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Nov 10 / 10:49am

Scottish Parliament: to debate trial of Baha'is

S3M-05083 Christopher Harvie (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Scottish National Party): Imprisonment of Baha'i Leaders in Iran— That the Parliament condemns the continued imprisonment in Iran of Baha'i leaders Fariba Kamalabadi, Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naemi, Saeid Rezaie, Mahvash Sabet, Behrouz Tavakkoli, and Vahid Tizfahm, six of whom were arrested on 14 May 2008 and one detained since 5 March 2008, reportedly because of their Baha'i faith, and later charged with insulting religious sanctities, propaganda against the Islamic Republic, spying for Israel and spreading corruption on earth, the latter two charges carrying the death penalty; deplores that their trial has been postponed three times since their arrest, most recently on 18 October 2009 without a new date being set, and that internationally recognised protocols with regard to proper legal representation do not appear to have been followed nor any evidence brought forward to support the allegations, and urges the government in Tehran to facilitate the immediate release of the imprisoned Baha'i leaders and all co-religionists currently detained solely on the grounds of their religious beliefs and to end its active persecution and discrimination of adherents to the Baha'i faith, in accordance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which it ratified in 1975.

Supported by: Stewart Maxwell, Mike Pringle, Gil Paterson, Brian Adam, Dr Bill Wilson, Robin Harper, Ken Macintosh, John Wilson, Bill Kidd
Lodged on Thursday, October 29, 2009; Current

via scottish.parliament.uk

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Nov 10 / 9:41am

One of the MPA - Master Photography Awards 2009 Presentation

via thempa.com

Click on link to see all of the other winners.

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Nov 10 / 8:35am

Do you wish you could paint like this?

The Nude As Landscape

"The Nude as Landscape" came about in a normal studio session. The painting was conceived as a figure study, in acrylic on canvas, but as the work proceeded the landscape-like contours of the human body suggested a broader landscape. The female figure became surrounded in air as well as light, and a new idea was born. This "second-generation" thinking happens when normal orders of procedure are reversed, causing new angles to be discovered. Read Aspects of order

Changing the Light

Several days ago in the Queen Charlotte Islands I was faced with a particularly flat day. Overcast and grey, it wasn't even foreboding. Not much was wrong with the small canvas I painted down on the beach, but during the windup strokes I realized it needed something more. Changing the light is a painter's prerogative. Remembering the sunset of the previous evening--and the rain squalls passing through it--I thought, "Why not?" Read On

Lake O'hara

Sara and I were guided above Lake O'Hara to a remote ridge known to the "Opabin Shale-Splitters." This was where MacDonald and his friends painted in the summers of 1924 to 1930. We could well see the appeal. Patterns of rock and snow in all directions. Light. Shadow. Atmosphere. Dramatic mountains all around. Lots of places to sit. Read On

Forest Spirit

I needed to get out of the studio. We jumped in the car and disappeared into the local forest. I set up and made a little painting while Michelle set up and made a little movie. " Forest Spirit " is another of those Shoulder Clips that we have shown you before , but this one is in real time, a bit languorous and laid back. For her first flick, I think she caught the feeling. It takes six minutes. Read On

The Secret

Videos: Looking south from Hale Ke Kai and Surf over lava at Hale Ke Kai.
A painter needs to think of the orderly processing of areas. As much as possible one should work from large areas to small, more or less setting up to hold these areas with negative areas. While doing this, keep in mind some elements of a painting cannot be handled this way, and must be painted topically. The artist should give a few minutes of thought before diving in. The idea is to decide on the approximate order in which the various elements are to be processed. Read On

via clicks.robertgenn.com

Robert Genn provides a wide range of support services for artists.

These are interesting over-the-shoulder videos of him working.

Interesting even if you prefer other forms of art.

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Nov 9 / 11:36pm

Defining the spirit of art photography and bringing together Henri Cartier-Bresson and Eckhart Tolle

I decided to pull together and develop some pieces about photography. Hence my new 'investigative journal' seeking the essence, the spirit, of photography – and the impact of discovered in-sights, and out-sights, on my photography, my consciousness and spirit.

It will inevitably also ‘touch base’ with some painting, sculpture, video and film.

My working definition of art says;

Art is culturally, and personally, significant meaning, skilfully

encoded in an affecting, sensuous medium.

(RP’s working definition – after a definition by Richard Anderson quoted in Freeland (2001 p. 77))

My definition of photography is inevitably the same, but what is special and defining about photography?

The great master Henri Cartier-Bresson said;

To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression.

My working definition of art plus HCB’s definition will have to do for now.

However Cartier-Bresson’s definition may not stand up as a general definition. It doesn’t work so well with great innovatory fine art photographers like Calum Colvin or Cindy Sherman

Both Colvin and Sherman can take days or weeks or months to compose a set of their images.

HCBs definition is about how he was as a photographer, the process he worked with, and the strange set of rules he imposed on himself – including demanding the black edge on his prints to show that it was a full-frame and not cropped. He was largely a street photographer, a hunter of the magic moment when camera and eye and heart were in perfect, and geometric, alignment.

Of course his definition and the rules by which he worked reflect each other.

How slippery it is to try and define photography is felt very strongly when we read the wonderful book The Ongoing Moment by Geoff Dyer.

To put my cards on the table – I suspect the spirit of photography can only be understood against the background of an understanding of the human spirit, something I undertook in my doctorate – summary is HERE.

What does the spirit of photography have to do with spirituality in its broadest sense? Photographs are moments captured, fixed, plucked out of time and given eternality (or at least as long as the paper and chemicals last). Spirituality in its mystical heart is beyond religion and culture. It is about how we learn through stillness to unhook ourselves from the pain of past regret and future longing. To take a photograph is to assert the now, only to become conscious that in all outward particulars the photograph is changing because it is an object back in the flow we call time. But really the only reason a photograph changes is because we change. We learn to read with more compassion, more in-sight, more wholeness. Try it with pictures of yourself, your parents and family.

If there isn’t more compassion, more in-sight, more wholeness there is some serious work to do! I hear that the guru Ram Dass says if you think you have made real progress spiritually try going home to live with your parents for a week or two.

When we ‘take’ a photograph that works we are participating in the very essence of human challenge, the challenge to live in the present without being thrown by the ‘radio interference’ of past regret or future longing – two kinds of ‘if only’.

Positive photographs point through surface particulars to this human, spiritual reality.

Negative photographs are ones taken in desperation to keep that which is slipping by, because we can’t face living in the now.

A great source to inspire us in this is Eckhart Tolle, especially his book Stillness. One example;

When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world.

Your innermost sense of self, of who you are, is inseparable from stillness. This is the I Am that is deeper than name and form.

All great art nourishes most in these great universals.

In seeking to go deeper into photography, and other arts, – as celebration, as ‘connecting with’, as personal creativity – my special focus then will inevitably be a humanistic one. It will be on photography’s place in the very process of being and becoming human, in the flow of the human spirit, and the gathering of eternal moments, along the tao of life.

-0-

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Nov 9 / 12:55am

Creative influence of other photographers – does it matter? William Eggleston and a London pub.

Echoes of other photographers in our own photographs – do they matter, do they only matter for would-be professional, and not for us amateurs?

The first photograph below is a well-known image by William Eggleston. I saw a great exhibition of his work at the Hayward in London. I went round very fast – twice – to gather up the spirit of his work.

The feeling from that great set of photographs stays with me like a tune – but I couldn’t put it in to words. (One element or theme in his work is about the presence of those that were there but now are absent – rather like the painter Edward Hopper.)

This photograph can, on the face of it, be hardly less memorable. But it did stick as have many of his photographs - stickabilty of images in our minds is one criterion of great photographs, given the million images we see every day.

Greenwood, Mississippi, 1974

Some years later I found myself in a London pub near the Saatchi gallery staring at the wall and ceiling.

Some bits were more interesting in the sense they demanded greater emphasis – the wires for example, but the deep red ceiling held sway in my consciousness.

Taking photographs teaches us how to see. Taking photographs that echo the resonances of master photographers helps in the reading as well as the taking of photographs.

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Filed under // Art Creative expression Edward Hopper Influence in art Learning photographs Photography Photography as self-understanding Taking photographs William Eggleston

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Nov 7 / 10:51pm

Everything you always wanted to know about sax but were afraid to ask.

Everything you always wanted to know about sax but were afraid to ask.

Today is National Saxophone Day. In recognition, here are a few saxophone facts:

The saxophone was invented by Adolphe Sax, He was born this day in 1814

via to55er.wordpress.com

Click on link to read the other interesting things about the saxaphone!

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Nov 7 / 10:34pm

Binky in her 'Alternate Reality' says some very important things about photography as creative connection

“I guess every girl goes through a photography phase. You know, horses… taking pictures of your feet.” – Scarlett Johannson as Charlotte in Lost in Translation.

I’m not a photographer, and I’m not good with the camera either. It’s one of those things I just don’t have the talent for.

But I do love photography.

I’m not great with art. I don’t know how to judge a painting, it’s all too confusing for me. I’m not really into sculptures either, unless the really obviously beautiful ones, like Michaelangelo’s David.

But I am always drawn to photography.

via alternatebinkyality.wordpress.com

Click on link to see all the stuff that Blinky has said so far

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Filed under // creativity fine art photography photography photography as self-expression. photography blog Scarlett Johannson women photographers

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Nov 7 / 11:44am

The call of the heart, the right-brain, the longing for at-one-ment - by Adam Kayce

The Urgent Call

It lies within you, thirsting.

Like a baby bird chirping desperately for its mother’s return to the nest to bring the food that will keep it alive, there is a yearning that lives within you, and it calls incessantly. It can be satiated with the smallest of moments, and it has a camel’s resistance to thirst, but if you ignore it too long, it will shrivel and die.

And as it does, color will fade from your world. Meaning will ebb away, enjoyment will wither, and you’ll sit around trying to remember a time in your life when richness existed. You’ll get dry, stiff… and when you hardly recognize the crusty you that you’ve become, you’ll chalk it up to being busy. Or being a parent. Or being a professional. Or getting older.

But it has nothing to do with any of those things.

The Urgent Call is your spirit’s need for connection. Like the migrating herds of the plains of Africa, who travel thousands of miles every year in search of life-giving food and water, your spirit has an essential drive to feel its connection to all around it. It’s the reason we seek community. It’s the reason we search for purpose and meaning in life. It’s the reason we feel better when we’re on a spiritual path, and it’s the reason that it doesn’t really matter what path that ends up being.

What matters is that you connect.
What matters is the Urgent Call gets listened to.
It doesn’t matter how your Urgent Call gets fulfilled, only that it does.

Mind Schmind

Oh, sure, your rational mind wants to be right, it wants everything to make logical sense, and it wants reasoning to explain your beliefs. And those things are fine… for the mind. But the Call doesn’t need those things (which is why it’s doubted and ridiculed so often); the Call just needs connection.

The evidence for this is that this post makes sense to you. Logically? Reasonably? Heck no. Your left brain probably doesn’t have a clue in hell what I’m talking about, and it’s going a little nutso trying to figure out where this is going, matching patterns and looking for a logical conclusion. In fact, it’s probably liking this little explanation, because it can understand it. “Ahh,” it says, “I’m feeling much more comfortable now that you’re speaking my language.”

via adamkayce.com

click on link to read full article

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Oct 29 / 6:53am

Steps you can take right now to get Fair Voting for England/UK

Dear Reader

Among the general atmosphere of dry rot in Westminster, "change" can be considered a bad word. But when it comes to obstinacy against electoral reform, not all MPs are created equal.

Some are worse than others. And we've identified 13 MPs who are the very worst - making up a rogues' gallery of resistance to the change we so urgently need.

Help us name and shame them now. Write to these MPs and demand to know why, despite the crisis in our democracy caused by the expenses scandal, they won't allow voters to have a say on a fairer voting system:

http://www.voteforachange.co.uk/RoguesGallery

Because comfort with voters' disenfranchisement is a bipartisan affair, politicians from both side of the house are members of our gallery.

On the Labour side, we've got Jack Straw, Ed Balls, and Peter Mandelson - who said in 2000 that the first-past-the-post system for electing MPs was "unfair and effectively disenfranchised millions of people." (Over the ensuing nine years, he's apparently decided that mass disenfranchisement suits him and his party just fine.)

And on the Conservative side, we've got party chair Eric Pickles, George Osbourne, and David Cameron - who wants to be the "Change Candidate." But not to the point where he'll actually support the sort of change that counts.

These MPs have the power to restore faith in our democracy following the expense crisis and give voters a voice again. But they haven't. And they won't, unless we expose them :

http://www.voteforachange.co.uk/RoguesGallery

It only takes a couple of minutes to name and shame - and believe me, it's good for the soul. Hope you'll join me in writing to these MPs today.

Thanks,

Willie Sullivan

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Oct 28 / 12:28am

Top 10 Ghostwritten Books by Scott Laming - on ABE books

No matter where you go on the planet you will find tales of the supernatural. Spirits, spooks and spectres are everywhere. However, there is one reclusive mythical creature that particularly sparks fear in literary hearts – the ghostwriter.

They are the hired guns of the publishing world, paid to produce and then melt away unseen. Words for cash – no questions asked. The work is never-ending - there are the high profile celebrities who have not picked up a book since primary school but now need an autobiography and the estates of dead authors, like V.C. Andrews and Robert Ludlum, who wish to keep the novels coming.

Some ghostwriters have a place in history. Carolyn Keene is as fictional as the teen sleuth that she was supposed to have created, Nancy Drew. In reality, Carolyn was a pseudonym for a series of ghostwriters who wrote book after book based on a template and an expected style.

James Patterson admits he is simply more proficient at dreaming up plots than crafting sentence after sentence. He often credits his ghostwriters as “co-authors” on his covers. Peter de Jonge is one author who used to ‘ghost’ for Patterson but has now published his novel, Shadows Still Remain.
Many ghostwriters sign non-disclosure agreements to ensure they stay in the shadows, but often the identity of the true author emerges. John F. Kennedy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book Profiles in Courage was actually ghost-written by his speechwriter Theodore Sorenson. This was denied for years but Sorenson admitted to writing large sections of the book in his 2009 autobiography, Counselor.

You might be surprised to see who else has been a ghostwriter.