Mein Glaube

Der Glaube, den ich meine, ist nicht leicht in Worte zu bringen. Man könnte ihn etwa so ausdrücken: Ich glaube, dass trotz des offensichtlichen Unsinns das Leben dennoch einen Sinn hat, ich ergebe mich darein, diesen letzten Sinn mit dem Verstand nicht erfassen zu können, bin aber bereit, ihm zu dienen, auch wenn ich mich dabei opfern muss. Die Stimme dieses Sinnes höre ich in mir selbst, in den Augenblicken, wo ich wirklich ganz lebendig und wach bin. Was in diesen Augenblicken das Leben von mir verlangt, will ich versuchen zu verwirklichen, auch wenn es gegen die üblichen Moden und Gesetze geht. Diesen Glauben kann man nicht befehlen und sich nicht zu ihm zwingen. Man kann ihn nur erleben.
Hermann Hesse

Doing Photo Portraits

Yann Arthus-Bertrand, famous for 'The Earth From Above', an aerial portrait of our planet, in an interview on televison:

A good photographer is one who has ideas.

I photographed the farmer together with the cow because I wanted him to feel at ease. And to be together with the cow made him indeed feel at ease - because he is proud of her.

First I take a photograph for myself, then one for the portrayed.

Civilization & Garbage

Civilization did not rise and flourish as men hammered out hunting scenes on bronze gates and whispered philosophy under the stars, with garbage as a noisome offshoot, swept away and forgotten. No, garbage rose first, inciting people to build a civilization in response, in self-defense. We had to find ways to discard our waste, to use what we couldn't discard, to reprocess what we couldn't use. Garbage pushed back. It mounted and spread. And it forced us to develop the logic and rigor that would lead to systematic investigations of reality, to science, art, music, mathematics.
Don DeLillo: Underworld

Environmental Photography

Recently I happened to come across a link in The Guardian that said "Environmental photographer of the year 2008". I didn't know that there was such a category, and I'm still not too sure what to think about yet another category. Anyway, I'm glad I clicked on the link for the photographs displayed are real eye-openers. My favourite is picture number one that, together with the caption, made me immediately emotionally connect - and that is, as far as I'm concerned, the very best a picture can do. Here's the link: environmentalphotography

The photos (probably because they were labelled "environmental photography"!) also made me think of an article in The Independent about "the world's largest rubbish dump". Would you have guessed that it is in the Pacific Ocean and "stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, across the northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan"? Here's more: garbagedump

Schweizer Eigenarten

In der Schule wird über's Kinderkriegen gesprochen.
Ein kleiner Italiener, ein deutsches und ein Schweizer Kind sollen erklären, woher die Kinder kommen.
Der Italiener sagt: Bei uns in Italien bringt der Storch die Babies.
Der Deutsche meint: In Deutschland gehen die Mama und der Papa miteinander ins Bett und dann machen sie ein Kind.
Der kleine Schweizer meint: Bei uns ist das von Kanton zu Kanton verschieden.

Not Pictures, Words Make One See

It is not pictures, it is words that make one see.

Consider this (from Steven Pinker: 'The Language Instinct'):

"When a male octopus spots a female, his normally grayish body suddenly becomes striped. He swims above the female and begins caressing her with seven of his arms. If she allows this, he will quickly reach toward her and slip his eight arm into her breathing tube. A series of sperm packets moves slowly through a groove in his arm, finally to slip into the mantle cavity of the female."

These words have created images in your mind. They have made you see. What exactly you have seen I’m not able to tell yet that there were images in your mind that had something to do with the words that told you about the male and the female octopus … of this I’m quite sure.

Now picture this (again from 'The Language Instinct'):

"Cherries jubilee on a white suit? Wine on an altar cloth? Apply club soda immediately. It works beautifully to remove the stains from fabrics."

I’m pretty sure you have just seen cherries jubilee on a white suit and (presumably red) wine stains on a (presumably white) altar cloth. I can’t of course know what suit you had in mind or what altar cloth or what kind of stains (big, small, round …?), so in order to make you see the same suit, the same altar cloth and stains that I imagine, I need to show you an illustration, a photograph for instance. Only now can your eyes see what my eyes see.

Helpful Approach (2)

A Sunday afternoon, some years ago, at the headquarters of the World Fellowship of Buddhists in Bangkok. Ajahn Sumedho, an American Buddhist monk, lectures on mediation and concludes by saying:

Ladies and Gentlemen, should you have come to the conclusion that what I've been telling you sounds interesting to you, then you most probably have got me completely wrong. For a lot of things are interesting. From the love life of the bees to studying physics. But that is not the point. The point is that you need to ask yourself whether what I've been telling you was helpful. If it was, fine. If not, then look for something that is helpful.