“But rational thoughts lead only to rational thoughts, whereas irrational thoughts lead to new experiences.”- Alan Lightman
Off on a new adventure, been reading Alan Lightman – more to come.
Decided to try the monochrome conversion on the wood stork, he seemed to have pretty good texture and the image didn’t come out flat – like most of my conversions.
Quote found at https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/8933.Alan_Lightman
“I am always doing what I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” – Pablo Picasso
A couple of purple gallinule among the spatterdock. The 2nd guy was munching away on the flower. This weekend I will try to get some good pictures of the flowers. They are interesting in that they never seem to fully open. Another pic I’m looking for is a full face of the gallinule, the beaks are yellow, then red, with a blue shield above it. Oh and the bright yellow legs are cool too.
Quote found in the book The Zen of Creativity by John Daido Loori.
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.” Albert Einstein Just finished The Zen of Creativity by John Daido Loori, He was a Buddhist monk, photographer, and artist. Very insightful book. Great follow up study to Frederick Franck’s work. Perhaps in a couple of months if I get over the wonder of new discovery I will be able to focus more on the art side of photography. Info on John Daido Loori can bve found at http://www.mro.org/daido/ . More on Frederick Franck https://picturethisbyfrank.com/2015/01/14/more-inspiration/ and https://picturethisbyfrank.com/2015/01/30/the-awakened-eye-by-frederick-franck/ The quote was in the book.
“Photography is a language more universal than words” – Minor White
Quote found in The Moment of Seeing – Minor White at the California School of Fine Arts.
“Reaching a ‘creative’ state of mind through positive action is considered preferable to waiting for ‘inspiration'” – Minor White 1950
The above quote goes well with the adage that God helps those that help themselves.
Currently reading The Moment of Seeing – Minor White at the California School of Fine Arts by Stephanie Comer and Deborah Klochko with an essay by Jeff Gunderson. Excellent chronology of the school’s development with historical documentary photos of Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, and Minor White among others as well as photographs from the students and teachers at the school dating from the late 40’s/early 50’s. If you love photography and history seek out this book.
Quote comes from the book.
“There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception” – Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley was an English writer who was probably best known for his novel “Brave New World”. Although the above quote probably comes from Doors of Perception a non-fiction book about psychedelic drugs. I still find it quite insightful.
Odd parallel – he died the same day as C.S. Lewis.
Quote found at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/unknown.html
“I am always mentally photographing everything as practice” – Minor White While reading The Zen of Creativity by John Daido Loori I was introduced to Minor White. He was an influential American photographer who co-founded Aperture magazine in 1952. He also was a professor of photography at MIT. To see some of Minor White’s work go here http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/minor_white/ or watch this space. I will be going to the library today to see what’s available – a quick search shows 88 books by or about Minor White – I will be busy.
“You shall draw everything and everyday” Frederick Franck from the Awakened Eye. (I, of course substitute draw with photograph.}
Just finished A Day with Albert Schweitzer – A Lambarenene Landscape by Frederick Franck. A wonderful book sprinkled with great drawings. Frederick Franck was a dentist and artist who spent several months at Albert Schweitzers’ hospital in Lambarene in 1959 and then wrote this travelogue with an honest portrait (written and drawn) of A. S. and late colonial Africa. You can see the early development of F. F.’s later Zen philosophies and love of all living things.
I was very happy to find this book in the library, yet sad that it had not seen the light of day since 1990. The book also bore the markings of F.T.U. which was renamed to UCF in 1978. It will be my last Frederick Franck book for a while as I have exhausted the local library resources.
“Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today” Mark Twain
Mark Twain is one of my literary heroes. He was the ultimate wanderer. Starting down the Mississippi, he went out to Nevada, then San Francisco, Hawaiian Islands and the Mid East. Along the way he wrote some great travelogues – Innocent’s Abroad, Following the Equator, Autobiography among others.
Here’s some pics from the Virginia City, NV home of the Territorial Enterprise where Mark Twain wrote for the newspaper.
I didn’t want to leave the topic of The Awakened Eye by Frederick Franck without mention of this one last passage, As part of seeing/drawing and his Zen beliefs he has written an enlightened passage on how we treat the earth as follows:
“It struck me like a whip, Only in America, I believe, does one speak of earth as “dirt”. Are we products of dirt?”
later,
“Where Earth is seen as dirt, the bulldozer is destined to mutilate, to “develop”, to “landscape” what is mere dirt. Mother dirt….”
So far all his writings and drawings have touched me in various ways, I am onto my third book. I enjoy it so much I am able to forgive him for his distaste of photography.
Previous posts on Frederick Franck –
https://pitcturethis.wordpress.com/2015/01/30/the-awakened-eye-by-frederick-franck/
https://pitcturethis.wordpress.com/2015/01/14/more-inspiration-addendum/ore-inspiration/
https://pitcturethis.wordpress.com/2015/01/14/more-inspiration/
Picture This by Frank 