Tuesday Morning Walk... 2011-08-02

I See Red, I See Red, I See Red...

In preparation for the Nepal Trek, I'm practising walking and creating, to get both my physical and photographic fittness up to speed. So I set myself a little exercise at lunchtime on Thursday, where I decided to focus on "Seeing Red"... I parked at Broadway and walked to Chinatown - it's a short walk, but filled with photographic possibilities... The 'Red' thing was recalling an old Artschool exercise, of defining a set of parameters before going out with a camera, placing limits on what you will focus on, to narrow down the seemingly endless possibilities when one sets out to 'create' in response to an environment. It was also interesting to me what a perceptive shift occurred in 'deciding to see red', because all at once, my awareness was heightened to things I had not noticed before, details I might have passed over in a blurr suddenly came into sharp relief. I noticed how much effort lots of people had gone to with their outfits, how they had sought to co-ordinate their accessories, and what that might say about their lives and dreams and aspirations - and even on a grander scale, how the whole city seemed to hum with this resonance of appreciated Redness, how there's a shared aesthetic that unconsciously arises within a culture. I guess we don't always 'see' the creation of that in our own culture, but it's part of what's so appealing about travel, that we bring fresh eyes to appreciate the rhythms and aesthetics of the places and people that we visit...

I See Red, I See Red, I See Red... (Full-size images...)

The Olympus XZ-1 is a pretty darn awesome li'l pocket-rocket...

Writer's Trek in Nepal

Hello Writers, Colleagues, Friends and Friends-of-Friends of
Beth Yahp Writingworks and Sacred Journeys Nepal,

This year's Nepal trek and retreat is filling fast. There a few places left, but be quick!

Details of the tours can be found at http://bethyahpwritingworks.blogspot.com/Nepal
feel free to pass the word on to anyone you know who may be interested.

You can join one or both of these options, the itineraries are attached and the web-links are here:

1. 12-Day Writing Trek in the Himalayas: 9 - 21 October 2011 - US$3700
http://bethyahpwritingworks.blogspot.com/2010/12/writers-treck-in-himalayas-with-beth.html

2. 10-Day Writers Retreat in Nagarkot: 25 October - 4 November 2011 - US$2600
http://bethyahpwritingworks.blogspot.com/2010/12/writers-retreat-in-nepal-october-2011.html

There is a discount of US$200 for those who join us for both tours - the Writing Trek is for the more energetic (though there will be lots of rest stops and easy stages) and the Writers Retreat is just that: staying in one beautiful place with yoga and ayurvedic massage while we work on our writing projects, with a combination of masterclasses, small workshop groups and individual meetings with me to discuss your specific concerns.

These are not backpacker tours, but comfortable and relaxed travel, looked after by our highly experienced local tour manager and aimed at nurturing you as a traveller and creative being!

I hope you'll be able to join me for this wonderful adventure - and/or forward the info on to anyone who might be interested. These tours are strictly word-of-mouth, which is how we are keeping costs as low as possible.

Hope you are writing well, keeping well and staying warm (or cool)!

Thanks and best wishes,
Beth Yahp

Winter Portrait

Manhole Cover

(a haiku + photo by Kyle Powderly 2011, with respect to Karl Shapiro, Poet Laureate to US Congress, 1946)
a man could be lost
in a hole like that, swallowed
by the universe...

Solstice Siren Song

Up before dawn on the Sunday before Winter Solstice to meet for a 6.00 AM call, I made this image with my new Olympus XZ-1 while assisting on a photoshoot with my friend Richard Alma. It was a stunning morning, with the eastern winter sun rising over the seaside cliffs at Clovelly in the photographer's Golden Hour of divine light in which these mermaid/sirens could bask.

Jazz Angel

Trumpeter Eamon McNelis playing at SIMA Sound Lounge in the Andrew Dickeson Quintet 09-04-2011

Australia Day 2011

An early swim at Clovelly Beach and then off to Lakemba to eat Lebanese food with Vietnamese friends - what better way to spend Australia day?

Portrait Practice

Jeremy and Fon came over today and we had a mini-masterclass, swapping ideas, cameras, lights and lenses, practicing our portrait skills.

Happy Summer Solstice!

Mother / Daughter

Kundalini Yoga

Lots of fun was had by all during this warm-hearted photoshoot for two Kundalini Yoga Teachers. The studio is a lovely, bright, open space, with abundant natural light coming from a huge glass-wall on one side and the other white walls and sloping ceiling being perfect for bouncing the two SB900 flashes to give a clean, even light.

Mother-Daughter Time

The Da Vinci Code... (Light Is Everything)

Light is Everything. It's true - everything depends on light: without it, plants wouldn't grow, lambs wouldn't frolic and the earth would just be a cold dark rock spinning in space. Photographic renditions of light have the capacity to define form, create mood, and transform a scene. No one knew this better than the Old Masters - like Da Vinci and Rembrandt - with their chiaroscuro revealing an exquisite play of dark and light - imagine what those guys would have done if they had cameras!

Making Portraits

Did a lovely studio portrait shoot on Sunday night, for my friends Richard Allen and Karen Pearlman of the Physical TV Company. We've known each other for the past 20 years and have done occasional collaborations in a variety of creative media. Karen needed a head-shot for publication in an upcoming edition of Reel-Time "Australia's Critical Guide to Contemporary Performing Arts". (...more about that in a later post.)

Portrait shoots can be challenging, because creating a good image is so dependent on the interaction between the photographer and the person - the trick being your ability to communicate effectively and to direct without being intrusive on the subject's process - all the while keeping your head across all the technical aspects of the sophisticated machinery you are driving - lights, camera, action! - It's quite a skill!

It was also quite interesting with these two, because although they are both professional dancers and teachers and film-makers and choreographers of many years experience - they still both expressed how difficult it can feel to find themselves in front of a stills camera... so it kind of got it across to me that if these two are at all disquieted about the idea, then why would I expect anyone to be comfortable about being photographed?! I might as well just accept that fact and learn to work it to everyone's advantage... Knowing that most people feel that a camera is a magic black box that will steal their soul goes a long way to beginning to understand how to approach portrait sessions and how to work with and allay the fears and reactions it can bring up. Seeing the shoot as a collaboration between the sitter and the photographer, in which both people create the image is a vital distinction. To affirm that a photograph is to be made, not 'taken' is a subtle but definite distinction that changes everything in the attitude and intention within a shoot. It got me thinking once again, that the real heart of photography is about communication, respect and trust.

Inviting the Muse

It's so true, you have to be willing to get bare and raw for the Work to begin, to strip away the fetters and baggage... So often the Known only serves to inhibit. Much of my best work has happened when I have no idea what I'm doing, where I'm going with it... It's certainly not dependent on 'feeling good' or even being the opposite cliché of the 'angst-ridden artist'. There's no 'state' that tells me how good the outcome will be according to my subjective assessment at the time of creation... Only that the state of complete immersion in the creative moment can feel entirely divine... It's peculiar, one never knows when the muse might strike - only that if the hand is not holding the paint-brush, or the pen, or the keyboard, or the shutter-release, then there surely won't be a conduit or a means for the muse to make an appearance. Only by the action of setting forth, a destination in mind, but no attachment to the actual end-point can creativity be explored. In opening up to chance and serendipity, one might end up somewhere entirely different from what one imagined in getting up that morning... but what a marvellous discovery that might be...!

Artist's Statement:

I went to a writers soiree last Sunday organised by Beth Yahp of a reading by students and teachers of memoir and travel writing. After hearing some of the fascinating stories and motivations of the people I met there, I was inspired to pen an 'Artists Statement', defining some of what I do when I engage with photography

Beth also announced the launch of her latest Writer's Trekk to Nepal in October 2011. I'm very tempted to go, if it's not drawing too long a bow to say that I want to 'write stories with my camera'...

"When I practice photography, I am engaging in a creative space in much the same way as I might practice Yoga or meditation. It is an entry into a sublime space of contemplation. Which is not to say it is always quiet or retiring: sometimes it is fast and active, strident and joyful; and at other times it may be about hours of waiting, silently, observing the light. Or it might be all at once: playful, serious, determined, engaging, free. Outward and inward. It is an action that moves me through all states of mind, all states of being - and challenges me to transcend. In the moment that I make a photograph, I am not attempting to 'capture' anything. When I press the shutter, it is very often to express appreciation for something I have seen, or more often something I have felt: a connection; a presence; a moment of being. It is an applause for what IS. When I press the shutter, it is, for me, the sound of one hand clapping."

  

Critical Path

My friend Richard James Allen invited me to document a dance performance he had choreographed and was performing in as part of a month-long residency at Critical Path, a dance research studio in Rushcutters Bay, Sydney. The residency involved a collaboration amongst a group of choreographers and dancers with some German esoteric lighting and sound installation artists. The dance space of the performance was set with a series of fluorescent tubes suspended from the ceiling in a 6 x 6 grid. The whole lot was then rigged up to infra-red sensors that fed into a synthesiser and computer system so that sounds and light were triggered by people moving closer and further from the tubes. Both the audience and the performers were able to trigger the effects, and the audience was encouraged to move around the space while the dancers were performing, to increase the serendipity of the effects.

I've Just Been Published!

Woo-hoo! I've just recieved my copy of "World Music Global Sounds in Australia" by Seth Jordan, featuring a photographic portrait by yours truly of Reggae Soulmaker Sound System legends JJ and Jono Roberts, on page 89. Thanks Brent Clough for making that match happen! My friend Afro Moses also gets a mention on pg 118 -119 - small world!