of the Triangle), in downtown Raleigh, NC. We will get grounded, together, on why we’re each drawn to use lighting better, and will include an experiential awareness process to remember what we know about light, to date.
Next, with a very specific assignment in mind, we’ll go out on a photowalk, and begin to blow open our seeing.
After a lunch pause, we’ll return to the classroom, for reviewing our images together. This is when much of the real growing begins.
Before adjourning, a one-on-one review will be scheduled for about a week later, to see how we’ve integrated our new relationship with our pictures has played, and take a moment to consider what’s next.

The course fee is $87. Seats are limited, but you can secure yours by pre-paying via Paypal.com, using my email address: whynotbe@cheerful.com