#something something as you grow your memories get new context away from the lens of being a child making some horrifying realizations

[stuck-in-jelly]

Not to get personal with it but do you think on some level Soren knows Viren did something to his mom?

Do you think as he got older he revisited memories and realized, ‘wait it doesn’t make sense that after I got better mom became distant from me and couldn’t look me in the eyes.’? Do you think he thought about what Claudia had to do to heal him and briefly pondered what his dad had to do for his lungs?

Do you think deep down Claudia knows her dad was the last person to see Kpp’ar? Knows that her father didn’t bother actually trying to look for him? And the itching memories of their heated fights when they didn’t know that she was there bother her sometimes?

[phoenixfire-thewizardgoddess]

REMINDER: it's okay to rewatch a show you liked or a book you love as a young person and realise that, hey, nostalgia and the exact person you were when you first engaged also played a part

sometimes, they're just weird shitty shows or badly done books, but to you at the time you fell in love with them, they were perfect

and that's okay

accept that there's a thick layer of nostalgia on your memories, read/watch it again if you want to or not, it's alright to admit it's sily or awkward or just a strange plot now you think anbout it

you don't have to get defensive, or die on the hill for something you don't really love all that much now but you did once, etc

sometimes you have a story that hits you at the right time, no matter how weirdly scripted or awkward, or is now not like... great when you have the context that you missed as a kid...

and that's normal.

part of you can still love it, remember it fondly for what it was in that time, in that place, at that moment when you were a fan. but you don't have to defend it until you're a defeated husk of a human being hating everyone around you for questioning things you like(d) a dozen years ago. it's not an attack on your childhood or who you were to grow aup and realise things had subtxt, or were not the way you first read/saw them.

for example, we all liked the flinstones right?

you rewatch that recently? wilma and betty have to ask their husbands' permission to do a LOT of stuff, very religious onsense wrapped in caveman attire with the 1950s attitide.

does that mean the idea of dinosaurs also helping with everyday stuff wasn't fun? of ourse not. but you can see why it is uncomfortable to watch now, with the new lens / viewpoint of adulthood and current societal norms, right?

or land before time. Loved that shit so much, wanted to eat a treestar so bad because thy drew them delicious and the mother death scene hit a lot of kids right in the heart... was it the most fantastically scripted movie? OR the movies since? Nah. Especially the ones that seem to insist that singing and being friends will overturn racism and bullying, but you know what? That's baby's first step at these concepts.

You have a child who is sad about the triceratops being a cunt to the others and using a racial term (in the movie) you can use that as your go-to metaphor for explaining injustice, because it's a concept the kid gets and also is age appropriate.

would you spend 23hrs a day online defending Land before Time to people you don't know or those who are like "Wow man it sucks" or harassing the people making newer sequels of it because the 'uality is worse'

No, because it's a kids show. For kids. And while you loved it in your heart at one point, seething with anger over what is a singysongy fun dinosaur movie with increasingly limited plot... makes it weird. Fighting people online because it was a childhood memory is also weird.

And let's be real, there's a few fandoms that could stand to calm down in this way too.

No, Twilight was not the most fantastically written story ever made; but it hit a number of teenagers around the world in their Urban Fantasy horny hearts at the right time.

Was the Hunger Games quadrilogy (ovies) perfect in showing oppression and the plight of the children slaughtered while the world watches? No, I'd say they actually sailed right over it because the movies actually created a lens of the situation from the Capitol's perspective. Are some people still Fucking Furious about this? Yeah.

Why though? Will it help you do the dishes? To have a good sleep?

The Potter fans. I loved those books too, guys, but it is true a lot of things with context in place from an adult perspective come across as less 'yeah that's magic' or 'yeah bad lady gets taken away for punishment!' and more How Did I Miss That?

It would be a long essay on the things that are actually really upsetting when you think about it, but I am not typing that tonight. The blatant stereotypes, the racism, the weird Vamps are cool but WEres are code for AIDS thing, the wizard cops ending, gender nonsense, that no one seems to do maths but also can manage making potions, the slave race that loves it, and the centaur SA that was So Funny. Is there wizard child safety? I think there needs to be one. So Bad. Not the amreican system though.

There's a lot that slid over your head as a kid... (I thought they were going to ride off really fast and maybe chase her through the forest on threat of trampling if she's caught, not THAT). And also, if there's OSHA for wizards, someone needs to be looking into the lake full of homicidal mermaids and moving stairs, what if you fall, is there a safety spell or something?

I have thoughts about that series, about how the worldbuilding didn't need to go in any of those directions, it didn't really add anything. There were routes around them.

But to this day people will lose their minds if this is questioned, and sometimes I think they don't really want to. Not to that extent. IT's something they loved and is a part of their childhood they clung to for whatever reason (it's different for every person) and now they feel obligated to fight for it. To accept it without criticism.

Som really good examples of this are the Star Wars and Star Trek and Transformers franchises.

Have you watched th original star wars? They're FUN, they're DUMB, they're KOOKY and SCI-FI, and half the extras don't even get the action right but you got the intent. People were fucking foaming at the mouth because the fourth alien in the background's bandana was tilted the opposite way to the originals and then they put a GIRL in as lead?!?!?!? Chill.

REal criticism is saying 'yeah those last three were FUCKED, because all the growth in #1 of the new triology as imediately flipped around and written over in #2, and then again in #3, the narrative is a confusing slop of different writers and directors not working together.

Star Trek? Love the series. Do I cringe so hard my spine feels like it will eject like on of those weird multi-lead/eraser pencils we had in primary school back in the day? Sure. Do I like all iterations of the show? No, especially the one right after Voyager that decided Vulcans can fuck whenever and aliens are blue etc. Very confusing. But then on voyager the captain and pilot became lizards and fucked to make a new species on a planet in the delta quadrant and we never talked about it again. So like...

Do people still go fucking insane over any new iterations deviating from the last and defending it online? Yeah.

Transformers... fun kids show, fascinating use of special efects and CGI in the first one. Plot wise its a shitshow and if they span the camera any more times to make it an action sequence I think we would all vomit. But certain fans would rather chug petrol than accept it's not perfect because they had the toys. I had a knockoff one that was half-voltron somehow from an op shop as a kid. Loved it.

Won't go to war for it, unless I'm in a certain mood and need to just Word my way around a bendy issue because work or whatevs didn't stimulate that braining for the day.

Stargate? Love it. Not the best writing, cringy, but fun.

Steven Universe? It's a good show, there's fun and bright stuff and it dipped toes into deep topics in a way that made it easier to talk to kids about hard things. That's good. Was it perfect? Not at all. Songs were pretty good overall.

My Little Pony? This is a little napalm on the argument, but like... it wasn't a bad show. Cringey and blindingly bright, the plot seen from the opening credits but it was fine. Fun even. For young children or uni students whose brain is sizzling and wants shiny singing things to entertain them for two minutes after the assessments are finally uploaded and they are free. No thoughts required.

The important part there is that they were for kids. They continue toi BE for kids. You can like them. Any kids show that doesn't immediately make a parent want to vomit from their saccharine nonsense (you know the ones) is fine, same way there are occasional double entende in kids movies, so the adults can somewhat engage too.

Still to this day people are fighting WARS on the internet about how Great vs how SHIT the show was. (Any of the above really) and it's like...why? Which part of you feels so attacked when things like this, that you like, are riticised, that you go to Fight?

Which loosely circles back to my original point of.... its okay to like something, and recognise flaws. Its okay to still like something important to you in a nostalgia/retro/that haracter is half my teen personality way.

But you can let also choose to accept it does not match your memories of it, and let it go.

Just, think about it, okay?

You can pull a Marie Kondo with your nostalgia if you feel ready, or just move certan things to your mental attic until later.

No one needs to be sitting up all night emrbroiled in seething hatred and diatribe of an argument about a show you loved / may still be attached to, and feeling despair if you can't best the other person. Neither of you win if you didn't sleep, if you spent all that time fighting, if you leave angry even if you win, or you get nasty and namecall or dox.

These things can be very central and important to you but, think about what it is costing you to hold that level of love. IS it obsession? It is welded into who you are? Is it a past echo of who you were that you feel you need to defend? Did you just want to fuck the villain and people are like 'bruh???' Does one of the Not-Okay-Now things the characters or writer believe meld with your own beliefs and you feel attacked?

Find your why and think on how it makes you feel. Especially if it's a why that hurts yourself or others.

How can you move through that without finding yourself attacked or triggered or distressed and angry?

At the end of the day, it's your life.

You get just the one.

It's okay to admit that something you were obsessed with no longer meets with your level of enjoyment or love, or even with your ideals and beliefs. You can let them go.

A gentle burial under a mental seedling that grows into a new love for something similar but meets your interests now. Or a solmn viking boat down the mental river, alight in the twilight night with flames as you farewell it once and for all. Or perhaps you put it somewhere in the back of your mind to revisit another time, when you are ready, and can make a clear decision.

There isn't a wrong answer.

Almost all of life is about learning, growing and reflecting on yourself, your environment, the things you believe and take in, the things you reject, and the world itself.

I forgot where I was going, please assume something poignant was at the end about grief and loss for parasocial and fictional relationships (with a character or whole series or move / story itself) and how they can hurt like real ones. Depending on who you were at the time they meant so much to you, and how those characters likely wouldn't want you to build yourself into a narrow cage of anger and despair on their behalf, etc.

[revlyncox]

Together In This Liminal Time

First Platform Address to the Washington Ethical Society by Interim Leader Lyn Cox, August 16, 2020

In today’s story [The Tale of the Sands, a Sufi Parable], the stream reaches a point where it must change, and is resistant to the idea of change. Now, this is clearly a poetic convention. Streams change all the time. They are constantly receiving water from rain and runoff, constantly losing water to evaporation and animals drinking, constantly flowing and shifting. Yet we imagine that there is, at some point, a stream, and at another point, it is not a stream. This is part of what makes the metaphor work, and why we might find some meaning in the poetry of this story.

I’m going to suggest that we can imagine both ourselves as individuals and our community as a whole to be like the stream. As individuals, we are constantly changing. The cells that make up our bodies are coming and going all the time. The thoughts in our minds are (one hopes) constantly in development. The times and places in which we find ourselves provide an ever-shifting context that lead us to change in response.

Similarly, communities are always changing. The story of every community is one of a constantly moving stream. Happily, there are new members every so often. At the same time, we hold the memories of those who have died. Sometimes, we have to say goodbye to people who move away, though that’s less often necessary in an age of online platforms and online deepening circles and so on. WES [Washington Ethical Society] is not the same as it was in 1944 or 1966 or 2006, yet there is a continuous stream of community, and we might find turning points in that story in retrospect.

As you heard earlier, I have just started as your Interim Leader. The interim period is an opportunity for us to work together, to help WES to find clarity of mission and self-understanding. Ideally, the self-examination and organizational change work you do during this time will help set up a long and fruitful relationship with your next long-term, appointed Leader. But even putting that aside, this is a turning point, and a chance to learn and grow as a congregation in a different way.

The Tale of the Sands is a useful metaphor for this turning point. For one thing, the stream has complicated feelings about change. It’s important to honor that, because even when change is unavoidable, even when change is in a positive direction and gets you closer to your goals, that doesn’t make it easy or comfortable. Another thing I notice about this story is that it can be viewed through the lens of the five Focus Points of transition, as defined by the Interim Ministry Network. You don’t need to write this down, because we’ll come back to it, but briefly, the five Focus Points are: heritage, leadership, mission, connections, and future. Finally, and I think most importantly, the stream does not transcend the obstacle alone. Encouragement, shared information, and teamwork are all necessary to help it reach its destination.

Like the stream in the story, people often have initially negative reactions to change. I know I can personally identify with the sentiment, “Can I not remain the same stream that I am today?” We cannot, in either case, remain so. We might have choices in shaping the change and how we respond to it.

In finding common ground, in creating institutional relationships, in working together when we don’t agree about every last detail, or in entering the uncertainty of discernment, we may indeed wonder about losing our individuality. Like the stream, when we encounter ideas that completely shift the paradigm, they might seem both threatening and impossible at first glance.

Truly, not every change is a positive change. We do need good judgment, in our individual lives and our community life, as we attempt to shape and respond and reframe the context of our choices. At the same time, my hope is that we can introduce a sense of curiosity and wonder when it comes to new ideas, new ways of doing things, new perspectives on this congregation’s mission and how you pursue it together. If, during this interim time, we feel in ourselves a visceral reaction to a new idea, let’s remember that the stream had an immediate, negative reaction to the idea that eventually brought it to its destination. So let’s slow down and practice deep listening when ideas or changes remind us of the stream’s initial response.

Getting back to the second useful thing about this story, it provides an illustration of the five Focus Points for transition. These five Focus Points were developed by the Interim Ministry Network, which is an interfaith association of clergy who practice transition as a specialty. The findings of the IMN form the basis of the training that those of us who are Unitarian Universalist Accredited Interim Ministers completed to receive our accreditation.

The five Focus Points are heritage, leadership, mission, connections, and future. I could do full platforms on each one, but I will try to be brief today and give you the overview. The Five Focus Points give us -- that is, you and me -- a place to start in terms of what to think about, even if we don’t yet know what we will conclude about these areas of study.

Heritage means that we will take some time to reflect on how the Washington Ethical Society has been shaped and formed over the years. I’ll ask you about your treasured memories, and we might talk about how you have coped as a community with challenges. In the story, the stream made a breakthrough when it remembered that there was a time that it, or some part of it, had been something else. It can happen that a person or a community, in retelling its history over and over, gets reduced to a single story. Sometimes the difficult parts are glossed over, and sometimes the difficult parts take on outsized importance. Reviewing the whole story makes it possible to evaluate whether adaptations made at one turning point are still a good fit for the next one. There may be complexities in your heritage that are half-remembered, and that bring wisdom for the new challenges of today.

Leadership has to do with reviewing what the community needs, and how you organize and develop lay leadership and volunteer skills among you. In the story, this is what I see happening as the stream, the sand, and the wind work together in the whole system of the water cycle. In our interim time together, some of the reflection on leadership will come with the Lay Leadership Development Committee, the Community Relations Council, and the Board. Your work on Anti-Racism, Anti-Oppression, and Multiculturalism within WES is an aspect of leadership. In addition, I’ll be curious about your volunteer experiences, your concept of how to collaborate with a clergy Leader, and about how you understand yourselves in relationship to each other.

Mission is the work through which you, as a congregation, define and re-define a sense of purpose and direction. We will examine together, not just your mission statement, but the glowing coal at the heart of what moves this congregation toward fulfilling its purpose. Mission is the driving force. Whatever changes are proposed or experiments are undertaken are measured in terms of mission. In the story, the stream feels that its destiny is on the other side of the desert. Its mission is to keep moving. It engages with the struggle of change because the mission is primary. Perhaps the stream refines its mission as it comes to a new understanding, and it incorporates movement in the clouds and the rain into its sense of purpose.

Connections are part of our interim work in that we will assess and develop the relationships that WES has with organizations, constituencies, partners, and institutions outside of itself. That includes the American Ethical Union, the Unitarian Universalist Association, coalition partners in justice and community organizing, neighbors in Shepherd Park, and perhaps others. We will endeavor to keep WES’s organizational and social justice partnerships active, and we will look at how the Leader and members work together to sustain those relationships.

Larger connections are subtle in the Tale of the Sands story, but I imagine that the context of the atmosphere, the sun that warms the air to create wind, the ocean where all water flows through eventually, and the other streams and rivers that feed into it are all related to the main character stream and have an impact on its journey. We are part of systems that are larger than ourselves.

Future is imagining what can come next. When we work on congregational financial stewardship, we are making way for the future. When we develop focus goals and work plans, we are making way for the future. The work we do to create room for new clergy Leadership and lay leadership that have not yet arrived is the work of the future.

The end of this version of the Tale of the Sands concludes that “the way in which the Stream of Life is to continue on its journey is written in the Sands.”  To me, this means that, somewhere in that water cycle system, there is a core of wisdom that has a sense of the direction of the story; someone can imagine what comes next. On the other hand, the poetry of that phrase, “written in the Sands,” reminds us that the story can always be changed. There is a future, it is unwritten, and we can flow into it with intention.

Before I close, I want to say a few words about collaboration. The stream does not transcend the obstacle of the desert alone. Encouragement, shared information, and teamwork are all necessary to help it reach its destination. The voice of the sand provides coaching and reflection, not to mention being part of the structure of the desert itself. The wind uplifts the water vapor and carries it, not all the way to the ocean, but to a place where the mist becomes rain. One of the things I find true about the metaphor of this story is the recognition that dramatic results come from a collective. To my mind, the best and truest stories have ensemble casts.

The work of the interim period is collaborative work. We will share ideas, certainly, and the work of the interim period goes beyond the world of ideas. There is praxis, there are details to implement, there are skills we can learn from each other. Your participation matters. I am curious about your thoughts and opinions and hopes and dreams. Your participation also means more practical things, like volunteering put into place the re-imagined versions of events and programs this community needs at this unique turning point in history. Your participation means making and accepting phone calls, writing blog posts, wearing something fabulous to the on-line auction, and other day-to-day practices of sustaining this community.

The good news is that collaboration is second nature to you. Building right relationship, working together, practicing your values in real-world situations, these are woven into the fabric of Ethical Culture. Though Ethical Culture has not been my home up to this point, I am familiar with it, and I am eager to learn more. Your commitment to shared praxis is immediately evident.

In his 1988 book, “The Humanist Way,” Edward Ericson wrote, “Ethical Humanism is a commitment to a way of life, to a creative relationship with others and thereby to ourselves, in which metaphysical and theological arguments are set aside.” I am particularly drawn to Ericson’s description of “creative relationship with others and thereby to ourselves,” echoing the commitment to eliciting the best in others and thereby in ourselves. It is a creative relationship, it is a shared art and science that brings something into being, something new that is the unique result of the contributions of multiple people in a particular context, brought together with intention.

Ericson went on to say that, “A notable feature of the creative ethical relationship that bears special notice is its character of openness. As Felix Adler interpreted the growth of the self, we enrich (and transform) our lives by first contributing to the creative growth of another.”

In other words, we need each other, and all of us are likely to change in some way if we are in mutually accountable, mutually supportive, ethical relationships. I would add that the community providing the context for those relationships will also, inevitably, change if the people involved are committed to that framework of support, accountability, and ethics.

We were reminded earlier that WES’s summer Platform theme is about being collaborators and co-conspirators within the community and with those working for justice in the world around us. It’s a good theme to keep in mind throughout this year. We will make mistakes. The line based on Rumi that’s missing from our opening song is, “Though you have broken your vows a thousand times.” Come, yet again, come. We will sometimes fail. And that’s part of the creative process. Let’s take the opportunity of this interim time to learn together.

Change is not easy or comfortable. Yet we can shape the change that we know will happen when we commit to ethical, accountable, supportive relationships. During this interim time, we might frame our opportunities for the community’s growth in terms of heritage, leadership, mission, connections, and future. Throughout our journey, let’s look for ways to be collaborative and creative together. So be it.

[bearogenes]

Dear Bearogenes: How do I handle a long distance relationship?

Hi, My partner and I are in a long distance relationship and it can be hard sometimes . Do you have an tips for keeping this going? 

It’s a funny old world we live in and some things never change. Our technology has evolved to make things ‘easier’ but that comes with a dual edge and simultaneously complicates things by setting an expectation of it being easy to create opportunity to use it. It’s not always so, but because it’s quick to send a text we assume by default that our ‘ease’ is the same as the one we’re sending it too. This is made worse by things like being told it’s been ‘read’ or ‘someone is typing’ when in reality there’s a character in the box but they aren't typing actively.

I have spent ¾ths of my life in long term relationships (more than 6 months) and of that time, 2 have taken up 22 years in total. I’m no expert on dating, finding new relationships or partners, but I do know a lot about why things work and why they fail from the other side of that. I can tell you that, with certainty, it always comes back to the same key point, the same skill and the same commitment to the process. It’s the benchmark by which you feel good and secure and by which your heart knows that something is wrong. The key to maintaining any relationship is the same:

Communication.

Not everyone is a master at texting, some of us with ‘big hands’ hate texting because there’s nothing worse than fumbling with a tiny button or hitting 3 letters at once when you’re just trying to say you love someone. Even though technology lets us send little notes to each other whenever we feel the need or have the time, it comes with no guarantees of reaching it’s destination with the intended effect. In person you can recover from a mistake faster than over a text so distance becomes a complicating factor in this kind of communication even as it cuts off the ability to ‘recover’ because they are within arms reach.

Long Distance Relationships can test a person’s resolve and commitment. View them as opportunities as much as challenges. I’ve done some research to find ways to show you rather than just tell you what I’m talking about so be warned; past this point is a very serious answer to how to make relationships work and a hard look at why they fail as they illustrate communication through the lens of modern technology. 

My partner and I have been together nearly 14 years and at our most fragile point, in our first year as a couple, we were separated by many miles for a period of time. In the scope of that many years together, the time apart has been minimal but in so early a phase of development that distance can become a threat.

We solved the main issue of maintaining communication through ‘regulation’. We had habits that we kept to, mini-promises that we never missed doing, that kept demonstrating our commitment and affection. Now, with the addition of cell phones that would be easier but back then neither of us had them so we had to create other avenues in our time apart. Now, whenever one must be away from the other, we do our best to keep the same regular ‘rituals’ we have in person even though the other isn’t there directly.

In our only real gap (longer than a few days at most) we looked at our schedules and set mutually acceptable times for regular communication. The easiest way was via email whenever ‘mood’ hit, or there was something funny to share. We’d leave notes on instant messengers and chat whenever we could but we always had ‘regular’ channels at regular times and things we never missed. The most critical of those I would say are the good morning and good night messages.

They are dual function messages because they not only let our partners know we were thinking of them first thing in the morning but also remind ourselves that having them be one of the first thoughts is important especially in their absence. At the end of the day, the good night messages (double down on this one, especially if love is how you feel for each other) were the most important ritual. Things could always disrupt the chance to talk in the morning or delay that first message, but the one before bed was the most consistent as everyone sleeps eventually.

These regular intervals, at specific times, create the sense of continuity and affirm to your partner that you care and that’s a vital part of sustaining any relationship, long distance or not. If you cannot be in their presence, you have to remain ‘vivid’ in their heart and memory. This doesn’t mean crazy smothering texting every second of the day. It means keep to a promise. Set aside a minimum of those two moments you promise to talk and do it faithfully.

Now, with the introduction out of the way, on to the ‘BearTalk ™’ on this subject.

When it comes to failure it can be easy to dismiss individual examples based on situation which is why I selected a few from across various demographic differences because in looking at the data, it’s clear that the answer is fairly universal:

Communication regularity is a cornerstone of stability.

(source)

(source)

(source)

The trend between these three different stories is that when the connection feels strongest, communication levels are most regular. Factors like frequency and content are something I’ll touch on later. You’ll notice that at the left, either when the relationship starts or when the long distance portion begins, communication sees a rise to maintain the relationship in the situation. Throughout these ‘high communication times’ the ‘responsibility’ being shared equally seems to be a trend as well. As dissatisfaction grows, no matter the reason, that number drops.

The short version of interpreting that data is this:

To maintain a relationship you must maintain communication and equally share that burden.

The last part there is a key feature that separates successful communication from regular communication. Regular communication doesn’t have the sense of partnership that successful communication does because neither partner feels the burden of being the responsible one for it because both are. A one sided relationship works under no context. There must be some form of reciprocity, both must get something out of it, or it’s not really a relationship.

Now to contrast:

A detailed examination of the habits of a successful relationship and then a companion word analysis from a different one to look for the patterns in word use as well as frequency/regularity of communication.

(the next one should open in new window for a clear view of the data and there’s a LOT of it)

(source)

(source)

Now that all the graphs are out of the way there’s a few key things in these two successful relationships that might not stand out at first.

1: Frequency and length seem to be a strong factor but why? Answer: Time. The expenditure of time represents effort and interest. “Oh, he took the time to write me, how sweet’ hasn't changed in centuries. Texting doesn't get you off the hook but things like emoji and one words (lol in particular) are perfectly fine now to use occasionally.

What matters in this example is a perception of time spent thinking about someone and then taking the effort to write. The actual content isn’t too much of a factor. What matters is that sense of connection and participation in their life across the distance (any distance actually, even arms length).

2: Word use. The last graph in particular plots the most frequently used words in texts from a successful relationship. Note the focus on the recipient. The most frequently used word was YOU, followed by things like smile, love, world, and one. These are ‘intimate’ words that show you’re interested in them and the things going on with them even more than the things you’d like to do together.

To the effectiveness of word choice, the second (and final) one contains a cloud of words that if you look carefully you’ll find another ‘hidden trick’. Notice how the words there are ‘common’ ones and not centered on ‘missing/sad/lonely’ feelings. They talk about the world around each other as if together, the longing can be understood but vocalizing it can amplify it, and they are continuing as if the other was simply in another part of the same living space.

Using these tricks won’t erase those feelings of longing or missing them, but it does allow you to create a sense of continuity that flies in the face of the ‘logic’ of distance. The human heart has never been much for ‘rules’ like time, space, distance or any such so by speaking the language of the heart those things mean less and less over time. The trick is to talk about the mundane things as much as the dreams and feelings and to be ‘together’ as close to how you would be if you were physically together as possible. 

To briefly summarize the key take-a-way points for all of the above:

The key to long distance relationships is regular communication, for which both partners are mutually responsible, that focuses on involvement in the lives of both involved. It isn't easy but if you both are committed to doing your mutual best, then the greatest asset you will have is patterns of communication.

For now, this is a good enough start and if taken to heart will at least help ensure that you've given it your best so win or fail there are no regrets that are yours to bear.

Until then, you have my best wishes as always.

- Bearogenes

[whitestonetherapy]

Window of tolerance...

A client of mine experienced a very traumatic incident a few years ago and still deals with the effects of it today.  She has difficulty in reconciling this event with her life both before and after the trauma.  It just doesn’t fit. The memory of the incident is not like other memories at all. Instead of a regular memory her recollections are fragmented, they feel like they belong to someone else, and are combined with deeply uncomfortable feelings involving flashbacks.  The question of why it is she feels this way has come up and I wanted to write something about it here.  

Biology, the mechanics of the brain, and the quality of our relationships all have a lot to do with this.  Start by thinking of life as an uninterrupted sequence of experiences – from the moment you are born to the moment you die.  From your first breath onward your brain starts the process of ‘communicating’ with the adult that holds you.  You can’t talk, and wouldn’t understand words even if you could, so this starts with your brain communicating your immediate needs (the right-hemisphere takes the lead at this early stage).  You’ll probably cry loudly at this point.  Hopefully someone will hold you close and make some noises that are intended to be soothing and loving.  You have just begun the lifelong process of communicating your needs, feelings and desires to those around you.

What happens in response to your crying matters a lot.  By responding to your cries with soothing noises and tender touches your parent has engaged their own brain (again, their right-hemisphere) and begun a long process that will literally shape your brain, helping it to develop and learn to cope with all sorts of situations.  You begin to learn how to manage how you feel and, eventually, safely experience the full spectrum of emotional experience.  

This early example of mutual regulation between adult and child, where your needs are communicated, understood and then met by an adult, will play a small part in widening your ability to deal with physiological and emotional stress.  Neurons fire and proteins are coded, and your brain develops. Even as a baby you’ll come to understand quickly that certain things you do are likely to elicit certain responses.  That certain emotions you have can be shared, and that certain things are likely to happen around you if you share them.  You’ll learn this from crying at first, and then through playfulness and experimenting.  What parent isn’t familiar with the great repetitious game ‘I’ll-take-off-my-sock-and-throw-it-on-the-floor-for-you-to-pick-up’?   You’ll hopefully learn that parents can be relied upon.  As an infant your brain will start to categorise responses from other humans into a general set of rules (schemas) - these rules will be based on the consistent responses from the people around you, depending on what you do/ what you communicate.  This is the start of the complex scaffolding that’ll allow you to start to make automatic predictions about other people and the world.  You start to predict the future and generalise - but, also, very importantly, you start to see the world through the lens of your predictions (very important if early care is not adequate and your predictions are thus negatively skewed - a blog for another time).  This mental scaffolding gets more complex as you grow, and it will depend in large part on how you are treated, at least at first, by your family (badly, or well).  That’s for the future though, because at first babies are just concerned with the person holding them.

With consistent sensitive care over time, the autonomic nervous system of the child develops.  This is the facility that controls the level of physiological arousal the child has when he experiences new situations and is closely linked with emotional states.  Daniel Siegel (The Developing Mind; 1999) describes a “window of tolerance”, a kind of goldilocks-zone in which there can be arousal of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system but without severe emotional stress.  The sympathetic nervous system manages bodily functions (heart rate, respiration, perspiration etc) and the parasympathetic system is responsible for calming you down – for de-arousal.  The two systems usually work well together, and we give them a good road test every time there is, say, an England penalty shootout, or jump-scares when watching a film at the Cinema, or when something more seriously shocking and frightening happens.

Parents play a vital role in helping children expand their window of tolerance.  By introducing a child to new experiences that are towards the edge of this window of tolerance, and by making sure they are socialised properly, children will gradually expand the capacity of their nervous system to handle arousal.  This helps them become resilient - they become strong even if they are not entirely safe.  Good news for parents who are very concerned about keeping their children safe at all times - by letting children take some risks we help them to cope much better with handling strong emotions throughout their lives.   Children will do this all by themselves anyway with games that seem reckless to an adult eye.  Last week I watched an Instagram video of my 10-year-old nephew in a New York park, clambering in ‘monkey bar’ style about 15 feet up from the ground.  He was using a section of a climbing frame that was obviously not designed for the purpose at all.  It was impressive, but I would probably have yelled at him to stop if I’d been there.  My brother is made of sterner stuff, being well used to his son taking risks, and he didn’t bat an eyelid.  The designer of the climbing frame just hadn’t factored in either my nephews excellent ninja skills, or the reality that children will always look at what equipment is available then immediately start to work out how to take further risks.  In fact, the maximum risk possible thank you very much!  If you walk by any park you can always find children doing something dangerous while a parent hollers at them to stop.  It’s not easy being responsible for kids behaving like that.  I remember looking after big groups at my sons birthday parties and there would always be one or two who would not stop, whatever the game, until they were pushing the limits of dangerous behaviour.  If someone climbed 10ft up a tree, these kids would climb 20ft and hang onto a branch by a finger.  It’s part of how children grow and begin to individuate, developing a richer experience of themselves and the world, but it’s not easy being in charge of a pack.  So expanding the window of tolerance is a good thing, and in childhood we seem to be biologically compelled to do that too.

Sometimes things can go wrong and our window of tolerance can be exceeded dangerously.  In the most extreme examples (e.g a serious accident), if the trigger is severe enough the memory schemas on which we’ve learned to predict the world around us are temporarily blown away and cannot cope.  When this happens the prefrontal cortex goes offline with all power diverted to the subcortical regions of the brain (limbic system, brain stem).  This is the way the brain responds to situations when urgent action is needed.  The parts of the brain responsible for rational thought and autobiographical memory are powered down.  In traumatic situations areas of the brain such as the Hippocampus may become paralyzed altogether. Because of this, the traumatic event that is unfolding is not written to the mind as a normal, ‘regular’ memory.  Instead it imprints directly on the limbic system of the brain, and so memories may be fragmented, incomplete, or context free.   In these cases ‘memories’ can take the form of sensory flashbacks, outbursts of emotion, nightmares.  And so we are left with recollections that feel different and dissociated from ‘the rest of us’, and not fixed in space and time.  This set of thoughts, emotions and impulses can be deeply troubling and can take us over (literally) long after the traumatic event has finished. This is common with PTSD.

Moving inward from the extreme of PTSD, many people experience extreme anxiety and fight/flight/freeze physiological responses in situations that seem ‘normal’ to others. It doesn’t take a serious accident.  Often this a result of our tolerance window being too narrow to begin with.  When this is the case even ‘small’ triggers are enough to drive us to full blown anxiety attacks.  I’ve known people for whom ordering a drink from a cafe would induce a state of frozen terror, or responding to a “hello” from a passerby in the street would be enough to cause physical symptoms of full-blown panic. I’ve known people who struggle to even consider as a ‘thought experiment’ being assertive (say, with an unfair boss at work) without taking themselves out of their tolerance zone.  I’ve met people who’ve stayed in bad situations for far too long, too fearful to take action of any kind to help themselves.  I could go on.  Such people feel trapped, alone, overwhelmed and out of options.  Sometimes this also comes with a sense of shame, leading to compensatory behaviours in other areas of life.  At the mercy of their situation, people may look for ways to achieve a sense of control in at least one area of their life, to quieten their mind, to block out the outside world.  Things such as food, exercise, drugs or self-harm behaviours might then be used to stifle all these difficult emotions and the horrible physiological symptoms of extreme anxiety.  Often a temporary relief is achieved but at the cost of compounding the root cause of the problem.  It’s a vicious cycle.  The medicine starts to cause the illness.   

Because the capability of our nervous system to handle arousal is something that first develops as we mature, we have to consider what conditions in childhood may have been absent or unbalanced in some way.  Scenarios where adults might have failed to provide the conditions necessary for us to grow resilient in our childhood.  Perhaps our caregivers were absent or too erratic in their care.  Perhaps they were harsh and emotionally remote (”buck up!”), or perhaps too overbearing, drowning us in a flood of their own uncontrolled emotion and anxiety at too young an age. Maybe, even more dangerously, both. Whether through traumatic incidents or repeated ‘traumatic experiences in our relationships’ our nervous system can be taken well outside of the comfort zone.  This often leads to panicked states of hyper-arousal (fight, flight) or hypo-arousal (a frozen numbness and even dissociation from the event). 

How likely you are to have experiences outside your tolerance zone depends on many things, but I’ll mention two here.  The first is your own ‘window of tolerance’.  This is particular to you, and will depend on everything that has happened in your life up until now.  As above, were the conditions right in your life for your own tolerance level to widen?  The second is the force of the traumatic experience you encounter.  If your window of tolerance is narrow then many encounters may lead to the kind of hyper-aroused flight/fight response described above.  Equally, it might lead to the type of dissociation and disconnectedness we associate with a ‘freeze’ response. Dissociation is a way of compartmentalising something that is too difficult psychologically or biologically to process and work in the therapy room to integrate these things can take time.  

My client and I are working with her memories and emotions of the traumatic incident, finding words to describe as closely as possible what happened to her (bodily, emotionally, spiritually).  By pulling them into order, and in particular working to reduce the intensity of flashbacks, we’re reducing the automatic fight response that accompanies them.  A part of therapy work with many other clients also involves trying to widen this window of tolerance.  This is sometimes happening explicitly and we might talk about it openly, but more often it happens implicitly as we go about other things, and so I put it in a big box called “what actually happens in therapy while we are busy doing other things”.  

Through talking about emotionally charged experiences we gradually develop our ability to hold uncomfortable feelings in awareness and to begin to share them with others.  Some people have never been able to do this, having had to deactivate the innate drive we are born with to seek attachments with people and share difficult feelings.  The skill has to be learned (or relearned).  In therapy, one aim is to begin to see difficult situations and dangerous emotions as being understandable, shareable, and changeable.  We might then feel less trapped, less prone to the ‘psychic-equivalence’ of equating our negative feelings or negative self-talk as iron-clad ‘facts’ about either the world or ourselves.  We start to have options as to how to react, and this can be encouraged by experiments in between sessions too. A better ability to reflect on our experience allows us to recognise that our internal world is not the same as external reality, and it becomes easier to put some distance between triggering events and our reaction to them.  With this flexibility, triggering situations that once overwhelmed our nervous system can begin to come more under control. 

www.whitestonetherapy.com 

[sophieoliviaunderdownlester]

A Study On Effort (2016)

Can you discuss Arrowed? What is it and how did you first start making it?

I started to work on Arrowed the summer of 2010 and I will continue to work on it till the day I die. It is a dance created in interview form between two people. Each time I revisit Arrowed, the context changes and new questions and colors appear. I grow with it and it grows with me. I feel like a bought a home. I live there (in Arrowed).

How has it changed throughout the course of making it? What is the piece’s evolution?

Everything is changing/nothing is changing. It’s aging with me and I’m aging with it. It is a mirror. It is a prayer. It is a wish. Each time I meet it, different things are important. But one thing stays the same. The fireworks. The endless fireworks (Man: What is your obsession with fireworks? Woman: They feel like celebrations and disasters at the same time). Everything else can change but that remains the same.

I am curious to see how the way Arrowed is documented changes the actual performance of the piece. For instance, working with Celia Rowlson-Hall on the short film version was a big learning curve. It was a stepping stone to move on from the weight/narrative of that version and onto the next weight: carry more, contain more, share more.

From “Harrowing,” a recent performance at the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance (2015).

Have you noticed any changes in yourself from making this piece?  

I see dance in everything. Arrowed has taught me that. It has connected me to my effort and the joy I feel in it. In 2010 I thought Arrowed was going to be the only piece I would ever make. That has changed. Sometimes we make rules to break them. It’s a conversation.

How did using film alter the piece?

Celia inspired new things to take shape in Arrowed.  It was interesting to see it through her eyes, timing, and sensitivity. For me, this version was a poem for the leaving. How we arrive at decisions and the echo of the weight of those decisions (sometimes our art shows us the next decision we are going to make).

What role did costumes, lighting, etc. play for you in the video? Is it something you consider after making a piece or during?

I’ve never really been a big costume or clothes person. I’d rather perform naked all the time. But I do love seeing women in dresses and I’ll always be a sucker for a man in Levis and a white tee shirt. I attempt for the look to be timeless but I know that’s impossible. It’s now and it’s now.

What are the differences between what you’re doing with Arrowed and traditional dances/training for you?

I try to use the same tools I’ve received from Gaga (the movement language of Ohad Naharin) in all the work I do. The ideas  of letting go, listening to the echo, finding pleasure in effort, connecting to your weakness, far away engines, the traveling movement underneath the skin, not taking myself too seriously, giving in to give out. These principles carry me emotionally and physically all the time in my creative process, in my performance, in my daily training and while I’m doing the dishes.

I read an interview that stated, “For Smith, Arrowed marks a big step towards one of her many goals, to eradicate the gap between her life on and off stage.” Can you discuss these differences? Why are you trying to eradicate the gap?

Withholding does not create mystery for me. People are very mysterious when they tell the truth. Trying to erase that gap between off and on stage is a state of mind that helps me to bring everything to the table or to realize that everything is already there. We are all containers. My memories are in my skin whether I want them to be or not. I carry them with me and I dance with them. They reference inside of me and I craft them and form them and ride on them. There is so much movement all the time, everywhere. I don’t need to “warm-up” to move my arms wild; a minute ago I was just trying to catch the bus!!

I want to be a magnifying glass. I want to be a mountain. I want to be a long dirt road.

In another interview you stated, “I think I will continue with this piece until I am old and that in some way it will document my death.” I often sense my death when I make art, especially with the small movement films I’ve been making. Do you sense this too?

Yes, I sense it too.

In the most recent video you made with Celia, your words presented via audio had a very intense impact on me; when did you write them? Why did you choose to add them?  Have words always been important to you?

I wrote the words in 2010, but they are constantly in edit mode. The order changes. The memory changes. I write a lot. I feel like I also write when I dance. I’ve always heard words when I move.

What is your art-making process?

I like to go digging. I put myself in the space. I wait. I hear or sense something coming. Usually it’s already there but I can’t see it. Sometimes I can see a light but I don’t know how to get there, so I just keep digging, watch things, people, my brave friends, or ideas pass by until I can start to see clearly. All the people that I am inspired by are with me when I’m creating but then there comes a moment when you are completely alone. I am in huge fear of that moment but I also crave it and look for it. I know that in order for my work to become universal, I need to dig as much as I can.

What has been your experience as an art maker in the United States vs. abroad? Is there a distinction?

I feel very fortunate to have been away from home for so long. I was able to see things thru a different lens. Someone took my glasses off. I didn’t go looking for them. I wanted to see everything. And as difficult as it was, I know that being in a constant state of longing creates a large amount of space for creativity. An abstract sensation we all know: missing. The empty space that we all continually try to fill in or feel absent in. I think everyone should be “out to sea” for a while.

There’s a perception that the life of an artist is difficult; has this been your experience?

I am doing what I love. I feel very lucky. I am inspired by the endless effort collectively and individualy. It’s a goal of mine to reveal the pleasure and persuasiveness of that effort, decoupling it from the concept of burden and attempt to share how deeply connected effort is to our most basic desires. DESIRES. EFFORT. FOREVER!

also, the documentary Bobbi Jene.

[aejhvcd-blog]

Week 6: Homework

Went to the library in the City Centre and got a couple of books out; 

Consumed Nostalgia; holds so much information regarding tangibles that we cannot let go of and why this is so important to us, and also made me think about how does the relationship work between a psychological point of view and how this relates to nostalgia

Looking at the Golden Days Te Papa and if I could get my hands on a copy of it, only to find someone has recorded it and put it on Youtube! Yay! Going to be using this as a reference point if I get lost at any point, if I need help with the direction I have been heading in, or if it’s going to make me change the way I’m looking at my topic.

Preparation for Week 7 Presentation:

I am a storyteller exploring the influences and events that helped shape New Zealand through a nostalgic historical lens.

Nostalgia and Psychology:

- Nostalgia is such a common ground between everybody; using this as a social-leverage, a reason we can open to one another, using nostalgia as a point of conversation; place, people, objects, smells - psychology that comes with nostalgia

- “Today’s nostalgia binds together not only family but scattered individuals that are meaningful to them personally” ( Consumed nostalgia)

- This idea of finding common ground, sharing experiences 

 How does your project get a response of:

- Persuade - 

 Nostalgia is a very important part of our history, its how we hold memories and experiences that we either want to share or just hold onto, it makes us feel a certain way

- Facilitate -

Finding a common ground

- Challenge -

Why do we have nostalgia, why does history matter so much (RELATED TO CONSUMER-HEAVY WORLD) - okay, but in a modernist world, why are people so fascinated with these things or time periods, they didn’t grow up with them, it’s not their personal nostalgia 

- Inform - 

why do we feel nostalgia - how does nostalgia help shape us as an individual (what did you grow up with), group (finding others who have similar nostalgic experiences, what history are you into now, what did you grow up with that helped influence this), or nation (being a proud Kiwi)

different aspects of the issue that you are addressing.

What to include ... 

- Research Statement update:

• I am a storyteller exploring the influences and events that helped shape New Zealand through a nostalgic historical lens.

- Comparative analysis - precedents, what else has been produced in this area?

• Populuxe: Celebrating confidence in the future; confidence in the newly created mass production-> pumping out everything for consumption; the excitement of present; the joy of having so much

• Consumed Nostalgia: longing for goods of the past that come from a personal experience of growing up in the stressful world of fast capitalism -> hasn’t really been slowed down, children are still super spoilt and new things are coming out. THings were made to last back in the days, now they are built to break so you have to continue to be a consumer

- Facts, Keywords: 

• Nostalgia

• History

• Tribalism

• Encounter

• Capitalism

• Consumerism

• Rapid Consumption

• Tangible

• Intangible

• Revival

• Recollection

• Collecting

- Insights:

- “Psychologists argue that though nostalgia can be obsessive, it is mostly a resource to help people with the stresses of life” - Consumed Nostalgia

- “Consumed nostalgia can work if it means psychological and cultural growth if it transforms or calls into questions out identities” - Consumed Nostalgia

- Secondary research, key theorists, key texts (relate also to comparative analysis):

- Thomas Hine. Populuxe; Consumer culture aesthetic, evoking a sense of luxury- Gary Cross. Consumed Nostalgia; Longing for the goods of the past that came from a personal experience of growing up in the stressful world of fast capitalism

- Context, beyond the audience, what’s the use, the historical, contemporary or speculative scenario where you think your research applies:

• History is such an important part of our lives and culture, whether it be a world or nationwide piece of history that helped shape the nations culture, or personal experiences or artifacts that you are reminded of it  makes you feel nostalgic, a little bit closer to home, almost as a quick escape from your day-to-day. Nostalgia is embedded in all of us, we’ve all got memories or something that gives us the warm fuzzies, but what would happen if we didn’t have nostalgia? Would the world be a little bit more chaotic or anxious, maybe a little bit more intimidating? Being able to be nostalgic relaxes you, allows you to reminisce. This can either happen individually, or you could ignite someone else's nostalgia too and share experiences. having common ground with people gives you something to connect over.

- Audience (related to context)

• My audience is for everybody who has ever felt nostalgia, who has a fond or favourite memory, place, artifact, or time. We all have something to make us a bit more at peace, and being able to share this with others can make it even more enjoyable

- Primary Research - Who have you spoken to?

• Attended Beach Hop nostalgia festival (this year and A LOT throughout my childhood), I’m currently speaking to Noddy, the organiser about why it’s so important to have revival events such as Beach Hop in our culture

• Retro Revivalists, those who dress revival every day, my biggest influence is Miss Victory Violet she was the one who opened my eye to that people actually do this for a living, or just for fun. I have managed to reach out to another influencer, Kikikisses and she has answered my questions about topics such a why are revival events so important, and what would be so bad about it if they went away, what nostalgia means to hear, issues that arise with the lifestyle, how have perceptions changed over the years

- Past work - what have you done in the past that may relate?

• My Pin Up in a Pack branding I did while on exchange• Rock N Roll around Wellington 2nd year booklet• First-year screen, Pin Up and Rockabilly GIFS

• My final year of High School board, rebranding Beach Hop

- Project code name - what the working title of your project? THRIVE OF THE REVIVE

[joannemaly]

Grab a coffee and Doughnut and Get Comfy to Read The Coolest Photography Links Of The Week

We have had another great week in the field of photography, with artists and writers creating and sharing some great content for photography enthusiasts everywhere. This weeks list is full of tutorials, special features and great photography, with something here for everyone. We really hope you enjoy these links as much as the Toad did in creating and bringing this list to you.

TUTORIALS

Taking Control Of Auto Modes – almost everyone struggles with the technical aspects of photography when starting out, with many of the settings available on a modern camera resembling some form of voodoo magic. This article is posted here on Light Stalking, and it discusses some of the simpler ways you can begin to take control of your camera as you learn and grow in your craft, resulting in great shots and a better sense of confidence while you are shooting.

Stuart Rankin

Natural Light vs Off Camera Flash: Two Photographers Shoot the Same Model – it’s great to be able to see side-by-side the differences that shooting in natural light versus off-camera flash has in the realm of portrait photography. Two photographers headed outdoors for this session, and each has come away with great shots done in two totally different styles. Which one do you prefer?

You can use these ten tricks to make food look fantastic in photos – learn the deep secrets from the pros who shoot the most mouth-watering food photography you’ve ever seen. The truth of the matter is that in almost all cases, the actual food being photographed is modified or affected in such a way that it is rendered inedible, yet the results on the screen say otherwise.

Claude Bélanger

A Beginner’s Guide to Using Lens Flare Creatively in Photos – some shots work very well when lens flare is included in the composition, as it gives the image a summery and warm look that draws you into the picture. This short video tutorial takes us through how best to include this element in our work for the maximum effect.

Selective Color Effect in Adobe Lightroom – learn how to create a selective color image in this brief video tutorial that walks you through a very quick process of eliminating all colors from a photograph except for the one that you want featured.

Kevin Gill

How to Create Better Portraits for Instagram – Instagram is a very popular platform for sharing photographs these days, and this article discusses how to maximize your potential for getting noticed in the field of portrait photography. These tips are fairly straightforward to follow and a handful of sample shots are included to help illustrate the concepts shared.

Macro Photography: How to photograph Butterflies – capturing great shots of butterflies can be a tricky undertaking inasmuch as finding them and getting them to sit still while you setup is a challenge. This primer article covers a set of brief points that are sure to help you get a headstart as you head out to a local meadow and chase these beautiful little creatures around with your camera.

SPECIAL FEATURES

Photographer Spent 5 Years Capturing the Beauty of Decaying Buildings – for those who love the genre of photography centered around abandoned and weathered structures as much as I do, this is truly a must-see article this week. After having spent 5 years visiting countless countries and sites, this compilation of profound and poignant photographs shares glimpses into places that are likely to disappear too soon.

Amazing film captures biofluorescent turtles underwater at ISO 4.5 Million – as technology advances, things that were thought to be almost impossible just a few short years ago suddenly are a reality today. Check out this amazing special feature that showcases the images and the world that is available to photographers who are using the very latest low-light capable systems.

Official U.S. Navy Page

A Quick History of Color Photography (for Photographers) – the history of photography itself is utterly amazing for enthusiasts of the craft, and this article takes the topic one step further by investigating the story behind the advent of color photography. As the article unfolds, various period pieces are shared showing how the process moved along as the technology unfolded.

GREAT PHOTOGRAPHY

Bramante Staircase – Manjik photography takes us along to the Vatican where the incredible double helix staircase that is well known amongst architecture enthusiasts comes to life on our screens. The deep tones and contrasts exposed in this great shot show off the lines and geometry of this amazing structure in an elegant and beautiful manner.

Bastian_Schmidt

The Vatican – this is another shot in this weeks list that features the epic double helix staircase in the Vatican, with this composition by Mindz.eye taking on a different perspective by using a vertical panorama format. The rich contrasts and tones found in this scene reveals the beautiful lines and geometries this architectural wonder exhibits.

Foggy Polar Bear – Ron Niebrugge shares a stunning shot of an early morning in the north where the fog diffuses the natural light and creates an ethereal atmosphere where a polar bear roams the landscape, creating a dramatic silhouette against the alien atmosphere. This is an amazing shot, full of profound artistic tension as the bear navigates a world that is undergoing morphesis due to climate change.

Daniel Grothe

Sunset at The Empress – Jim Nix visits our humble part of the world where he takes in a wonderful sunset that bathes the front of the world-famous Empress Hotel in golden tones. This majestic, old hotel is well known for the character it adds to our city of Victoria, and Jim’s shot does a terrific job of capturing that in a frame.

Den Gamle By – stroll the ancient streets in Denmark in this shot from Ole Steffensen that feels like a painting. The old buildings are full of character here, perfectly captured in this frame, and the natural weathering from countless years of standing against the elements help to accent this feeling.

Fan D

Trial Sunrise III – Trial Island juts out from the coastline in Victoria, British Columbia, creating a haven in the form of the Trial Islands Ecological Reserve for a local bird population. It also has a lighthouse on it, adding a great element of romance and visual intrigue against the backdrop of the ocean that encircles this wonderful city.

Bled – Morning Time – this breathtaking image is post-processed to highlight the painterly effect found in the warm tones of the natural light with the ancient monastery that sits on the tiny island in the middle of the lake adding context. Rossano Ferrari’s also features a gentle reflection in the lake’s waters, adding a perfect finishing touch to this composition.

driver Photographer

Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum – a sad history is captured in this black-and-white image by Michael Criswell who takes us outside of this rare old Kirkbride building, constructed in 1858 and widely believed to be one of the largest hand-cut stone masonry buildings in the United States. This incredible old building creates a dramatic presence, holding memories of those who experienced extended stays full of suffering.

Mu Cang Chai, Vietnam – the terraced rice fields of rural Viet Nam create twisting leading lines that guides the viewer into the frame where the beautiful surroundings of the region can be explored. Dale Johnson’s photograph does a perfect job of capturing the essence of the area, revealing a glimpse that could reach back into bygone eras.

Ralf Steinberger

misty mornin' at the marina . . . – we share another shot this week based on the scenes and vistas found on Vancouver Island, this one captured and shared by local photographer ƊƦคƓ๏ƝŦlץƊгєคɱʂ88. This photograph features a marina that has a soft covering of fog as a new day rises to greet the island.

Fogged – a thin veil of fog enshrouds the Canadian Rocky Mountains in the great landscape photograph from Greg Boratyn. As we peer through the fog we see the majestic mountains in the distance that create a dramatic silhouette against the natural beauty of the rich and dense forests that sit at the base of the peaks.

Kim Quyết

the chapel in the cathedral – sweeping lines and wonderful tones cast shadows to create depth and interest in the 800 year old architecture of this gorgeous chapel in Dublin, Ireland, shot and shared here by Frank King. This wonderful place exudes the hundreds of years of history that the walls and pillars hold as countless generations have worshipped here and enjoyed fellowship.

Forest road – autumn time in Bosnia finds us joining Mevludin Sejmenovic as we look down a gravel road framed by beautiful colors in the trees. The ribbon of road guides you into the heart of the frame where a vanishing point presents itself in the distance for a touch of artistic tension.

Graeme Scott

Late Night Lightning – lightning creates a terrific and dramatic element for storm chasing photographers to capture. This shot was taken by Scott Wood in Arizona while he was adventuring with friends during the active storm season, showing us all the power and fury that nature has in store for everyone who lives below the clouds on terra firma.

Follow Through – rich colors and tones pop to life in this amazing shot taken inside sandstone canyons by Peter Coskun Nature Photography. The shadows create a sense of texture and depth in this photograph, and the years of erosion give the scene a terrific sense of natural character.

SpaceX

Twister – Edith Levy visits the fabled canyons of Arizona that are world-famous for the shapes, textures and colors found in the natural formations as light dances off the ancient walls created naturally over time. This composition takes on the form of a tornado as the eye explores the wonderful details found in this frame.

Essential Photos

The Edge of Truth – for everyone who loves dark and ethereal themed images, you won’t want to miss this one this week. This moody shot features a rugged set of cliffs that overlook the ocean below with a woman in a white gown looking out over the perch. Processed as a black-and-white shot, this image delivers all the drama possible in such a scene.

Waterfowl Lake – Icefields Parkway, Banff National Park, Alberta – Len Saltiel captures a stunning landscape shot of a still lake in the Canadian Rocky Mountains and finds himself at a loss of words to describe the shot in this post. Thankfully the natural beauty of the mountains accompanied by the mirror-like reflection in the lake speaks 1,000 words.

Johannes Nest

Welcome to my church – Martin Podt shares his vision of a church in Germany captured at the height of autumn to take advantage of the beautiful colors in the surrounding foliage of the trees. In the distance we also see dramatic mountains rising to meet the horizon for an added touch of perfection to this composition.

Grand Marais Light, Minnesota – Mark Paulson creates a terrific image with this composition that features a small lighthouse in silhouette against the vibrant colors of sunrise in the sky behind. This is a great shot, full of tranquility and wonder that draws the viewer into it for a retrospective moment.

[Read More ...] Grab a coffee and Doughnut and Get Comfy to Read The Coolest Photography Links Of The Week was originally posted by proton T2a

[musicheritageuk]

Celebrating International Duran Duran Appreciation Day with the world’s biggest collector

To celebrate international Duran Duran Appreciation Day this August 10th (yes, this is actually a thing), we met up with Andy Golub, the world’s largest collector of Duran Duran memorabilia to ask him a few questions. 

For those with good memories, we previously covered the release of Andy’s book, ‘The Music Between Us’.

Thanks Andy, or should we say Durandy? Firstly, how and when did the love affair with Duran Duran start?! 

The seeds were planted with my introduction to ‘The Reflex’. Simon’s distinctive, soaring vocals played deliciously against Nick’s sweeping synth melodies, and I quickly committed myself to memorising every intriguing lyric. The combination of charismatic photo sessions, a captivating video for 'The Reflex’, and the rest of the Ragged Tiger album cemented my interest. From the stylish marketing to the mountains of memorabilia, Duran Duran promised much more than catchy pop songs… there was a carefully-constructed, utterly seductive visual identity that ignited my imagination and left me yearning for more; each glossy poster displayed Duran’s individual and collective personality through fashion, makeup, and self-expression, bigger than life on my bedroom walls. Every new song I absorbed made me want to hear more, to immerse myself in the band’s catalogue, and to lose myself in the music. After nearly four decades, not much has changed...

So how and when did the collecting start?

I have always been a visually-minded person, naturally drawn to bold, compelling images and colorful designs. While Duran Duran’s songs continued to spark my devotion, I needed something tangible to complete the experience. I wanted to learn about the men behind the music, to have something in my hands that went beyond the records… Posters were my gateway drug. Rolled one-sheets, staple-bound fold-outs, and even magazine centerfolds all seemed to present the band in the manner I was seeking: large, colorful, and always around me in my room, keeping the songs and emotions alive long after my Walkman had been put away for the day.

My mother will testify to my lifelong struggles with moderation, never more evident than in my collecting efforts. How can I settle for just five or six posters when… there are others out there? So my appetite for completion took root, and the hunting began. Posters and pin-ups led to calendars, photographs, and official fan club materials, each item filling in a piece of Duran Duran history. Before long, I was curating a collection that numbered in the hundreds. I developed a focus, choosing paper ephemera over records, and learned how to properly care for these fragile treasures. After years passed and my inventory grew exponentially, I began to realize there was more in my custody than just pop memorabilia – this was evolving into a comprehensive, tactile examination of one artist’s career.

Did you ever feel that maybe your collecting was getting out of hand?

My heart has always been involved in my work, so I suppose any moments of “Holy moley, what have I created??” end up transforming into “Wow, I’m proud of what I have accomplished!” In recent years, as I’ve opened up the archive to visiting fans, my perspective has evolved even further; the touching reactions I’ve seen in my fellow Duranies has made me realise it’s not just the band’s history that’s being preserved – but history that belongs to the fans as well.

So turning to your collection now, what are the challenges you’ve faced?

There’s definitely a reason why most fans seem content to live in the moment, enjoying the band’s music, and waiting (im)patiently for the next tour - it’s a lot easier and cheaper than curating a collection with archival standards. The challenges that come with my archive are significant:

Firstly, space: in a 10’ x 20’ area, every square inch of real estate is crucial. Towering racks of flat poster boxes command a good amount of room, big rolls of linen-mounted Subway posters threaten to exceed their confines, and over 15,000 pages of articles reside in a sea of volumes… organizational creativity has become essential, especially when Duran Duran’s career shows no signs of slowing! So if there’s anyone out there who knows a good deal on a small airplane hangar…. I could be interested.

Secondly, temperature: even though the facility is designed to maintain a specific temperature range, I often pop in to check on conditions; a fan, and a heater, are available to keep things comfortable if necessary, and there are steps in play to remove excess moisture from the air. I never forget that paper is organic, and therefore can react to environmental extremes, or absorb elements such as excessive humidity.

Finally, the expense! While I have always viewed the collection as an invaluable investment, the costs of archival curation are certainly felt. Acid-free bags, boxes, tissue, mylar sleeves - these are the weapons in my arsenal, designed to defend against the ravages of time. Paper can yellow and grow brittle, colors fade in direct sunlight, bindings can loosen under stress… with each passing year, and every new milestone in the band’s story, my commitment to the archive deepens. I enjoy feeling that I’m part of something bigger than myself.

How have fans and the band reacted to your collection?

It’s never been enough to simply build a collection. The real joy comes from sharing it with others. I remember how everything changed with my first exhibition in February 2001, held over a weekend at the local Art/Not Terminal gallery. Duran Duran: A Retrospective took over all three floors, a first for the gallery; over 100 people showed up on opening night, arriving as curious adults and quickly transforming into delighted, wistful teenagers. That evening, my family learned this passion was much more than a bedroom wallpapered with posters, and I discovered how my efforts affected others in beautiful ways.  

My second exhibit, Some New Romantics, took place in 2007, primarily showcasing framed prints from Paul Edmond, Duran’s first photographer. The intimate space at the Caffeine Café became a time machine, decorated with stunning photos of the band in the earliest stages of their career. I filled out the walls with smaller posters from later years, educating attendees on where the band has been and where they were at the time – heralding the release of the Red Carpet Massacre album. I will never tire of the smiles and enthusiastic stories that emerge in an organized Duran Duran celebration… it reminds me why I do what I do.

You've also released some books? Can you tell us a bit about them...

Both of my books felt like natural extensions of the archive and the direction it’s taken. Beautiful Colors: The Posters of Duran Duran evolved into an ambitious, hefty examination of the band’s trajectory through the lens of official posters – promoting record releases, special events, and concerts around the world. I am always envisioning ways in which the archive can be shared with fans who can’t make the trip over, and my book proved to be a wonderful first step.

If Beautiful Colors was my love letter to the band, then The Music Between Us is a love letter to the fans. I wanted any follow-up to focus in closer, examining the impact Duran Duran makes on their loyal audiences. Live shows are the biggest, most dramatic context through which Duranies can gather, network, share experiences, rejoice in their collective passion, and truly enjoy a sense of belonging. This is a profound phenomenon that has certainly affected me over the years, and linking concert advertisements with fans’ memories seemed like a perfect concept for my second book. As I procured tender recollections from my fellow Duranies, The Music Between Us: Concert Ads of Duran Duran took on a very personal feel; reading others’ memories prompted me to revisit my own, and I felt more connected than ever to what some fans described as their “tribe.” I reveled in the poignant, inspiring, and even humorous experiences entrusted to me, each quote revealing a remarkable common thread that spans the planet.

I loved imagining that the second book could give Duran Duran a rare glimpse into how their shows really affect fans, since the band usually only hear the overwhelming roar in front of them!

But the end result has been incredibly gratifying, heartwarming, and more meaningful than I ever expected. On one level, Duran Duran deemed Beautiful Colors “magnificent” and have shown consistent support for both books through social media – always a view to a thrill (a single Tweet from the band has the power to send a Duranie’s day into the stratosphere, as countless fellow fans can attest). Then there are the fans’ reactions, proclaiming both books as “must-haves” and “collector’s items,” sharing spectacular smiling selfies with books in hand, and expressing emphatic endorsement of my endeavors. It’s immensely validating to have others believing in my work, encouraging my vision, and even trusting me with their own stories. Sometimes I even see fans contacting me to donate something special to the archive, just because they know it will be cared for properly. If I ever needed a sign that my efforts matter, I get one nearly every day.

Most pictures courtesy of the Durandy archive, apart from top image taken from Wikipedia and reproduced under creative commons. Please see the Durandy archive for more items from the collection. Duran Duran are currently completing their 2017 World Tour.

[creatureoftheestuary]

A Critical Evaluation of Creature of the Estuary

Dr R.M. Sánchez-Camus

 Creature of the Estuary was the second part of the Monster Trilogy, directed by artist and filmmaker, Eelyn Lee. The trilogy is a series of collaboratively produced moving image works exploring notions of fear, inter-subjectivity, and place. The production process for the trilogy began in 2014 with a week-long experimental development lab in the Barbican studio theatre in London. The end result of these workshops was Monster, a short film exploring a dark seaside landscape populated by a variety of characters, and a mysterious creature-like being.

 These concepts were then further developed through a research residency with Metal, an arts lab on the Thames Estuary. Eelyn completed her residency with a 12-week participatory development process that incorporated professional performers and local residents along the Thames Estuary. During this time she merged the themes developed from the Barbican lab, with the research developed during her residency, incorporating many of the local residents she had met. All of these elements came together to generate the material for Creature of the Estuary. The final part of the trilogy, yet to be completed will be a feature length film, the culmination of the three phase process.  Though each part of the trilogy informs the next, they hold their own merit as works of art.

Creature of the Estuary begins to refine the language of film and collaborative arts practice. Multi-cultural in its outset the work contemplates human’s relationship to the wider sea, and its universalities, with a lens on fear and how it is manifested within us. The film explores notions of man and nature via the landscape of an estuary and a type of post-apocalyptic vision of seaside workers. The soft mud works as an analogy for the effort of survival amidst obstacles. The estuary comes across as both a creature and a character, as if the landscape comes to life through the human forms that grow out of its banks.

The estuary is anthropomorphised and presented as alive, breathing and watching. The physical topography abstracted into an animal in bondage or a tethered creature, ambiguous and unable to relate yet somehow reflective.  The characters for the most part remain silent with their words punctuating through for context rather than effect. The main power of language is delivered through the narrator, who in this case is also the director, retelling imagined pieces of poetic text mixed with quotes of everyday people, giving the film authenticity. Instead of being a reflection from an objective observer, the piece becomes the inner monologue of those who inhabit the territory.

The vision of naked human forms struggling out of the mud like undead corpses looks like a combination of polluted industry mixed with stagnant nature. In actuality the participants claimed the opposite. Performing naked in the mud was for them liberating and a return to childhood feelings of freedom and carefree fun.  Though the estuary was very polluted when they were children they recalled warmly playing in the mud banks, but no longer as adults.  

One interviewer told me how his step-daughter lives on the island but is ‘glued’ to the screen of her phone or tablet and does not venture to explore the shoreline. In actuality the Thames is cleaner than it has ever been, but most participants felt that parents are much more protective today and as such children experience less of the physical world, while being caught up in the virtual world.  Eelyn noted how this notion of ‘shared fear’ came up in one of the drama workshops she ran on Canvey Island, called Fear Lab, namely the fear for the safety of participants’ children as well as the projected fears of parents onto their children.  The labs also created a safe space for participants. Natasha, one of the musicians felt ‘the freedom to discuss things that aren't really part of everyday conversations’ in the labs and this created a ‘feeling of real togetherness and understanding that gave purpose and meaning to our work together’.

The mud both represented fear and safety. One participant jokes, “the mud is essential, it rejuvenates you, it’s healthy…”  “a mixture of essential oil and diesel oil!” another quips in. The participant recognises that the film is ‘a portrayal of an aspect of the estuary. It can be very mysterious these backwaters, this mud…” He does recognise that there is a flip side in the sport activities of sailing and racing, but that it doesn’t engage with the place.

 So if sports activities mark the territory but do not engage with the place, how does the participatory process of a film project succeed? Perhaps because it triggers storytelling through memories. Memory itself provides an intimate internal space of its own. Paul Ricoeur identifies the action of remembering as powerful as the memory itself. In remembering we generate a space outside of our own bodies and the world around us, that then gets ‘superimposed on the grid of localities’.  

The process of developing the work with the narratives of locals not only created this third space but inhabited the film with a haunting sense of those memories come alive, a sort of conjuring.

 As one participant said ‘there is an inherent spookiness of the place’ yet ‘nowadays you can be on the island and never walk on the mud.’

 This lamenting the interaction with the landscape was central to the thematic message of the film. Something has been lost, something ephemeral, and in its distance it is like a memory trapped in the mud. Working with locals allowed those memories to begin to awaken, and through the act of recollecting, opening the doors for new memories to surface. Zahna performed as the Coastguard looking out to see. For her the act of recollection triggered other memories, ‘suddenly you remember more.’  One participant remembers going out alone on a sailing dinghy as a child of 7 or 8 years. He recalls being scared of the river, for he may see corpses floating by. In order to conquer his fears as teenager he practiced controlled sinking near the shore. He never learned to swim, saying it was an old sailor’s belief that it would be a faster death if washed away as there would be no chance of the boat coming back for you. Death and the estuary was also referred to by another participant Chris, who when performing covered in mud and crawling from the banks, imagined himself a young WW2 German fighter pilot shot down in the sea. He spoke about the large amount of young German men who died during Luftwaffe invasions of Britain, and his sense of empathy for the other is a powerful way of thinking about travel and displacement.

This sense of empathy was especially poignant when the film refers to refugees found in one of the shipping containers. The idea of otherness became wound up with the larger discussion around immigration and belonging. Another participant Bob tells me how he crossed the channel on his sailboat and had to have consensus with the team on what to do if they should come across a refugee boat, which way do you go? Do you bring them where they are going or go back? A fear of the other grows yet the empathy that is present creates a marked tension. This is reminiscent of Lars Sund’s book ‘Happy Little Island’ where corpses begin to wash up mysteriously on the shores of a Scandinavian village and throws life into turmoil. Fear becomes a mysterious neighbour and heightens the tension between the comfortable known and the unknown other. This was exemplified by the responses of Denzel a young man who worked on the project as a Sound Assistant and musician and said ‘you may fear someone but then you can look at yourself’. Though the work is based on fiction, Denzel feels it shows a community, one where people can be suspicious of strangers at first but then warm up as ‘people don’t want disruption when the consequences are unknown’. As one of the younger team members he also recognised that older generations are fearful of change, but (waving at his friends in the theatre space) young people embrace it. Projects like Creature of the Estuary become a place of inter-generational community development as it ‘mixes people who other wise would not meet.’ He not only learned technical skills but also an interpersonal model of group work. Denzel recognised that there is solitude about being by the sea, but this solitude also brings people together.

This idea of collective solitude was most exemplified by Robert who has lived alone on a boat in a dockyard for 30 years. He tells me that in his boat yard live ‘about 150 people but almost all alone’ a veritable community of loners. When asked how he contributed he said ‘you have your ideas of what to show’, so that each participant’s perspective adds a new element to the development of the piece. ‘I had no idea what I was contributing to it, but it meant my participation wasn’t altered to fit an agenda’ says Bob, a skipper who works the estuary. Chris is quick to add the ‘fundamental difference is it is my film too, you throw your lot in, no one didn’t want to be there.’  Zahna tells me that the landscape seems to come alive with the stories. For her the stories are ‘held by the river’ and get ‘sucked up by change’. Change in nature and industry, which marks the shoreline. She felt like the film was ‘telling her story’. This shared ownership demonstrates a success in opening up the process of development to participants. Hi Ching who played the Captain tells me that what he learns about the concept of place, is that it resides within him.

What are the conditions necessary to foster creative participation? In this case one of the central components was how Eelyn was able to present the project as a shared vision and include local participants in the generative process. The artist here provides a compass. The final work of art is not just a film but a public art process, making it accessible to people in their daily lives. ‘The shared space of the earth is physically and metaphorically what unites us… so it makes sense to investigate the human experience from the ground up’ says Matthew Coolidge from The Centre for Land Use Interpretation.

 This universality is the strength of Creature of the Estuary, presenting the shorelines and it’s inhabitants as not only gatekeepers to London but the front line of a nation’s outward looking face.

Image Credits: Image 1: Anamaria Marinca & Tess McLoughlin in Creature of the Estuary Image 2:  Chris Fenwick as Mud Monster in Creature of the Estuary Image 3:  On the set of Creature of the Estuary Image 4: Results of a Fear Lab at Seevic College Image 5: Film Still from Creature of the Estuary  Image 6: Denzel Kachingwe working as Sound Recordist on the shoot Image 7: Hi Ching as the Captain in Creature of the Estuary

[abbie-madeley15]

Characteristics and Contexts of my Pathway.

The purpose of my chosen pathway is to record or document a memory using lens based media, in short, to capture and express life for various purposes including advertisement, decoration or general enjoyment.

My audience is very dependent on what I am producing at the time and for what it is for, for example if I was creating a billboard advertisement promote the countryside I would aim my audience towards the younger generation, as they are the most likely to need coercion to go to the countryside, however, if I were creating prints for a library I would aim it more towards the elder generation, as they are the most likely to use a library since technology has come along and enabled the younger generation to download books instead of borrowing them from a library.

The length of a certain project depends on the brief required by the client, but usually this would range between two to five weeks, although this may vary. The budget again depends on what I am producing, if I am producing illustrations for a book, the cost would be higher than if it were prints being designed for a restaurant or café. However, the cost of basic equipment is quite high, for camera, editing software and camera equipment. The types of clients I would deal with are ones that are looking for a specific view of their beliefs based on a location, memory or written work that means something to them that they would want me to capture.

Most of the work I would produce would be independent, however for certain projects I would work others for example and author, if I was to be illustrating a novel, also I would need a secondary person to help if I needed to print on a large scale therefore a printing firm would be required.

The design process is quite important to whatever brief I may be answering to, the idea generation and the development of those ideas are what the client would first view to see whether they like the ideas I have come up with and return feedback, so that I would in turn, create what the client is looking for.

The critical skill required of a photographer is the ability to take a fabulous photo. This involves knowing your camera, understanding lighting and developing an eye for choosing the right angle. Digital photography has opened up a new world of artistic possibilities for photographers. You develop editing skills by practicing with photo-editing software. For instance, Adobe Photoshop and Creative Suite are programs that allow photographers to transform images from color to aged, black and white, or sepia formats. Angles can be altered, blemishes removed and images cropped. Also, the introduction of social media sites like ‘Instagram’, has introduced an easy way for the younger generation to edit photographs without the occasional confusion of software’s like Photoshop.

Marketing skills are a must for a professional photographer to have a growing customer base. Networking on social websites, as well as at business and community functions, is part of this process, and it requires good written and verbal communication skills. Once you establish a photography website, promote your work through a blog, which allows you to describe locations, photo shoots and details about your business.

Unless you are a nature or forensic photographer, chances are you will be photographing people. Being able to relate to a client and offer pose instruction is essential, and so are good listening skills to understand what the customer is seeking in the finished product. When photographing major events, such as a wedding, a photographer must know how to deal with large crowds and coordinate posing an entire wedding party. Patience is a plus when working with children, such as when photographing a youth sports league. Time management skills are also important to keep photo shoots moving in an efficient manner.

Photographic space is a necessary requirement of being a photographer, the use of dark room can help in creating photo grams, but it is all dependant on what the client wants of the outcome. Schools or colleges that have dark rooms sometimes offer their facilities people wanting to use them for a fair price if you require one.

Great photographers pay close attention to detail and capture what's important. Conversely, they are also able to edit out small details that might take away from a subject in a photograph. The creative "eye" is an integral part of photography. Great photographers are able to intuitively judge what makes for a great photograph -- and what should be done with lighting, composition, and focus to make that vision a reality.

Section 2

Since September I have leant about photography through the ages and how it has progressed through different movements and styles from the early 1900’s. My general photographic skills have improved profusely, I am able to understand majority of the settings on a DSLR camera and have used different lighting skills to give off different effects. Also, I am now very confident in using a dark room which in future will help me create more experimental pieces of work.

Books have been a very reliable research source  as they are marked clearly and include more relevant information than the internet however, the internet is more easily available.

My most effective work this term was probably ‘Wherever I roam’, I feel this is because it conveys a message that is not easily seen, it takes a deeper view of the images to understand the motif.

I generate ideas by thinking about the brief itself and referencing my research, which helps me to create different Ideas; I also slightly change some ideas to create different ones, therefore, taking a different view of the original to create something new. Next term I would like to know more about editing software such as Photoshop, so that I will be able to edit photos to their full potential, as well as being able to understand more of the things a camera can do to create different effects.

For the summer project I feel like I included all the relevant information without it being too articulated therefore, making it more understandable. I included visuals so that the more visual learners had an opportunity to understand the messages I was trying to get across. The layout of my presentation was easy to follow and understand as well as pleasing to the eye as the images flowed.

During ‘Wherever I roam’ I produced many visuals and had many influences that helped towards my final outcomes; the collage style that I chose for it worked well to link to two polar opposites of the city and countryside. When the final outcomes were ‘in situ’ they looked very realistic and the advertisement itself fit in well to its surroundings.

For ‘Gleam’ I was very experimental with my idea generation and development. This was the brief that I would most likely to make in reality as it is very interesting; I would like to see what the smoke projection would look like practically. However I would have liked to have had the final outcome clearer, however due to not being able to use the full resolution on the image I had to try and enhance it using software which doesn’t give a crisper appearance.

Even though ‘Retro Revival’ was a short project I feel I was able to put every detail of the design process in there but just on a smaller scale. I created different and unique outcomes compared to other people in the studio as well as being very influenced by other artists that work in a similar style. To improve on this project I would create more of the prints to then have more variety of images.