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De har inget hyfs och inga manér. De kallas skådespelare men är en samling anarkister hela bunten. De tar plats på scenen, men redan det låter för fint. De tar inte plats, de tar över scenen, precis hur de vill. Ingen bryr sig om någon annan: man hoppar upp på scenen, slåss på scenen, knuffar ner från scenen, knuffas ner från scenen, allt med samma ohejdade impulsivitet.
Impulser är allt som finns. Hit, dit, ner, upp, men alltid bakom nyckelordet JAG. Jag vill, jag ska ha, jag tar, jag talar…
Alla menar att deras namn är “Jag”, vilket leder till förväxlingar. När det ropas i högtalaren “Kan Jag komma till scenen?” kommer hela kompaniet springande. Dvs om de inte redan VAR på scenen allihopa, fajtandes om vem som ska stå i strålkastarljuset, vem som ska ha mikrofonen.
De har förstås ingen regissör, även om de låtsas som om det har det. (Det vore inte anarki annars.)
Men det finns en regissör. Han är inte med kompaniet. Det är han som heter Jag på riktigt.
When making affirmations — “I am successful, energetic, wise and have lots of hair on my chest” — we are at the same time affirming something about ourselves. Namely that we are limited, tired, ignorant students of life with endless questions and much ignorance — but smoothly hairless as a baby´s butt.
In short, that we NEED affirmations.
These are not good affirmations.
The paradox of affirmations: If we WERE all the things that we say (over and over again) we ARE, we wouldn´t repeat those phrases. Catch 22?
How to get around this?
Perhaps by making nonverbal affirmations. Be your affirmation. Don´t say anything, don´t be mental, just imagine in a flesh and blood manner that you ARE the person you want to be.
Change costume. Give this person a name. If you deep down inside are convinced that you are Clark Kent, how then can you be Superman?
Between identities
Maybe it´s not a question of trying to become a different, better being, but a case of a better being trying to get out from inside us, from our limiting beliefs.
The magnificent statue was perhaps lurking in the block of stone all along, hidden, silent, until a friendly sculptor released him from bondage…
Axel Ebbe was a friendly sculptor . Look at the figure in the upper right corner, this instant breaking free from his limitations. He doesn´t have to say “I am not a stone, I am not a stone”. He knows he isn´t.
There is something slightly vulgar in the hunt for a great picture. Probably many of us look down on paparazzi, but we ourselves might be just as much hunters, although of a more refined kind. Our prey is not celebrities but flowers, sunsets and interesting pigeons or crows (my own passion).
Also because of this I distrust intention as a prime factor in photography. You WANT something, and your are going to GO AFTER IT, and you won´t stop until have that picture NAILED. To much willfulness in this., too little cooperation and too much ego. Too little Lady Fate (Luck). Why not let the “motive” come to you, fall in your lap?
Of course I am guilty of this, too. My excuse it that some hunts are less aggressive and less bloody than others.
Stealing is another photographer´s sin. We laugh when we hear about “primitive” people fearing that their soul will be stolen if they are photographed. How do we know it isn´t? Nowadays we have laws restricting the taking of street pictures, maybe the same idea of stealing is somehow involved.
I read the other day about the great Christer Strömholm (he took the picture of the not cute cat), how he established friendship with his models (not professional models, that is something else). It seems he got rid of the element of theft that way.
One of the best ways to avoid both hunt and theft is to take pictures of your beloved. You model is willing and looks on you, we hope, with love. However, these pictures will be too private for general viewing.
I don´t subscribe to a newspaper, still I get it most every morning. It is called The Daily Lie. Others call it by other names, fine.
Here is one of the articles:
“I see, that your website needs fresh & unique articles. I know it’s hard to write articles manually everyday, but there is solution for this.”
Just joking! I would never get rid of this beautiful snout.
You can guess the rest of the article. It comes from the section Commentaries.
Here is another one, in Swedish, from the section Personals:
“Hur mar du? Jag ar valdigt glad for att skriva ett meddelande till dig! Och jag ska vara glad om du svarar mig. 🙂
Mitt namn ar Marina. Jag ar en stor oberoende kvinna. Jag ar 34 ar. Jag arbetar som forsakringsagent. Jag har aldrig varit gift. Jag skulle garna traffa dig. Jag har lange funnit din e-post pa dejtingsajt. Men hur lange har beslutat att skriva till dig. 🙂
Jag skulle vara glad att lasa ditt svar. Jag ser fram emot!”
Marina, forsakringsagent och stor oberoende kvinna.
Where do I unsubscribe? You say I can´t? That´s too bad, because I start to feel marinated, steeped in lies. My eyebrow no longer goes up when they arrive. It has tired… become listless…. I fear it will start to droop and fall down to my knees.
No, that was a lie, a big exaggeration. I am infected.
There is a very valuable, and somewhat rare, quality for humans navigating through life: the ability to tell the difference between friend and foe.
Some people say nice things to us, others sharp, critical things. That is not enough for making the distinction, far too much black and white.
There are people who wish us well and only want our best and then there are others who are envious, mean and actually want our worst. (And of course a big spectrum in between.)
BUT — the latter group quite often says nice things to us, while the former, far from always but sometimes (when they are what I would call real friends) can say very sharp and critical things. Which confuses things, a bit.
The real factor of distinction is whether the person wishes me well or not, not whether her words are sweet or pungent. Which is better, a sugary but forked tongue or plain critical speech?
Honest, well-meaning criticism from someone who wants our best is something rare in life, almost a luxury. It is so much easier to swallow criticism (what complications might not arise?) than to express it. Silence never hurt anybody, right? Maybe wrong.
By all means, defend yourself against enemies (if you have any), but don´t defend yourself against friends who give you difficult to swallow advice of the pungent kind.
They are perhaps your very best friends. Don´t confuse them with foes.
I chatted with a friend the other day, told him my status. Told me my status, too, because when we communicate our situation to others we might see it more clearly ourselves.
How are you doing?
“I live in this poor place, last house in the village, free lodging, no distractions, private chauffeur…”
Hm, not so bad when I think about it. Actually ideal for me right now.
It could be the other way round, which is also good.
“Well… my situation is actually quite awful. When I think about it, I gotta get out of this place! Thank you for asking, now I know how it is.”
This is interligence. We don´t even need someone else to talk to. “I” can interview “Me”, with “Myself” (who always knows how it is) looking on, bemusedly.
Alex Harvey might not be a well known name, but some of his songs are “hits”, a word that, when denoting something positive and not violent, could well be changed to “hugs”.
Especially the first song below is a soft, warm, sad “hug”. We all need one sometimes. (If you watch it on YouTube you can see the lyrics.)
Alex Harvey, especially on his two LPs “Alex Harvey” (1971) and “Souvenirs” (1973) is for me a slightly hairy chested soul, a voice that enters the room with dirty shoes but brings something pure. Not pure as in aseptic, streamlined or Photoshopped but as in pure tobacco, maybe pure malt whisky. And he doesn´t have to put “sensational” in front of his name.
Another favorite of mine is “Reuben James” (from the LP Souvenirs) sung by himself in his gruff voice.
Why do women waste the time of men? If I were Esther Vilar I might have many harsh words to say about this. But I am not Vilar, I just want to mention something that goes on all the time, and that steals our (mens´) time.
Suppose that I am courting a woman, or just showing her a general interest. “Would you like to drink a cup of herbal tea with me, visit a lecture or go to the cinema?”
She answers: “I don´t know, let me think about it.”
You feel generous so you say: “Sure, give it a think.”
Next time you meet the lady you ask her again, and she gives the same reply: “I haven´t really given it a thought, been very busy. Let me think about it.”
Sure, you say again, feeling somewhat less generous this time. But you are a gentleman after all, and you don´t want to put pressure on the weaker sex, right?
And we don´t have to talk about courting either. “Could I take some portraits of you, I need to practice on people?” the amateur photographer asks.
Same reply: “Let me think about it.”
What is it with women, why is their cerebral tempo so damned slow?
The answer is, very probably, that it isn´t. They just — for some reason — avoid the straightforward “no”. They don´t want to answer in the negative.
Why not?
I don´t know, probably it has to do with many factors. Upbringing, mothers´ advice, maybe the word “no” sounds too harsh (I feel myself that there is something very negative about it).
And maybe, heaven forbid, they like to control men, keep them on tenterhooks. I guess it feels good to receive sustained male attention without having to give anything back, more than “”I don´t know, let me think about it…”
Actually the lady is not slow at all; in very many cases she knows the answer right away, the very second the question is put to her. No, she is not going to drink herbal tea with us, go to a lecture with us or be photographed by us.
But by not saying so she wastes our time, and also gets some kind of feminine power out of the situation.
— It is not always thus. Some years ago when I was arranging a lot of musical salons I asked Lina, a very charming and slightly “trulsig” school girl, if she wanted to come and listen to my concert.
The female component in the audience is and always was very important.
No, she said, without blinking, but also without frowning or grimacing. It was a totally honest, simple answer. She wasn´t coming to my salon and that was that. “Straight tubes” as they say in Sweden.
Of course I regretted this and even felt a bit hurt. But mainly I was charmed by her girlish honesty; the answer was “no” and she wasn´t going to waste my time by asking for extra time to think it over.
Why I am retelling this? Because it is so unusual, so against the grain!
Maybe, possibly, she will grow up to be a woman who wastes the time of men, but hopefully not. Of course a cynic might say that she probably has a diagnosis.
Well, what a charming one in that case!
The answer “I don´t know, let me think about it” is given to a whole spectrum of questions, from “Would you like a chewing gum?” to “Do you love me?”.
And many of us men haven´t figured out that that answer really means “No, but I like your attention, so just keep it coming”. We are rigorously told that a “no” means no, but are kept in the dark about “maybe” also meaning no. (I guess we should feel lucky that sometime, somewhere there is a “yes”.)
And to answer nothing — neither yes or no –to the second question (Do you love me?) has about the same meaning: “I don´t think so, probably not… But don´t give up, keep hoping!”
As I said, Esther Vilar doubtless has a much harsher analysis. I dare not think about it. Being somewhat of a troubadour I want to retain a bit of my innocent, foolish, courtly attitude vis a vis women, at least a little longer.
[A historical document from Early IT-age, circa A.D. 2000. Note: This it not satire.]
Year 2000: In this era of “immaterial values” I have eavesdropped on the seductive, inverted siren song that, instead of luring sailors down into the depths, rather throws them up on terra firma, where they happily “surf” on dry land.
I have transcribed the song that is hummed in secret. You cannot accuse the IT (information theology) folks for speaking a ruthlessly honest language, and you don´t need a particularly sharp ear to discern the new Credo: A Mighty Cabel Is Our God.
Listen to the Hymn (from my CD "Life´s a Beach and then you swim")
(All you need is Bredband MP3 510kB, LO-FI)
Join in and sing along!
(Melody: John Brown’s body)
Refräng: Bredband, bredband Halleluja
Bredband, bredband Halleluja
Bredband, bredband Halleluja
Bredband, BREDBAND, B R E D BA N D!
Vers 1: Surfa, surfa, surfa, surfa
Surfa, surfa, surfa, surfa
Surfa, surfa, surfa, surfa
Det är det som är livets mening och mål
(English translation, if needed: Broadband, broadband Halleluja, etc. etc.
Surfing, surfing, surfing, surfing Surfing, surfing, surfing, surfing, etc. etc. Is the Goal and Meaning of Life.)
REFR
Vers 2: Innehållet det kan kvitta
Innehållet det kan kvitta
Porr och chat, Quake och Tetris
“Klicka här för en bild på vår hund”
VI KRÄVER 2 MEGABIT PER SEKUND! [Ja, det var faktiskt det man krävde på den tiden.]
talkör: Det ska gå fort att surfa
Annars får de kvetta
(Who gives a damn about content? Porno, chat, Quake, Tetris Click HERE for a picture of our doggy. We DEMAND 2 Mb per Second!) [2MB, those were the days!]
Bredband, bredband Halleluja
Bredband, bredband Halleluja
Bredband, bredband Halleluja
Bredband gör oss till ledande IT-land
[ultima volta:] Bredband gör oss till världens bästa IT-land
AMEN!
(Broadband makes Sweden the No. 1 IT-country in the world. AMEN!)
Contradicting what my extraterrestrials friends from the Groovy Galaxy told me the other day, I DO think that writing matters, that it changes something, that is has some small value at least — the value of digestion.
Impressions can be raw, un-chewed, can pass right through your system without any nourishment being taken up. Or they can be reflected upon, considered, pondered, digested. That end product, digested experience, is somehow what I bring to the world (apart from my music, which is on another plane).
But how is this digested product of value to the world? I don´t know, but I guess by being read and heard by others, who thereby carry it in THEIR consciousness, who somehow make it part of their being.
This is rather clear to me when it comes to music. If it has touched me deeply it leaves a mark, gets to have a special place in my heart. A great photograph (or painting) can have the same effect. It “impresses” (itself on) me, I am touched, I remember it and carry it with(in) me.
Thoughts I am less sure about. You read a book, sure, it can make a big impression on you. but even then you might forget it in a week. Poems can be stronger in this respect. Many a poem helps to establish and keep alive national identity, insights about different subjects, can create contact with elevated energies, feelings of thankfulness, humility, love or pride.
My own ditty “All you need is broadband” might have had some such effect. (Many people don´t even know that I wrote it, which gives the whole thing an old-fashioned Anon-feeling.)
Anyway, I am a scribe and think, and definitely hope, that my reflections on life, myself, you and the universe are somehow of some value to humanity. If not humanity, then the Cosmos (“no energy, be it ever so mental or aristocratic, is ever lost”).
Postscript: I can definitely say that being a scribe is a gift to myself: while writing, at least my own energies are vivified and strengthened. Presently I find it very hard to imagine life without the possibility to write down my thoughts.
“What?” Isn´t that a bit rude, to call us a something and not a someone?
Beg your pardon, I thought you were a talking washing machine. I mean, that´s how they look on our planet.
(in chorus) Happy Unbirthday to you, Happy Unbirthday to you, Happy Unbirthday dear Whjker79RHjk/YuTY6, happy unbirthday to you!
Thank you. What did you just call me? Whjker79RHjk/YuTY6…?
Yes, that is what we call you in our galaxy.
And what galaxy might that be? No, don´t tell me. It probably has a long, complicated name.
No at all. We come from the Groovy Galaxy.
I seem to have admirers all over the place. Groovy? Still live in the sixties, do you?
Actually it is a shortening for…
Don´t tell me! I am just fine. So, welcome Wjle789ajkseyuiweYuYu from the Groovy Galaxy.
But Wjle789ajkseyuiweYuYu is not our name!
No?
No, it just means “it is us”. You can almost hear it: Wjle-789-ajks-eyui-we-YuYu.
Yes, I am beginning to hear it. Anyway, how did you know it was my birthday, I mean unbirthday?
We know all about you, so that is nothing strange. And we thought it was a fitting day to visit you. Traveling to your remote planet does take some time, you know. We´ve been at it for — what is it, pals? — 20 light years.
Well, I do feel honored, Wjle789ajkseyuiweYuYu. I mean, sorry, that wasn´t your real name…
That´s okay. Since the word evidently sticks, and you already have memorized it, it can be our n i c k n a m e. But enough of us and our names. How are you doing? It took some time to find you, since you are not in your usual habitat. We visited your regular watering holes and people just told us “He has moved, no further info”.
I am in a kind of monastery, in the last house…
in the village of Sárkányháza. How symbolic.
Of what?
You yourself are feeling it, the quietness of not being in the middle of things but outside them, removed. That´s why you called it monastery. Actually it looks like a big, nice guesthouse sort of thing. All this apart from killing dragons, of course.
Of course. Yes, you are right. I am here to get away from things and people and getting close to myself.
We know all about it. Still it is good to hear it from the horse´s mouth, so to speak.
Yes, as a Saggi I know about horses and blinkers. But I have also taken up archery. Becoming human, slowly…
Yes, yes. (long silence) We see you have become friends with silence. That is good.
Sometimes I run out of words. And since so many words have run out of me in this lifetime, I thought I´d give them a rest.
Good move!
Words mean so little sometimes. And so much at other times. Sometimes they are premature, sometimes they come too late…
It is never too late.
For what?
There´s always another tram or bus coming.
Yes, but I see now how foolish it was to miss some trams.
Don´t fret. You are still here; there comes a tram; just hop on, as they say in Budapest.
Ah, Budapest! One could be happy there. I felt it at Keleti the other day. But how typical — I felt it just as I was about to leave the city.
At moments of separation we feel things stronger, are more “alive”. Unless we are alive every second.
What a cliché that is. But still, a good aim. And I suppose we are separating every second, from the second before it. This moment is different, from any before it.
(Sings, out of tune) “is different, it is now.” Just watch out so that the next moment — which doesn´t exist — steals you from THIS moment — which most definitely exists. By the way, do you mind if we smoke?
Just go ahead, I have a gas mask. What brand?
Djarum. We got the idea from your blog.
You really are readers.
We read it from your mind before you published it. So don´t look for our IP number in your statistics.
What else did you read there?
“Don´t be a clown”. We strongly suggest that you follow your own advice. Leave the clowning and get down to serious business.
Yes… serious showbusiness.
Or just business. Have you given yourself any new year´s promises this year, by the way?
No, I seldom do that.
Do it now.
Why not, my unbirthday is a new year in a sense. Let me see. I promise to myself that I will…
Yes…?
I have it, but I will keep it to myself.
Good. Many ears are listening in the ether. Just remember that you are still clowning, still entertaining. That´s great when you have a party at home, but don´t try to entertain the World.
Why not?
First, you can´t do it, second, you are doing it for the wrong reason. If you did it for the right reason, you could do it.
Today´s Koan.
Well, time flies when one enjoys oneself. Is there something special you would like to have as unbirthday present?
Let me think…. Birthdays is something that have melted away in my life, and as to unbirthdays, I am not used to getting presents then. That would be an awful lot of presents!
Well, 364 presents are not that many.
You are right, that´s a small number in an enormous Universe. I have it! An indirect present. Make A.P. Montata happy!
That was an unusual wish. We really are in no position to make anybody “happy”, but we promise to forward your wish to the Great Wizard. Now remember, writer: writing changes nothing, or almost nothing. That is a hard lesson for writers, we know. And don´t entertain, or, only entertain at home. And please, don´t end every one of your posts with a video!
You mean like this one?
That was actually very funny. And quite fitting for this day. Once again we wish you, our hero, a very happy unbirthday. We have to hop on our intergalactic bus now and be on our way. But, just like Arnold, we will be back!
I hope so, dear admirers. You came, and you made my day. Thank you.
S7e89rwklcyuqw! That means “Auf Wiedersehen” in our language.
I am about to make a big discovery, or realization — or just statement — about music and listening. We think these two quantities always belong together. Music is something we listen to, and we listen to music. Not so, not necessarily.
I would suggest that listening is akin to tasting in the sphere of food and drink. Of course we often eat without tasting our food, more than in the sense of “I taste this to see if the hamburger and Coca-Cola are okay, if they taste like they should, like they always do.”
After that, taste no more, ladies. Just EAT.
Eating in music would be hearing. If our ears are open we hear music, but we don´t necessarily listen to it. It´s like eating or drinking something that you are very used to; you merely verify and ascertain that this is what you ordered or bought. But tasting — as in really feeling what the food on your plate tastes like, at this very moment — does not enter the picture.
Full Menu: Big Mac, Fries and Coke
There will be much more to say about this, but I just want to jot down first impressions. Entire genres of music, it seems to me, are not really meant to listen to: techno, folk music (which might be surprising), and (less surprisingly) a lot of modern pop music coming out of the factories. I mean the hit-factories.
Since such “hit songs” are created to offer minimal resistance to our musical “teeth” (they are the opposite of al dente) the hit-makers restrict, cut down and minimize surprises. They want us, the listeners (rather the hearers) to feel “at home” from the start. The song should be like meeting an old friend we haven´t seen for some time. No surprises, just hearty recognition.
“Hit” is actually a wrong term. If these songs at least tried to hit me! No, massage or lull to sleep are correct terms, or, to be a little vulgar (which this music also is, so I am not apologizing) jerk you off in a non-obvious way, so that you hardly notice your own tiny orgasm.
A fool sniffs not the same scent that a wise man does , said (almost) William Blake. (He talked about seeing — trees.) Leaving fools and wise men aside, people sure seem to have different relations to scent and perfumes. Helen Keller likened smell to the fallen angel of the senses. She also called it “a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived.”
Not bad for some molecules in the air.
There is a spectrum from bad to good smells, but this picture does not hold if you look (sniff) more closely. There are things in the supposedly “good” corner that at least I find awful. And there are supposedly good but still despicable — at least questionable — olfactoryhabits.
I have only read about kings and aristocrats of yore who only bathed once a year, but who used overwhelming amounts of perfume. It would be interesting to actually visit a salon with such stinking (?) luminaries. The bad habits I am thinking of is using perfume either to mask other smells, or to add something not really necessary to neutral smells. What´s wrong with neutral? Water and air, neutral and lovely — but not appreciated enough.
I have a hard time falling asleep in bedclothes washed with perfumed washing powder. Whole houses sometimes smell of washing powder! People also walk around in clothes that smell of washing powder. I can understand if you want to smell of perfume, but not of detergent.
Scented paper handkerchiefs… Am I now supposed to perfume the inside of my nose? Who is going to climb in there and explore it? And perfumed toilet paper… give me a break. It would be better to stop eating food that rots in the gut. Why not invent a food that makes shit itself smell good? Ah, let it just stink: it is one string on the olfactory harp.
Then we have the lovely scents, good perfumes and incense, great soaps. The perhaps most beautiful (non-human, I must add; people are an altogether other story) smell comes from burning wood. It is far from french perfume, yet the word itself is close. Latin per– “through” + fumare “to smoke”.
Smoke gets in your eyes, and perfumed toilet paper gets on my nerves.
Speech is civilization. The word,
even the most contradictory word,
preserves contact — it is silence
which isolates. (Thomas Mann)
Of these three — speech, contact and civilization — I would say that contact is the most important and essential one.
We need not necessarily speak, and “civilization” is a dubious thing. As a sharp observer asked: Is it civilization if a cannibal eats with knife and fork? Much of what goes under the name of civilization is cannibalism with fancy make-up, and table manners, and tie.
Contact, however, seems more and more essential to me. This can be a question of human intercourse, umgänge, and such. Nice enough. I love to sit at a sidewalk café and chat with friends and strangers about all kinds of things.
But what seems even more important is a more general contact. When I look at you, or you, or the room I am in, or the small bottle of Metaxa I just bought, or my hands, or anything else, then I can have contact with you / it /me . Or not.
I can be there — or not. Present, or not.
When it comes to big city life one always hears that because of the great masses of city folk flowing like lava in the streets it is necessary to screen out impressions, sounds and people. One couldn´t survive otherwise.
I am no longer sure about that. I definitely suffer from street noise and big crowds and the rush hour energy. So I withdraw and retreat into myself.
But is it really myself I retreat into? Behind that train of thought lies the premise that I end HERE, just where the big noisy world starts. Within a radius of maybe two meters (including my aura) live I, beyond that lives the rest of the world.
But what if I am bigger than that? Then I am cutting off something that in a way belongs to me, or that together with me is part of something bigger. Maybe we are two fragments of a Whole, and in that case contact between us is not only inevitable, but also something that is desirable to recognize, accept, affirm.
While FULLY looking and establishing actual contact with you, the room, the bottle of Metaxa, or my hand, I am perhaps not shrinking at all, but the opposite. What I feel when looking earnestly at you — really bringing you into myself as an impression and “taste” — is possibly my greater self. Of which you are a part (?).
There is a wonderful saying that mirrors this train of thought.
“There, but for the grace of God, go I.”
Or sit I. Here is an interesting variation on the same theme.
One could say that the question is about being personal. Impersonal means denying any connection between us, certainly any kinship.
We (I) often look at waiters and chamber maids with an impersonal look. That is “normal”. What is maybe worse is to look with an impersonal eye on friends, acquaintances, even our lovers. Nobody home, vacant eye, no contact….
No eye contact, and no I contact. Looking inwards into “I” is at least as important as looking out.
Besides, we live with ourselves 24 hours a day (some of us 25), so if we have a poor relationship there, we will have lots of sad drama, all the time.
One more thing we can have contact with is time. This time, this hour, this second.
You, my dear, might still be here tomorrow, giving me a chance to be real and present, which I wasn´t yesterday and today. But the yesterday moment will be gone, floated far away on the river of merciless Time.
As the Incredible String Band sang: “If I don´t kiss you, that kiss is untasted, I´ll never, no never get it back…”
To the questions “What is a good photo?” and “What or who is a real photographer?” I have, from two professional sources, gotten the answer that the crucial factor is intention.
A good photo is a photo which was intended that way, and a real photographer is someone who shoots with intention.
The more I think about this, the less I agree. To begin with, a photo can be intended in a certain way and still be boring, only eliciting a yawn, or a laugh.
Yes! Exactly as I intended.
This thinking also excludes Dame Fortune, the goddess of luck, from the whole process. Even the best photographers in the world, I am convinced, have dealings with this Lady. Can we assert that in street photography we intended that gorgeous couple to step in front of us just when we walked by?
Some of the most boring but “beautiful” (BBB) pictures are full, overfull, of intention. I almost said bad intention, because most every factor is controlled, which means that there is really no air, no breathing room, no place for Nature, chance, luck and other unaccountable factors to enter.
So, no, I don´t agree that intention is the magic factor. However, if we split the process into several steps, then I can agree in part.
And let´s not just split into steps, but personalities. I see in my own photography a small family working together:
1) The Impulsive Amateur (child)
2) The Careful Editor (father)
3) The Arbiter of Taste (you know who)
I am sure many photographers have no amateur at all in their family, but I do.
I sometimes have a clear intention when heading out to take pictures, but most often don´t. I feel like a hunter leaving for the dark forest, with the wife shouting after me “And be sure to bring home dinner for the whole family, you hear!?”
Yes, I go hunting and I never know what I might catch. Intention plays a very small part for the Impulsive Amateur in me.
However, when I bring home my prey, look at what was caught in my net, I change identity from The impulsive Amateur to The careful editor.
Now there is much more intention involved. I choose to keep some pictures, throw away others, change some to black and white, and so on.
But in this phase also I don´t want too much intention. I try to be friends with chance and luck. It was the same when I worked with synthesizers and created many great patches just by twirling knobs randomly. (And of course listening to the results.)
[I suddenly realize I am the same with strolling. I don´t want to know too much about streets, where they are, where they lead. That way, I explain to myself, I get to see many places that people with pigeon-like talents of orientation, people seemingly with maps in their heads, never get to see.]
So even here I leave some place for luck and chance.
The third role, Arbiter of Taste, is kind of an extra step, but it decides what you, the viewer, get to see. There is even more filtering here, this is the smallest hole. Only what I think is very best comes this far. And of course I revise what I think is “very best”, I get more and more picky.
As the writer of Bluffing in Photography wrote: “Professionals have one great advantage over amateurs. They hide or destroy the majority of their work.” This is the job of the Arbiter of Taste.
(Note the falling bombs in the picture.)
