Creative Genus

" I think I know what it is like to be God"
Pablo Picasso

There’s a really wonderful talk on Ted.com with Elizabeth Gilbert who wrote "eat, pray, love". It’s about the creative genus and the way we approach it in our thinking as a society. How it relates to us all in different ways and what pressure it can place on us as individuals. In my own experience with this force, which I refer to as magic, it has a charm that can’t be controlled or summoned on a whim. It’s a force as free as the wind and as complex as the relationship between two creative people. When it happens you know it and when it doesn’t you know it only too well.

We photographers try to harness that magic each time we pick up a camera and aim it at a subject. Sometimes we succeed in creating an image that’s spectacular and some times it’s somewhat less. It’s that magic, I was afraid I’d lost when I had my stroke. Along with the other crutches that most creative people cultivate, I had a great fear that my life was now changed beyond measure. It took me a long time to be able to even hold my camera and the thought of creating were immense. Did I have the mental acuity to be able to summon that magic and manipulate it for my art. I only knew that I was lost and it was going to be a long time getting into the groove of things before I could even try.

I started shooting my events first and that went slowly but well thank the gods. That’s how I make money and that was important in it’s own right but it’s not the only thing that’s important. What about the thing that feeds my soul and brings joy to my very being. I could only wait and wonder for a long time before I felt able to cope. My first subject was a model friend who I’d known for some time, she was comfortable with me and knew my situation. I was filled with trepidation about the actual mechanics of the shoot, there are so many things to remember. Would I be able to concentrate on the model and the feel I was getting and still keep the actual functions of the camera clear in my mind. When you are shooting available light you need to keep reflectors in mind and to be able to see what they’re giving you. One misplaced reflector and your shot is only lit from one direction and the mood changes. And mood is everything when photographing the nude.

I’m happy to say all went well and as I progressed I got more and more confident and relaxed, secure in my knowledge and that I could hold up my end of the bargain. It was more than showed up for work and trying, the magic was with me. I wasn’t forcing it to work for me I was content to let it happen on it’s own and direct our shoot. My second model was a new girl who had been recommended to me. Because I knew what I could do I wasn’t as fearful as the first time. Because of a timing mixup we got a late start, we used this time as a test of each other and how we worked together. The magic still flowed and we got some nice work. But the point of all this is you can’t force magic, it will happen or it won’t. Being ready and secure in your knowledge is key to enticing the magic to shine upon you and your endeavors. You can’t and don’t want to force each situation to conform to your beliefs that you are all powerful and you alone are a creative genus. That way lies madness and a sad end to your talents.

Oscar's

I used to watch the Oscar’s and wait up for the announcement of who won for Best Picture. Not anymore, I really don’t care who wins for what and what that award means to their future. I haven’t seen one of this years movies just like I haven’t seen last years. I’ll watch for a bit, can’t miss the red carpet now can we. But it doesn’t mean the same anymore. It’s about a big a waste of time as watching who got beat-up by whom or if Paris is wearing panties and with what outfit. Just a real time waster and I’d rather read a good book.

In my childhood those award meant something, the stars were bigger and the light they cast was much brighter. The roles they assumed were much bigger as well, in real life and at the movies. I was to small to get the roles they played except for John Wayne who was larger than life. But even he was a character in life as surely as he was a character in the movies. But I was impressed with his bravado and simple code of justice. It wasn’t till I was a teen that I saw The Duke in all his drunken glamor and realized that he was just a man and has his demon’s like every other man. It was much later that I realized that his simple code of justice was fatally flawed as well. But he had a presence that made him a movie star none the less.
Today’s movie stars seem vapid by comparison, one dimensional characters too caught up in their own lives. Like singer who are one hit wonders and who continue to sing the same songs with only a slight change in lyrics. Still looking for that magic that eludes them they have no imagination, no creative drive that sustains them. They are content with their one dimensional stick figures and approach each job not as a challenge but as simply a paycheck. There are exceptions of course but not many rise to the level of truly creative artist. Too often we are bathed in gore or treated to special effects to create a wow factor that’s supposed to make up for the lack of talent or script. In this country at least we rely on the celebrities to carry the film and to bring that box office success like it makes up for a film that’s devoid of intelligent characters or plot.

So I’ll sit this one out, I found a good book or two that should provide entertainment for the evening and go to bed at a reasonable time. In the morning I’ll listen to the winner I missed like their movies. In the end I won’t really remember who won or lost or what the best picture was. And I won’t care not an inch. I’ll save my late night for a talk with good friends or stargazing or maybe New Years evening, at least there fireworks to see.

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Esperanza from another time and place. She is my muse and friend who I haven’t seen in a long, long time.

Yashica

My first camera was a Yashica 35mm with screw in lens. I had a wide angle, normal lens, a medium telephoto and only an idea what it could do. My first roll of film was a complete disaster. I’d done some photos of a party we were having and I got the chemicals mixed up. But from failure we learn no matter how slowly. I started shooting trains and other landmarks around the city to varying degree of success. But slowly I was learning what to do and how to handle the camera. When I began shooting girls I thought I’d die and gone to heaven.

I started with a girl name Marsha who I knew from high-school and she was a babe. Long blonde hair and a figure graced by the heavens. That first shoot I was so nervous I almost dropped the damn lens as I was screwing it in. I pause to let my nerves collect and to cover I made out that I was thinking. I got to take Marsha to two or three sites including a grave yard and an abandoned house. All told we spent about three or four hours together and I got to know her pretty well not that we were great friends or anything. But I was learning to deal with personalities and how to work with her to get something I was proud of. It was only later when I was in the darkroom and got my first print that I realized how pretty she was. I found out much later that she had married her high-school sweetheart and had tragically die in a car accident.

I also shot with a girl named Michael Ann, boy was I smitten with her. We shot roll after roll one afternoon at an abandoned hotel from the twenty’s. A spiral staircase and some little house’s on the property. I look at some of the shots now and they have such a dated look and feel. No nude of course, the sexual revolution hadn’t happened yet just really lovely innocent stuff . I loved that background I was using, an old hotel that was limestone with many small rooms and big corridors. I had shown my mother where I was working and she found out who the property owner was and I got permission to use the place. That really helped because when the police came to check I was allowed to be there. I use the ground for all they were worth and I spent a lot of time and film there.

But working with these girls I found my calling, I found my passion to create beautiful representations of each girl. To be able to craft each young women into a two dimensional work of art that captured their personalities, hopes and dreams. And in retrospect I was laying the ground work for the me I was to become as a man and photographer. I was learning a lot about me working with these girls. I used that knowledge to bridge the gap between photographer and subject. To be able to draw the best out of them and then coaxes it onto paper and have people wonder if they knew the person. That’s what I love the gratification of the viewer to be able to connect with the person I photographed. It’s a skill that involves so many talents and so much time to develop. I don’t feel just because your camera allows you to get a perfectly exposed image that your job is done.

It’s that joy that I get working with a subject in all their imperfections with all their follies and foibles on display. Getting that subject to relax and to begin to have some trust in my skill and me as a person. To get that person to open up literally and figuratively speaking, to flower as a human being. Then I have to have the skills to capture that moment in time to perfection and to reproduce it in print. That is the talent of the photographer, to record that personality so that you feel that you’d like to know the subject better. The real skill is being able to do it so seamlessly it seems like play and not the hard work that it is. It’s that ability that allows the model the room to create and add to the image you both create.

Grumpy

This blog was inspired by my friend Dave and his recent post on the same, being grumpy. I too suffer from this ailment, I guess it come from getting older and having less patients with people. I’ve never suffer fools lightly and I really get upset when people seem to refuse to use that gray matter. I’m used to working with people who are as intelligent as I am or maybe smarter than me but not by much. In most of my business life I’ve worked among equals and we’ve worked together for a common good. I just don’t understand the concepts that don’t require one to think just for a moment and do something right the first time.

I recently took a friend to lunch in a nice restaurant and we were seated out-doors on a wonderful afternoon. The service started out uneven and steadily got worse, the lunch arrived after a interminable wait and lukewarm at best. Our waitress had too many tables in her section to do a good job and should have handed us off to another of the wait-staff but didn’t. I did complain to the manager and told him she had too many tables and he did offer us dessert with his excuses. But the damage was already done to our wonderful afternoon and to his reputation. There was even a mistake in our bill but as it was in our favor we decided to not make an issue out of it.

My other pet peeve is dog owners who don’t have the consideration to restrain their pets. I’ve had to give up my walks through the neighborhood because every two or three blocks I get rush by dogs that are not confined to there yards. Ever since my stroke I’ve suffered from anxiety attacks that come on from out of nowhere when I least expect them. What made me stop walking is when two big dogs I didn’t recognized came from behind a house and would have attacked but I had my walking stick and that stopped them. But they got close enough that I was panicked and thoroughly frighted out of my mind. I just didn’t know what to do and I just watched it happen before me. In my case the dogs have won and I now confine my walks through the parks where it is safer and there are fewer conflicts.

My other big peeve is people who insists on talking loudly on their cell phones. It can ruin a perfectly good day to be forced to listen as people gab on their phones with not a care in the world to stop them. I recently had two women who sat at a table near me and proceeded to take out their cell phones and make call after call instead of talking to each other. Why on earth they went for coffee together and then didn’t talk to each other is beyond me. Or the business man who has other tables to choose from but he has to sit besides me and conduct call after call while I’m trying to enjoy reading my book in peace and quiet. I just can’t figure out the thinking of some people I really can’t.

I’m not sure whether it’s age or the effects of my stroke that lead me to a greater intolerance of the stupidity of some people. I do know I struggle mightily with this problem. Like Dave maybe I should live out in the backwoods where peace and quiet of the forest surround me. Somewhere I can commune with the birds and nature where the stress of life can’t find me. But then whatever would I do without my Starbucks.

Obama

It’s so comforting to finally have a president for whom English isn’t a second language. Bright and articulate, at times a little more information that I wanted but at least we have someone I believe is leveling with us. This hole we’ve all gotten ourselves into with plenty of help from the bankers and mortgage makers not to mention the wall-street types who mortgages our future on risky bets. Now we’re having to pay a price and some of us are screaming NO like a two year old with his/her first word. The price were having to pay is just the down-payment on the financial disaster our country and the world is facing. Is it the right plan at the right time.., who knows. But past experiences is obviously not the way to go, it’s the way we got here in the first place.

A lot of what’s going on is posturing and trying to test a new president, playing a game of chicken with our fate. The outrage from Wallstreet is from a disbelief that there a no hard and fast plans that lay out the impossible task that is facing our country. We know that the old ways of doing business don’t work and the new way hasn’t been figured out or implemented yet. There is uncertainty in the future and that uncertainty drives Wallstreet mad. I think the president has the right approach for now, slow and cautious see what the results are and then make bolder moves as needed. This is an awful lot of money he’s betting on the future but I think it has all the earmarks of a better future for our kids who will inherit that future.

From everything I read and hear from both liberal and conservatives writers they seems to be in agreement. Make no mistakes, I don’t have a dog in this fight; I own no stocks and I haven’t got a house or business right now. I only have the hope that these things will help use to recover sooner or later. I’m stuck in the same boat as a lot of older Americans, I chose to be self-employed rather that work for a company; I’ll be fending for myself for a lot of years to come. Most of my peers are in the same shape as I am, they’ll be working till they die. Retirement is a long lost concept along with loyalty. Gone are the days we can retire to the country and live the good life. The reality is that most people can’t afford to retire and have to keep up an income so they can live. There’s no more making a place for the young to get a foothold on life, it’s every man/woman for themselves.

I keep looking at my young friends spending ever last dime that they make on upgrades to their lifestyles. And I want to warn them but what good would it do, I didn’t listen or care. I had plenty of time to figure that out later, well later is now and what am I going to do. I have a good history of finding work, I’ve never been unemployed for more than a few weeks or so. But now the paradigms have shifted, because of my stroke I’m left searching for something different to do with what’s left of my life. Something that will help other people so that is why I’ve started this blog. In the process of writing something will make itself know to me. My job’s it to figure out the what’s and the wherefor’s of the plan that will make my life whole again. Not easy task I know but I know my life was given back to me for a purpose and a reason. I was allowed for my life to continue to give back to others, to help them to understand their injuries or afflictions and to give them hope. I know that just as I sure of who I am.

Beautiful

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, how many time have we heard this refrain. Beauty encompasses so many traits that it defies easy definition. Beauty is the sum of it’s parts and is not limited by physical manifestations. To me beauty includes the mind and the willingness to share a life no matter the challenges. Beauty include the imagination to perceive a life beyond today, the right now, the mundane; in sickness and health. Real beauty lies beyond the excitement of youth, the beginnings of a mature love made for the long haul. People are molded by their surroundings and by nature, by their families and it shapes their character and the ways they view the world about them.
I have know women who have been terribly scarred by their past lives. At the hands of stranger and worse by the hands of those who were supposed to love them. Yet their character shine through the suffering they’ve endured. It’s these traits, the sum total of the history they carry with them in their day to day lives and how they interact with that history that’s fascinating. Some take a lifetime to heal and to find peace in their lives at last. That is a difficult history to over-write and it takes a loving kind of friend to bring out trust again. To work with them to learn to live with that pain and those memories.

Then too there are the women who have been scarred physically who have suffered the ravages of a life threatening disease and medication. These women are the hardest to heal because the attack is so fresh and the wounds so deep. Consider that women want to feel pretty and youthful, almost beautiful though few will admit to this. It begins around thirty, the wolf whistles that come too infrequently, the admiring glances as they enter a room, the dreaded Ma’am from young men. It’s hard for a woman to adjust to the reality of advancing age, that youth is fleeting by it’s very nature. Couple that with a devastating illness that prematurely forces a young woman to see her life as possibly cut short. Many of us suffer from these afflictions but we men don’t have to feel pretty and feminine.
When I had my stroke I knew that a real dividing line had been pasted, that I was firmly on the other side now. But I had a chance to prepare for advancing age, I could see all the signs around me of diminished youth and vigor. Not to make myself older than I am but no one was holding doors for me yet. But after I passed that line it all changed in an instant. First I reasoned that I was handicapped and all could see, the truth took awhile to settle. But again I was in my late fifty’s and one could see the writing on the walls. My self-esteem took a direct hit, my self-confidence too. But no one was expecting me to feel pretty and youthful and flirty, a girly girl. I was allowed to be my age, cankerous and sometimes petty it all came with the territory.

Medication is not my friend, I am on a lot of drugs and not the good kind. Medication alters my moods and most days of my life it sets them. I’m on a anti-anxiety medication, there are times I don’t feel I need it, then I try to get off. Or times that I leave my refills too late and I can’t get them and I see how my blood-pressure rises or I’m angry about something. I no longer feel I am in control of my life, that the day to day business of my life is controlled by something beyond me. That control is something that I’ve ceded in order to prolong the quality of my survival. I’m not particularly happy about that but the medication overrides any concerns. But at least no one expects me to be pretty.

This is dedicated to my beautiful friend Lin von B.

If my feet could fly

I had a dream last night where I was flying, not in the sky but down the stairs. Effortlessly, I lightly touch each step on my way down and I could move each foot in quick succession. I no longer dream of wild sexual situations anymore but I covet my dreams of moving as I used to again. Sad I know but par for my age and that time in my life. A change is going to come no matter what we do, for some it will come with grace and wit. For some it will come with anger and resentment, take your pick. In the end it will come with a certain resignation and with diminished mobility. But until then we can always dream before our lives are one endless dream.

I often dream of the way thing were before the change that overcame me. I rarely ran but I think back on the way I moved and talked and how I took that for granted. I used to take great pride in running up stairs two at a time. My favorite walk was downtown along the Riverwalk and a grand staircase that was some twenty to thirty feet high. I almost loose my breath on the way up but it was a thrill for me to conquer. Every once in a while a person would be sitting at the top and I’d say hello with my last breath and continue on my way. Not a great feat but none the less I got something out of it. Now I’m lucky to be able to walk up the same flight of stairs without tripping over my feet or the stairs themselves.

In reality I’m lucky to be moving as well as I am or to even walk at all. When I spent that four weeks in a wheelchair I’d have given anything to be able to walk even to the bathroom let alone around the hospital. It must be the human condition to always concentrate on that we can’t do rather than on the things we can. When I recall that time in my life I wonder how I ever managed to overcome my paralysis. How did I find the strength to do the things I needed to find my way back. Because I had to is the short answer, I simply had no other option. Life it seems is for the living and living well is the best option, I don’t know about revenge.

Now that I’m entering that age where elder-speak happens and with people hold the doors for me it’s hard to understand that I’m reaching that age. I still think young and I’m not beyond acting childish that’s for sure. These lovely young women at Starbucks call me sweetie and even bring my coffee to me. I thank them very much and regret that I’m no longer a threat to them, I no longer count except as the nice old guy who reads books and borrows the newspaper. There was a time..., but now I can only look at them and remember.

Censorship

A new/old wave of censorship is sweeping the world like a blight. Art blogs that feature photographers who don’t conform to this harsh standard are under attack from the Taliban's of our country. From John Ashcroft who covered the statue Spirit of Justice because of her exposed breast. To the beaches of Australia where topless sunbathing is under assault by a new prudishness is sweeping the world. But it’s far too late to put that genie back in the bottle even if everyone wanted to.
Our culture is build on the selling of sexual promises real or unspoken, that what’s advertising is all about the promise. We are inundated with provocative images some of them tasteful and some of them not quite. Blogs too are filled with the work of some very fine photographers but also includes lots of wanna be’s. No one is pushing this stuff on you however you have to go looking if you’re interested in finding it. It’s not like some porn purveyors are loading this into your or your children computer while you are surfing for something else.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so it is with porn what you seek is what you’ll find. Child pornography is not the primary issue here it is a question of finding art that suits your creative needs. The issue of child pornography is a red herring thrown up as justification for the repression of nude photography in general. It’s a repression of the people and the lifestyles of people who offend those puritanical amongst us. It is the Taliban's way of dealing with the realities of life, if thy eye offends thee pluck it out. That is not the way a truly free society operates in this day and age. People are dying for the freedom to live and let live, the freedom to pursue our way of life unimpeded by the repression of tyrants. Unfortunately in a free society we have to put up with the malcontents and the misfits. That’s what make our society free, a willingness to let two consenting adults do what pleases them as long as no one is hurt or damaged in the process.

The pursuit of happiness is a long cherished right of free men and women everywhere. The pursuit of glorious art bring happiness and joy to the soul of the beholder. For generations artist have been pursuing that elusive quality of nudity that bring joy to the eye and hearts of many. For generations too artist have been persecuted for their art, for their visions and their freedom. That freedom to create come at a high cost for us all. Now we are being called to once more defend the rights of our fellow artist and to stand with them and be counted. It is a right worth defending. It is a freedom too precious to loose to those who wish us to cower in silence. Stand up for your rights and your art before it too late.

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For an artistic read see my friend Chris at his blog: Univers d Artistes