Something has been brought to my attention recently. It is in a friend of mines blog within MySpace. He normally writes fairly amusing blogs which i have advertised in this here space. Though recently he has written one regarding a 'storybook' which his young cousin was given colour in at school. He brought to light the idea that the illustrations given were boderline/sublinal/suggestive to pregnancy. Please decide for yourself:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=69016944
A few points/questions:
- At first i thought it was straight subliminal messages. I used to illustrate and you do nothing by accident. If it was inncocent, why is their ONE petal that is upright where it is?
- Regarding the story despite the bad grammer, princess's do meet their princes's (maybe better looking ones) and have families. Although the cut to the chase is quick in this one story.
- As adults yes we can see iconography children will miss.
I spoke to my sister and brother in law as they have 7yr old Chloe. They agreed they would not have read and still don't intot he images. They are more concerned about the actual grammer, not the story.
I am undecided about the whole thing and have forwarded this link to many people asking opinions.
I know i said i wouldn't mention someone again but i will. A person who i am very close to is leaving in a few days and i saw her for the last time (till i don't know when) a few days ago. Many questions left unanswered. Sometime we come to a point where we realize that the answer may be as futile and unimportant as the questions we want to ask. Sometimes we want the answer so much we never ask ourselves why we ask in the first instance. Never knowing something may keep you on your toes a little longer. Leaving it up to 'fait' may also be an option. Conclusions and closures can- not be up to us to make at times. Let it be.
My point is, sometimes our lives live on this line about one thing, wrong or right, Each of us are about something that has a stream of thoughts, whether that be something good or bad for us or others. Some don't really know or understand their own streams. And don't get me wrong, streams are often pretty messy, especially in this modern discourse. We see what we want to see sometimes. Sometimes we don't like what we see. But it's healthy to question why we don't like what we see and moreover, why we see it that way and whether or not our perspectives aren't quite aligned.
ion: An ion is an atom or group of atoms that normally are electrically neutral and achieve their status as an ion by loss or addition of one or more electrons.
quest: A quest is a journey towards a goal used in mythology and literature as a plot
question: question may be either a linguistic expression used to make a request for information
courtesy of wikipedia.
my 2007 is beginning with a great start (for the most part...) and am looking forward to it. I couldn't expect or imagine that this last half of 2006 to be as amazing as it was. I have no idea what's ahead, but whatever comes, i believe a good perspective is what it takes to transcend it (bar world famine, people you know dying and your own mental health doing a U-turn).
sally forth to a brand new year. good luck, my love and hope...
- J
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Monday, December 25, 2006
see saw
The turkey came out the oven perfect. The potatoes I burnt a little and the sprouts were undercooked and then only after the meal realized I left the stuffing in the oven.
I take a walk on Christmas day. I'm not sure why. Maybe because it's the only day of the year that it is dead quiet in my neighborhood, a neighborhood you couldn't pay me enough to walk for lesiure. Or maybe I just don't like most of my relatives who can all of a sudden without invitation, pop by.
I decided to go visit a school friend who I hadn't seen for about 8 years. I did this 8 years ago on Christmas day. I went to school with him and we were best friends since the age of about 5- 15. I rang the bell and some guy opened the door. Just before I asked for my friend, I realized it was him I was talking to. He had filled out in the past 8 years. He said he wouldn't have recognized me and I'm not sure why because I don't look all that different. In fact, someone recently said I haven't physically changed one bit. He invited me in and we had a nice chat. Despite having different worlds, we both seem to retain the ability to communicate as if we know each other and he is still warm and kind. We were both quiet, sensitive and softly spoken as children and those sensibilities have remained a rooted part of us. It was very good to see him.
I came back and played Mar Jong with my parents which I have never done. We were missing a player but that didn't matter. It was a strange yet enjoyable evening. I had been drinking red wine since noon and fell asleep about 9pm in the living room. I got up and my Dad said I used to do that while waiting for him to finish work.
I can't recall what I was really like when I was a child. I know I was afraid of a lot of things. Ironically, I have become pretty fearless as an adult. Youth work which taught me how to be an adult. Travelling which taught me about freedom and life. Falling in love taught me about pain and myself. Cinematography taught me that we can achieve things we believe in. Knowing people who have known you at certain stages in your life can give you a context to your own history. I for one am deeply grateful there are a few people I still can see from time to time who have known me before my twenties. Fundamentally, it can inform you that you have made it this far through life and it can make you feel alive.
There is an old saying that, 'if we don't know where we came from, how do we know where we are going?'. More often than not, I find that we tend to concentrate on either the past, the present or the future though rarely considering the sum of the whole. This can be percieved as an imbalance of sorts. Not unlike, the Christmas lunch I made.
- J
I take a walk on Christmas day. I'm not sure why. Maybe because it's the only day of the year that it is dead quiet in my neighborhood, a neighborhood you couldn't pay me enough to walk for lesiure. Or maybe I just don't like most of my relatives who can all of a sudden without invitation, pop by.
I decided to go visit a school friend who I hadn't seen for about 8 years. I did this 8 years ago on Christmas day. I went to school with him and we were best friends since the age of about 5- 15. I rang the bell and some guy opened the door. Just before I asked for my friend, I realized it was him I was talking to. He had filled out in the past 8 years. He said he wouldn't have recognized me and I'm not sure why because I don't look all that different. In fact, someone recently said I haven't physically changed one bit. He invited me in and we had a nice chat. Despite having different worlds, we both seem to retain the ability to communicate as if we know each other and he is still warm and kind. We were both quiet, sensitive and softly spoken as children and those sensibilities have remained a rooted part of us. It was very good to see him.
I came back and played Mar Jong with my parents which I have never done. We were missing a player but that didn't matter. It was a strange yet enjoyable evening. I had been drinking red wine since noon and fell asleep about 9pm in the living room. I got up and my Dad said I used to do that while waiting for him to finish work.
I can't recall what I was really like when I was a child. I know I was afraid of a lot of things. Ironically, I have become pretty fearless as an adult. Youth work which taught me how to be an adult. Travelling which taught me about freedom and life. Falling in love taught me about pain and myself. Cinematography taught me that we can achieve things we believe in. Knowing people who have known you at certain stages in your life can give you a context to your own history. I for one am deeply grateful there are a few people I still can see from time to time who have known me before my twenties. Fundamentally, it can inform you that you have made it this far through life and it can make you feel alive.
There is an old saying that, 'if we don't know where we came from, how do we know where we are going?'. More often than not, I find that we tend to concentrate on either the past, the present or the future though rarely considering the sum of the whole. This can be percieved as an imbalance of sorts. Not unlike, the Christmas lunch I made.
- J
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
confessions of a profession
A few months ago I went to an event at The Photographers Gallery regarding medium format digital backs. One of the people giving the talk ask how many of us were photographers. Half the audience put their hands up. He then asked, ‘put it another way, how many people make money doing it?, and subsequently a few people put their hands down.
I started shooting stills in my early teens and have never really stopped. I started making some money out of it while still at college. I started shooting films in my teens and only started making money from it 2 years ago. I shot everything anybody allowed me to shoot, paid or unpaid. One day I was doing it for free and the next I was doing it for money. But it’s when I started being paid to light properly that I felt that I was what I aimed to be, a professional Cinematographer or ‘Director Of Photography’. And I take none of it for granted. I have found myself on shoots, such as the 35mm music video I shot in the summer. We had a jib (a small crane) with operator and a Steadicam Operator. I had 2 professional assistants. All I did was direct photography and take light readings to tell the focus puller. I didn’t even touch the camera. 3 years ago I was taking orders as a waiter and now I was managing a shoot that cost around £5000. All the many small and no paid jobs and the experience that I had aquire throught the years had paid off. And I am still learning so much on each shoot about lighting and camera equipment. Because the bigger the shoots, the more access you have to equipment you’ve never used and it’s great to try these things that you could never hire before. In the position of management, I still find it interesting that directors listen intently about what you have to say about the photography. Getting paid for knowledge and the ability to manage is still something new to me. The intent to produce something good is always there but there is something that comes with it when you are getting paid for it. I’m not exactly sure what that ‘thing’ is but it’s certainly present.
I used to kill to do a 35mm,16mm or HD piece or work and now I get asked to shoot them. It’s all a bit strange. I have to admit it’s really nice to get asked and then on top get paid to do it after the years of doing it for free, you feel, have paid off. Granted I’m not a ‘successful’ cinematographer but I make enough for now. I would feel it wrong if I ever took it for granted that I can do this job professionally and well. I have done some pretty low paid work in my time so I know what it’s like to work for minimum wage when you feel you can do so much better not just in terms of job/wage value but in ability and what you can to do. I swear though that being a waiter was far harder in terms of time management and stress than this. Time management is in seconds for waiters and mostly in minutes as a DOP.
We all have to make a living, no matter what we do for a living. And I used to worry about getting older and not making any money doing what I concentrated on for years. Now I am more relaxed about it and still have the rest of my life to grow in this profession. Perhaps it is the illusion or reality that when someone is going to put their money where their mouth is based on what you have done before, then it seems worth something and of quality. Value is in the eye of the beholder. My peers who I have worked with before becoming ‘professional’ know that I was professional in attitude prior to the formal title. And I believe if we are in attitude and thought, we eventually make that formal transition far more easily. I regard professionalism in any line of work to be foremost to doing your job well and to the progression of that job.
On a last note yet important. I sought to become ‘professional’ partly to prove to my parents, especially my dad who didn’t see the future as I saw hoped it would be, that I would eventually get paid to make the transition from ‘hobby’ to ‘profession’. That I made the first grade calmed his frustrations and mine.
It doesn’t matter if you put your hand up or not, as long as you are reaching out in your mind.
- J
I started shooting stills in my early teens and have never really stopped. I started making some money out of it while still at college. I started shooting films in my teens and only started making money from it 2 years ago. I shot everything anybody allowed me to shoot, paid or unpaid. One day I was doing it for free and the next I was doing it for money. But it’s when I started being paid to light properly that I felt that I was what I aimed to be, a professional Cinematographer or ‘Director Of Photography’. And I take none of it for granted. I have found myself on shoots, such as the 35mm music video I shot in the summer. We had a jib (a small crane) with operator and a Steadicam Operator. I had 2 professional assistants. All I did was direct photography and take light readings to tell the focus puller. I didn’t even touch the camera. 3 years ago I was taking orders as a waiter and now I was managing a shoot that cost around £5000. All the many small and no paid jobs and the experience that I had aquire throught the years had paid off. And I am still learning so much on each shoot about lighting and camera equipment. Because the bigger the shoots, the more access you have to equipment you’ve never used and it’s great to try these things that you could never hire before. In the position of management, I still find it interesting that directors listen intently about what you have to say about the photography. Getting paid for knowledge and the ability to manage is still something new to me. The intent to produce something good is always there but there is something that comes with it when you are getting paid for it. I’m not exactly sure what that ‘thing’ is but it’s certainly present.
I used to kill to do a 35mm,16mm or HD piece or work and now I get asked to shoot them. It’s all a bit strange. I have to admit it’s really nice to get asked and then on top get paid to do it after the years of doing it for free, you feel, have paid off. Granted I’m not a ‘successful’ cinematographer but I make enough for now. I would feel it wrong if I ever took it for granted that I can do this job professionally and well. I have done some pretty low paid work in my time so I know what it’s like to work for minimum wage when you feel you can do so much better not just in terms of job/wage value but in ability and what you can to do. I swear though that being a waiter was far harder in terms of time management and stress than this. Time management is in seconds for waiters and mostly in minutes as a DOP.
We all have to make a living, no matter what we do for a living. And I used to worry about getting older and not making any money doing what I concentrated on for years. Now I am more relaxed about it and still have the rest of my life to grow in this profession. Perhaps it is the illusion or reality that when someone is going to put their money where their mouth is based on what you have done before, then it seems worth something and of quality. Value is in the eye of the beholder. My peers who I have worked with before becoming ‘professional’ know that I was professional in attitude prior to the formal title. And I believe if we are in attitude and thought, we eventually make that formal transition far more easily. I regard professionalism in any line of work to be foremost to doing your job well and to the progression of that job.
On a last note yet important. I sought to become ‘professional’ partly to prove to my parents, especially my dad who didn’t see the future as I saw hoped it would be, that I would eventually get paid to make the transition from ‘hobby’ to ‘profession’. That I made the first grade calmed his frustrations and mine.
It doesn’t matter if you put your hand up or not, as long as you are reaching out in your mind.
- J
Sunday, December 10, 2006
evolving from a dark recess
i have been under depression for the past week. But now i am coming over the hill. it's a strange one. I can't recall the last time i was under such a dark cloud. After my travels i came back with a kind of attitude and will that i haven't had for years. The kind of vision that may come every few years if one is open to them. You can call them an epiphany if you like. Whatever it was, it was a gift. And then i nose dived sharply.
We can live under the strains of survival whether it would be something that happens to us or something we have gotten into. If we can, we can transcend, we can live through them through our choices, through the decisions we make. In this modern age we are constantly asking what we want or ourselves, what we want for others, who we are and where our meaning lies. Questions beckon more but what we need to know is ourselves and the desire to do better. With the haemorronging information of media and modern society, it is difficult to find peace and our own voices in the spectrum of life.
What are you, about?
We are not our blogs or our MySpace. They are only a fraction of us, if that. The human brain is only 11% active. It is out of my conception what would we be as the other percentages make themselves available. Telekinesis may be 13%. But i wouldn't know. But when you think about it it's really not that difficult. Everything is made up of atoms, including our brains. If we can tell our hands to type, why cannot we move other things that are around us. We are only separated my more atoms after all. Telepathy is another 'mystery'. Higher brain functions lay dormant. Plastic surgery may be a medival practice once we can shape shift by thought alone. Though i have doubts if we will ever get there.
And no i haven't been sniffing glue. I am just having random thoughts on the evolution of man. Now i must quote someone who probably does have slightly higher brain fuctions than i do, or at least, has the ability to organize the information better...
Priorities and Prospects.
A few years ago, one of the greatest figures of contemporary biology, Ernst Mayr, published some reflections on the liklihood of success in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. He considered the prospects very low. His reasoning had to do with the adaptive value of what we call "higher intelligence", meaning the particular human form of intellectual organization. Mayr estimated the number of species since the origin of life at about fifty billion, only one of which "achieved the kind of intelligence needed to establish a civilization". It did so very recently, perhaps about 100,000 years ago. It is generally assumed that only one small breeding group survived, of which we are all ascendents.
Mayr speculated that the human form of intellectual organization may not be favoured by selection. The history of life on Earth, he wrote, refutes the claim that "it is better to be smart than to be stupid," at least judging by biological success: beetles and bacteria, for example, are vastly more successful than humans in terms of survival. He also made the rather sombre observation that "the average life expectantcy of a species is about 100,000 years".
We are entering a period of human history that may provide the answer to the question of whether it is better to be smart than stupid. The most hopeful prospect is that the question will not be answered: if it recieves a definate answer, that answer can only be that humans were a kind of "biological error," using their allotted time of 100,000 years to destroy themselves and. in the process, much else.
The species has surely developed the capacity to do just that, and a hypothetical extraterrestrial observer might well conclude that humans have demonstrated that the capacity throughout their history, dramatically in the past few hundred years, with an assault on the environment that sustains life, on the diversity of more complex organisms, and with cold and calculated savagery, on each other as well.
Hegemony or Survival.
Noam Chomsky, 2003.
Noam Chomsky also wrote that humans are not like other species on this planet. Humans are more like a virus. Every other species on the planet finds a way to co inhabit an environment. Humans throughout history have instead taken as mush space they can aquire, raped the resourses around them and colonized alien bodies.
I'm pretty sure Noam doesn't sniff glue either.
He is not talking about some species from another time or planet, he is talking about us. And i am sure we can do better.
- J
We can live under the strains of survival whether it would be something that happens to us or something we have gotten into. If we can, we can transcend, we can live through them through our choices, through the decisions we make. In this modern age we are constantly asking what we want or ourselves, what we want for others, who we are and where our meaning lies. Questions beckon more but what we need to know is ourselves and the desire to do better. With the haemorronging information of media and modern society, it is difficult to find peace and our own voices in the spectrum of life.
What are you, about?
We are not our blogs or our MySpace. They are only a fraction of us, if that. The human brain is only 11% active. It is out of my conception what would we be as the other percentages make themselves available. Telekinesis may be 13%. But i wouldn't know. But when you think about it it's really not that difficult. Everything is made up of atoms, including our brains. If we can tell our hands to type, why cannot we move other things that are around us. We are only separated my more atoms after all. Telepathy is another 'mystery'. Higher brain functions lay dormant. Plastic surgery may be a medival practice once we can shape shift by thought alone. Though i have doubts if we will ever get there.
And no i haven't been sniffing glue. I am just having random thoughts on the evolution of man. Now i must quote someone who probably does have slightly higher brain fuctions than i do, or at least, has the ability to organize the information better...
Priorities and Prospects.
A few years ago, one of the greatest figures of contemporary biology, Ernst Mayr, published some reflections on the liklihood of success in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. He considered the prospects very low. His reasoning had to do with the adaptive value of what we call "higher intelligence", meaning the particular human form of intellectual organization. Mayr estimated the number of species since the origin of life at about fifty billion, only one of which "achieved the kind of intelligence needed to establish a civilization". It did so very recently, perhaps about 100,000 years ago. It is generally assumed that only one small breeding group survived, of which we are all ascendents.
Mayr speculated that the human form of intellectual organization may not be favoured by selection. The history of life on Earth, he wrote, refutes the claim that "it is better to be smart than to be stupid," at least judging by biological success: beetles and bacteria, for example, are vastly more successful than humans in terms of survival. He also made the rather sombre observation that "the average life expectantcy of a species is about 100,000 years".
We are entering a period of human history that may provide the answer to the question of whether it is better to be smart than stupid. The most hopeful prospect is that the question will not be answered: if it recieves a definate answer, that answer can only be that humans were a kind of "biological error," using their allotted time of 100,000 years to destroy themselves and. in the process, much else.
The species has surely developed the capacity to do just that, and a hypothetical extraterrestrial observer might well conclude that humans have demonstrated that the capacity throughout their history, dramatically in the past few hundred years, with an assault on the environment that sustains life, on the diversity of more complex organisms, and with cold and calculated savagery, on each other as well.
Hegemony or Survival.
Noam Chomsky, 2003.
Noam Chomsky also wrote that humans are not like other species on this planet. Humans are more like a virus. Every other species on the planet finds a way to co inhabit an environment. Humans throughout history have instead taken as mush space they can aquire, raped the resourses around them and colonized alien bodies.
I'm pretty sure Noam doesn't sniff glue either.
He is not talking about some species from another time or planet, he is talking about us. And i am sure we can do better.
- J
Sunday, December 03, 2006
In the queue
I was against Blogs and MySpace for a while and now I have both. Anyway. I recently discovered my friend Craig's MySpace blog and it's worth a look. I consider him a good friend. If you're looking for something quirky, kooky, funny and light, please check it out.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=69016944
That is all.
-J
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=69016944
That is all.
-J
Saturday, December 02, 2006
In My Life
I am doing pretty okay at work these days. I have been offered many jobs. I have applied for few. And when I came back from travels, I didn't worry about it, and the jobs came. But I'm not doing so well in other terms. Someone who I have known for a while on and off and of whom I can say so much about and at the same time, little of, is leaving to go to San Fransisco indefinately. For those of you who know me know of her but not who she is. And I dare to say likewise. What I can say is that it is making me terribly sad that she is leaving. Partly because I have just got re aquainted with her again.
I have written many poems in my life. And they are mostly about and for her. Here is one I wrote a few months ago. This will be the only one i will be putting on, this will only be the only entry i will mention her.
Just a Girl
In the patchwork freckles on pale skin,
Tell a lot about where she’s been,
From Mount Fuji to San Fransisco,
There’s no telling where next she’ll go.
In the mirrorball twinkle of her eyes,
Speaks about a love that never dies,
Despite a time when everything mattered,
Had left the other, forever shattered.
In the lines ingrained into her hands,
Told of living in separate lands,
And time did stutter along, apart,
But still recalled a broken heart.
In the Earth and sky between,
Nothing is something quite what it seems,
In the story of a wave unfurled,
All she was, was just a girl.
- J
I have written many poems in my life. And they are mostly about and for her. Here is one I wrote a few months ago. This will be the only one i will be putting on, this will only be the only entry i will mention her.
Just a Girl
In the patchwork freckles on pale skin,
Tell a lot about where she’s been,
From Mount Fuji to San Fransisco,
There’s no telling where next she’ll go.
In the mirrorball twinkle of her eyes,
Speaks about a love that never dies,
Despite a time when everything mattered,
Had left the other, forever shattered.
In the lines ingrained into her hands,
Told of living in separate lands,
And time did stutter along, apart,
But still recalled a broken heart.
In the Earth and sky between,
Nothing is something quite what it seems,
In the story of a wave unfurled,
All she was, was just a girl.
- J
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