Its Always Been About The Moment

by communicatingcreatively, posted in Photography

It has indeed been always about the moment, whether I was shooting film or digital photography.

I remember back in 1983 when I purchased my SLR and a whole new world opened up to me, it was a liberating experience. I began to be aware and see things that had always been there yet, I had not seen. That feeling and experience continues to this day.

Back in the film days there were many ways that an image could be produced and/or manipulated. Now with the invention of Digital, we have many more ways to enhance/manipulate an image, perhaps way more than we need (or want for that matter). The ’science’ is there no matter whether we are talking Film or Digital.

I would like you to step back though, away from the film, the pixels, cameras, chemicals and paper and think about the following… If there was no moment, no spark that formed that idea in your head or no experience that drove you to pick up that camera to take that image, there would be no image.

Which takes me back to my original comment, ‘It’s always been about the moment.’

When I’m out there photographing, when I’m out there experiencing the moment i.e. the realisation of an idea, being on the hunt, interpreting the experience, recognising that moment, that has always been the thing I love the most about photography.

Back in the Darkroom or the Lightroom the process continues to build on that moment, which is necessary to bring the vision to others. That process is of course, important, for without that the photographer’s vision will not be realised.

For me though it’s that joyous moment, where I am one with my camera, an experience I can re-live in my mind at any time. The ‘finished image’ is a mere reproduction of that moment, a moment only, really truly experienced by the photographer…

 

Written by David Johnson
20 August 2016

Declutter & Re-Fuel!

by communicatingcreatively, posted in Stories From Life

Look at this mess!

I’m feeling drained!

Do either of the above thoughts ever go through your mind?

It doesn’t matter whether you are a student, run a business, work a job or are retired, there comes a point where certain aspects in your life get cluttered or you get close to burning out, or indeed burn out. I’m yet to experience the ‘retired’ lifestyle but I talk to many people who end up being so busy in retirement, they can’t work out how they used to fit their job or business into their lives!

At different times in my life, these questions have raised their head.

My wife & I are in the process of decluttering, which was mostly brought on by the fact that we moved house. It is amazing how much less we have now (in terms of clutter) than we had previously, and we are still in declutter mode. For example, over the past 3 years we would have easily given away a couple of hundred (or more) books.

This process is continuing and is spreading to other areas. For instance, I reviewed my Facebook Friend list the other night. It had grown to over 500 people, and as I looked through the list, I saw people I had not connected with for years, I saw others who are always being negative on Social Media and others whom I wondered why/how we connected in the first place?

The Friend list now stands at 472 and it may drop lower.

We also need to look at our priorities in life. We can only do/be involved in so much.

I’ve reviewed the groups/associations I was a member of in the past 12 months. I’m now a member of only one Toastmasters Club. I just dropped out of an Art Group as (due to other commitments) it would be difficult for me to get there on Tuesday nights.

For the first time in 30 years, I am not a member of any Photographic Society/Camera Club. The Photographic Society I was a member of, I found it increasingly difficult to get to as we had moved further away from it. There is one 8 mins drive away now but I dropped out of that 2 years ago as my photography interests have moved in a different direction anyway.

Another area that needs decluttering is my mind…

I’ve always been a ‘verbal/visual’ person. As you would see from this blog, communication is what I love, with my interests being photography, public speaking, writing, poetry and painting. On top of that we have our marketing business.

As with most people’s mind’s, there is a lot going on up there and it comes out via one of the outlets above.

A few years back I purchased a book called “The Complete Artist’s Way” and actually it contains 3 books in the one volume.

The books are:

– The Artist’s Way
– Walking In This World
– Finding Water

One of the techniques discussed is called ‘Morning Pages.’ ‘Morning Pages’ is ‘stream of consciousness’ writing and it is done when you first get up in the morning. Writing down whatever comes into your head, e.g. negative thoughts, how you are feeling, to-do items etc ‘gets it out of your head’ and frees up your mind and assists creativity. I started doing them some time ago but unfortunately allowed ‘life’ to get in the way and stopped doing them.

I just started doing ‘Morning Pages’ this weekend again, and I can feel the benefits already!

In Part 2 I will look at things I am doing or am looking to do to re-fuel for this continuing fantastic journey of life.

 

Written by David Johnson
13 August 2016

 

For more information on ‘Morning Pages’, please click on the link below.
http://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-pages/

There’s No Business Like Snow Business!

by communicatingcreatively, posted in Stories From Life

This post was inspired by a friend’s recent ‘Snow-misadventure…’

Back in the 1980’s, I was part of a 18-35years Church Social Group and one of adventures was to the Snowy Mountains in southern NSW, Australia. It was one of those hurried 3 day weekend trips that saw me (briefly) on Ski’s but mostly on a Toboggan, which (for me) at the time was a lot more fun, that is until a had a slight ‘run-in’ with a creek. That was my first time in the Snow. I was satisfied with that. Visit to the Snow ticked off the list.

The very next year (1984) I was invited back to the Snowy Mountains by a small group of school friends who were planning to go for a whole week. Sounded fun so I agreed.

We stayed at Jindabyne and travelled to the ski fields from there. Jindabyne is basically the closest town to the ski fields but is not actually in them.

The previous year I had an hour ski lesson but I thought it was prudent to have another, and so I did, only this time it was snowing fairly heavily and to this day I wonder if I perhaps missed some ‘key technical points’ that would have helped immensely later on?

Most of my friends had Skied before and one friend in particular, David was a bit more experienced but he decided to hang back with me whilst I was endeavouring to ‘glide’ down the run called the ‘Pretty Valley Triple’ at Perisher Valley.

Needless to say that after a short time, I thanked David for staying with me but said that he would probably have more fun if he went on and left me to my own devices as I didn’t want him to get bored…

Off he glided down the hill…

Thinking back to the Ski lesson, I remember the lessons on how to ’Snowplough’ (or stop) & they taught us about weight control/which way to lean if we wanted change direction. It seemed fairly easy where we did the lesson. It was relatively flat ground.

Thinking back, I would have weighed about 55Kg and was 185cm tall so I didn’t have a lot of weight to throw around.

When you fall skiing it’s not as soft a landing as would think and in my first journey down the Pretty Valley Triple run I fell seventeen times. What would you do?

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David & David Skiing @ Perisher 1984 – I am the David on the left.

I went back up to try again. This time I only fell seven times, an obvious improvement, though the 24 clashes with Mother Earth had left me bruised and battered. Somehow though, I had managed to miss every tree.

My mistake that day wasn’t that I had fallen 24 times attempting to ski, it was the fact that I made the decision to return my gear to the ski hire place and go to the local bar for three beers (muscle relaxant). I haven’t skied since….

On pondering why I stopped, I remembered I hated the icy weather, the ski boots – I found them painful to wear around the ankle section of the leg, much of me was sore & I was skiing on my own. Given that and the ‘person I was as a 21 year old’ I can see why I gave in.

It is easy to look back and say ‘I would have done it differently’ but I can honestly say that if I was the person I am now, I would have gone back up and maybe only fell 3 times and so on… That’s not to say that I would be down the Snowy Mountains skiing every year, but it would be fun to have the option…

My wife, Susan has mentioned ‘going to the Snow’ a few times over the years as he has skied before. At 53, I wonder if the time for skiing has passed?

I would still like to go back to the Snow but this time it probably would be a photographic expedition, but you know what they say…’never say never….’

Written by David Johnson
23 July 2016