With a pen and camera
According to noted author, Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc, “we wander for distraction and travel for fulfillment.” I suppose combining both then becomes photography. There are distractions that are worth photographing and there’s a sense of fulfillment when I travel. It could be far flung or just around the corner. In either case, both distractions and fulfillment find a place in what you see, hear, feel and smell during your promenades.
We wander for distraction, but travel for fulfillment.
Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc 1870-1953
Once in a blue moon, something is handed to me and it just so happens I “click” the shutter at the right [emotional] moment.
Just a few short weeks ago, I wore a windproof fleece to block the chill delivered by a day more suited for October.
The past 2 weekends we’ve had high temperatures, humidity and some damaging winds. And to make it much more interesting, anything green bloomed across the area.
Photography and writing—as in life—consists of details small and large. When I tote my camera, I’m alert to details that shape the so called “big picture.” It’s easy to get caught up in the bigger items [buildings, cars, trees, signage, e.g.] while things far smaller [cracks in the sidewalk, flowers, bird on a wire, e.g.] are thought of as incidentals to the place and moment I’m in.
But now and then, I tell myself to pay attention to details that are inconspicuous as well as innocuous. Such details remind me that in my own life, bigger, faster, more costly, etc. is not always better…
A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.
Joseph Campbell, American writer, lecturer and mythologist
I have often wondered how two lovers can be true to each other if they don’t know how to write…Your letters present to me a perfect picture of your everyday life, they are almost as good as if you were sitting on my knees with your arms around my neck and telling me how naughty you have been during the day and sealing each sweet avowal with an elliptical kiss…
Washington A. Roebling, from a letter written to his fiancee, Emily Warren, April 1, 1864
Hancock Shaker Village recently held the first of 4 dinners involving noted thinkers and authors. The Food for Thought program involves a monthly dinner May thru August, and invites folks to “feed your mind, body and soul…with an illuminating author.” The first dinner quickly sold out as 76 signed on to chat and dine with former Massachusetts governor, Deval Patrick. Within an ambiance shaped by the Shakers [who established this Village in the 1700s] the evening proved intimate, friendly, and grounded. In light of our current political climate, I suppose anything could’ve happened regarding a discussion of Mr. Patrick’s life politique; politics has been a lightning rod of recent times, as we all know, attracting more negativity to the point of consternation and frustration.
That wasn’t the case here. Instead, I was reminded of the importance, indeed the significance, of seeing things in person and to hear experiences in the first person. We are so immersed, so much more involved with our digital devices that I think we’ve lost touch on how to converse with verve, clarity, honesty, expression, sensitivity, empathy, integrity, patience, consideration, reciprocity and more. It’s a sad state of affairs and while this is a gross generalization, therein lies a truism in my previous sentence: many of us spend too much precious time eyeball-to-eyeball, hand-to-hand with a keyboard, a touch screen and/or ear buds.
In this setting, we conversed with Mr. Patrick and listened to what he had to say. He was genuine and unpretentious in his greetings with old friends and in acknowledging the company of new faces. In a space that consisted of movers and shakers and critical thinkers from the Berkshires and beyond, it would’ve been all too easy to spot someone posturing. No, we all possessed a quality common to each in that room regardless of social or professional standing. We were–and still are–sentient beings, vessels filled with doubts about freedom of speech, decorum, political bipartisanship, populism, nationalism, etcetera ad nauseum.
Yes, having access to commentary and perspective through YouTube, Vimeo, Aeon, TED Talks and others is timely, convenient and important, but I, personally, feel that being there, of being part of the gathering, is a different experience from those encountered online. When you’re surrounded by the event, you are indeed, part of the event. Many things become visceral and palpable, vulnerable and accessible, sensuous and profound. And while many communications can be paused or saved or added-to-my-view list, I’m reminded that with such gatherings, Life has no pause or rewind buttons. You are in the moment, beguiling a terrific gathering albeit brief.
*Title of song from the stage production of Phantom of the Opera, with due respect to Mr. Andrew Lloyd Webber, Mr. Richard H.Z. Stilgoe and Mr. Charles E. Hart
Every March, we try to make our way up to Smith College to see their flower show. This is one of our favorite peripatetic sorties. Not surprisingly, most visitors appear happier or at least cheerful in demeanor. It’s gotten to the point where smartphone cameras rule the aisles; rarely seen is a “regular camera” as we know it.
Edwin Way Teale, Pulizter prize-winning American writer, photographer and environmentalist
Carlo Centeno 