And here, by popular request (just line up in an orderly queue to thank Tam) is another… er… “colourful” shot.
Heh heh
Last night we were out and about and had to pop into the drug store for some orthodontic wax for Sarah (she has braces). While she was choosing wax, I was perusing the stationery aisle. Lookie what I found….CRAYOLA! Yep, I had too.
I’m not done, I have other ideas…but I just had to submit this shot.
Sorry, but I just couldn’t resist it!
OK. Done and dusted. What’s next then?
When I announced the theme for this month, I thought it somewhat appropriate considering the new year and what not but I must have been a little psychic, because in the last couple of weeks it has taken on a more personal significance, the details of which I won’t go into here, don’t want to depress you with the crap that is my life.
Cheers Darren! Mate. Chum. Toerag! Tabula bloody rasa indeed. Just you wait ’til its my turn… I’ll show you tabula sodding rasa. I’ll tabula your rasa ’til you’ll regret ever having known me.
Hmm. I suspect you already do now I come to think of it.
Ok, tabula rasa the theme is then. Well, the tabula bit was fairly easy. But rasa?
For some reason I kept thinking “rosa”, which suggested red to me. Red tablet? That can’t be right surely? An overdose of Matrix if you ask me.
So dive quickly online and head toward dictionary.com where I find a number of definitions, all basically saying the same thing:
1. a mind not yet affected by experiences, impressions, etc.
2. anything existing undisturbed in its original pure state.
Origin:
1525–35; < L tabula rasa scraped tablet, clean slate
Right. Having found out what the damn phrase means that didn’t really take me much further forward.
Er… you could say my mind was a complete blank!
And that comment to myself was actually what started me on the train of thought that led to my contribution for the month.
Must confess I did flirt briefly with the ideas of a clean slate or a blank canvas sorta thing. But then thought it was a bit too obvious (oops… apologies to Tam and Mark… no reflection on their pics at all) and out of keeping with my customarily convoluted way of doing things.
But for you to gain even a glimmering of understanding of why I’ve ended up with this little set of pics (yep… more than one!) I feel some sort of an explanation is called for.
So are we all sitting comfortably?
Then I’ll begin…
Y’see, in many occult traditions the mind is associated with (or symbolised by) air, and emotions are associated with water.
However, in some traditions (and particularly the one to which I adhere) water can also be associated with the subconscious, with the functions of the conscious or “superficial” mind being dependent thereon.
So the subconscious could be said to be the “deep mind” if you will.
So here was my thinking then: Hmm, mind… water. But not the muddy swirling water of a mind overflowing with a lifetime’s experiences.
Rather, a crystal-clear formless mind, waiting for first impressions.
And there’s the first problem.
Cos there ain’t no such thing! Even the mind of a new-born babe has, at the least, notional form. By virtue of the fact that its already bounded by the wholeness that is the baby.
Its not Joe Bloggs’ mind; its the baby’s. Therefore its already circumscribed and hence has form of a sort… conceptually speaking.
In the way most humans comprehend things at least.
Nor, even this early, can it be entirely impressionless. For it is part of a greater whole… starting with the mother’s womb and working outwards toward the Cosmos as a whole. All of which will already have bestowed impressions thereon, albeit transient, ill-formed and unrecognised.
And of course the form itself will in some manner impress itself upon the mind.
Consequently, there ain’t no such thing as an entirely clean slate, or a pure state, or a mind totally unaffected by any impressions.
Just as well really, cos if there were my idea of a pic of some sort of water would be blown straight out the window.
How the hell can you photograph water that has no form or identifiable characteristics… and yet still see its water?
In fact, it wouldn’t even be water, would it? Cos to be water it already has some sort of form… er… thinking molecular structure terms.
Be a pretty boring photo to say the least! Basically a pic of nothing.
So, I’m thinking ok, its legitimate to bestow form on this water then.
The form of a bowl. Heh heh. Water in a bowl. Clear water. In a clean and clear bowl… glass or something. Easy!
Er…
This is still going to be a rather boring pic, innit? If the water’s that clean and clear we ain’t gonna see its there!
Hmm.
Aha! Water with bubbles in. Little bubbles. Teeny weeny bubbles in fact. Sort of sparkly water.
Yet they mustn’t form any particular mass or even be very clearly defined. Sort of representative of the tiddly little traces of the fleeting hints of impressions that already contaminate even the cleanest mind.
Yep. That’ll do me.
And play around with the light a little bit as well maybe… suggestive of all the impressions waiting to impose themselves on this ‘ere mind and cause all those little sparkly traces to coalesce into more discrete forms.
That’ll be the first two pics in this set then.
#1… deliberately out of focus, suggesting that formless “stuff” beginning to take on shape as a mind in its own right.
And #2… the formed mind, already holding the impression of the form its taken, and alive with the sparkly bits that are in the process of becoming. Some clear, some not so. Some already seeming to take on shapes under the influence of external impressions (represented by the various forms and waves of light). Some not.
Then we come to #3. Seemingly a complete departure, but in fact not. Even to the extent that exactly the same props were used for #3 as for the first two. And it ain’t been photoshopped or otherwise distorted either! What you’re seeing is what was there, in front of the camera.
But this is if you like representative of the subjective side… the mind “looking out”. Experiencing impressions but not yet able to recognise what they are, what they mean, or organise them into any easily identifiable form.
Basically, make of it what you will. And whatever you make of it will say nothing of its reality in itself but rather of the experiences already in your own mind!
Though if the phrase “in the mind’s eye” were to… er… pop into mind I wouldn’t be too miffed.
Heh heh.
Well, that’s what these pics are all about. Re the actual taking of them, that’s something else again.
They look amazingly simple and straightforward… yet you wouldn’t believe how bloody difficult it was to set the whole thing up to get just what I wanted.
And I use the word “bloody” in its most literal sense. The actual physical set-up was such, and so unstable, that it could so easily have turned into a total disaster… with blood being shed. My blood.
Its not funny I tell ya. The things I do for this photography caper, I must be a complete and utter idiot.
Or has that already been said?
Pic #1
Pic #2
Pic #3
At first I was rather taken aback by Darren’s selection of tabula rasa as the theme for this month. First, I didn’t know what the hell it meant. Second, even after discovering the various definitions I was all “Blank slate? BLANK SLATE?? What the devil am I going to do with this?” But I somehow managed…
Props to Tamela for the inspiration as once she posted her first image for the month I was immediately struck by an idea for this theme. Of course, it didn’t hurt that the year of our Lord 2010 had just commenced as well. Her literal blank page coinciding with the demise of 2009, and perhaps making 2010 a ‘blank slate’ from which to start, combined in my head to produce the idea that I wanted an image or images that revolved around the demise of 2009, thus leading to our 2010 blank slate.
But how was I to convey this information via photography? Perhaps this way?
Unfortunately, I think this series says more about the demise of 2009 and less about the blank slate that may be 2010 (which, by the way, isn’t off to a great start either). However, interpretation by the photographer is a key element of this group project stuff and as such I’m actually pleased with my results thus far this month. Not perfect, but clearly the mind was thinking and pondering and considering, which is a good thing.
In addition, I went through plenty just to obtain a chalkboard by which to take these shots. One of our friends and neighbors is a principal at my daughter’s high school and I threw myself at his mercy and asked if I could borrow a chalkboard last week when the school was closed to students for a day. How lucky I was too considering there are only two real chalkboards left in the entire school with all others having been replaced with dry erase boards.
I know, fairly predictable, huh?
perhaps more will follow. 
While posting late in the month I actually snapped this image sometime last week or so.
I had quite a number of ideas flow through my grey matter as the first portion of this month passed, but none really jumped out and grabbed me by the throat saying “This is a winner of an idea old man. Now get snapping!” Then one rather overcast day while out feeding the ferals I took to walking about the field of tall grasses that border the wood on the south end. I was actually looking for the cat Prince, who had been missing for some days. I was half expecting to find his lifeless body, but instead found only browning grasses. Fortunately Prince was to turn up a few days later.
Regardless, while I was making my way round the field I came across a handful of these particularly tall blades of grass with what looked like seed pods running along near the top of the blades. I thought them pretty in a minimalist sort of way and that is when it hit me: minimalist. Sounds a lot like minimal, eh?
So the brain kicked into gear and I raced back to my car for my backup camera (the Rebel XTi/400D). Returning to a particularly tall blade I contemplated how to shoot it so that I could capture both it and the theme for this month. Mind racing….well….puttering along I realized I needed a blank background, so to speak, so that there was only the blade and therefore a minimal amount of subject.
Borrowing from the work of Mike, Darren and Tam I laid myself upon the frozen ground and started snapping pictures upwards so that the cloud-filled atmosphere filled the background. Being winter the clouds were that dull and grey sort that appear almost solid in colour.
Once home I put the image up in Lightroom and looked at it. In disappointment. While it captured the theme, or so I thought (and still do think), it lacked any punch. And I know a minimalist image can have punch; I’ve noticed it quite often in the works of one Flickr poster whom I’ve been following (and who lives nearby).
A bit dejected I put the image aside and began contemplating another shot. But just the other day I re-opened the image and began fiddling around with it a bit in Lightroom. I was doing what I normally do: tweaking, but to no avail. Then quite by accident I moved a slider quite far to the right and suddenly the image was transformed. Suddenly it was different. Suddenly there was impact. Suddenly it was more like the image I wanted as opposed to the image I had.
Inspired by this chance goof, I began moving other sliders around and witnessing their respective impact to the whole. Eventually I settled upon the outcome you have seen above. And while I have no idea what others may think of it, I’m quite excited by it. I feel it has impact, but remains simple. It now better fits what I hoped to convey as opposed to what my original image presented.
I hope you folks like it as well.
You all know I love working with natural light.
This shot posed a bit of a challenge as we’ve had more overcast, rainy and snowy days lately. Thankfully, today’s weather was perfect…bright blue, clear sky and radiant sunshine.
Patiently I waited.
Around 1:30 pm local time, the sun sank low enough in the sky to cast a beautiful beam of light through our bedroom window. My model was ready, as was I.
