8 Clicks from Nowhere Productions ䷀

Tag: vulnerability

Chapter List

  • Photographic Oddity

    I’ve written a few times about the black and white photography that accompanies the posts on this blog.  What I haven’t mentioned as often is the shades of vulnerability I encounter in that act of taking such non-traditional photos in public.

    Let’s define something: I think of a traditional photo as something that someone out in the wilds of a public space might expect one to take a photo of, like say, a scenic view, a bit of shapely architecture, a group of people, an animal, flowers, or some kind of public performance. Everyone takes pics of these things. They are quote… normal.

    A non-traditional photo is something else that usually falls outside of that category: say, snapping pics of a crack in the pavement, a macro of the textured bark on a tree, a storm drain cover, a street sign, one’s own feet, or even the whorls of clouds in the sky. Not everyone points their camera at these sorts of things. They are, um… less normal.

    My black and white photography tends to stray almost exclusively into the non-traditional realm.

    And having partaken in increasingly frequent acts of non-traditional photography over the last few months, I have noticed that with every click of the shutter I have been putting myself into a weird sort of public performance and place and vulnerability.

    I stopped while walking through Paris in August (when we were there on vacation) pausing to point my camera at a mailbox. Parisians who for the most part went about their lives indifferent to my existence on that trip, instead turned their heads and payed a bit more attention to my non-traditional moment of photography.

    It draws more attention to take odd photos than to take photos of things people expect to take photos of. People’s heads turn. There is a moment of “what’s that guy doing?” and then they move on… but still a moment.

    It didn’t bother me, of course.

    It was just a curiosity of consideration, and I couldn’t help but ponder what was going through the minds of commuting Parisians as some curious Canadian snapped serious pics of the relatively mundane in an otherwise massively photogenic city like that.

    I was a standout, an oddity, and temporarily creatively vulnerable to something I can’t quite put my finger on.

  • Show Tell

    The Kid is a natural performer. She comes to life when attention turns her way and she is at her creative best when she is in the spotlight.

    Me, not so much.

    I prefer the quiet toil of fingers on a keyboard in a dimly lit cafe or sketching a scene from a vantage where no one can peek over my shoulder and ask pesky questions.

    But for either of us, and all of us, there is vulnerability interlocked with the act of creative expression. We all need to turn on, activate, be our best selves and show up to tell the story we are trying to communicate through whatever form we choose.

    I would love to tell you that creativity is an easy or a comfortable thing, but I really do believe that the best of what we makes comes from opening our hearts, souls and selves to the universe.

    I type away in peace and quiet rarely seeing the people who read the words I write, but despite my shyness I still post them and send them out into the universe for anonymous adjudication. Just by reading these words you have transformed into the second half of a mysterious equation that I know exists when I write but I’ll never know much about. That is my personal vulnerability.

    Creativity comes from everything we are clashed against everything we are not.

    Under the category of Show & Tell I’ll be writing more on this topic as the months wear on.

  • Selfie Guy

    I took a walk with my new camera.

    I wrote about this about a week ago, having just bought a new action camera (an upgrade from the three similar models I’ve owned over the last decade and a half) I decided to give my vocal chops a test drive.

    So, I took a walk with my new camera. And the dog. And the rain. And a glowing mindset of finding a quiet place to make a selfie-video.

    I’m not sure if that’s the right term. I spun the camera around to face myself and tried to do some vocal word-craft based on a fifty word point form script I put together on my phone, doing my darnedest to record a coherent vlog-like video and do something I’ve never really done before: spin the camera around and put my face in the lens and not the viewfinder.

    A runner ran by once and gave me a sidelong glance.

    The path emerged from the woods alongside a freeway exit ramp and at least half a dozen guys each in their F150s turned their heads ninety degrees to offer a lingering stare at the dude and his selfie-stick so obviously talking to the camera.

    It’s a vulnerable thing this: becoming the performer in a one man production crew in your own neighbourhood when you’ve never done this sort of thing.

    I had been planning to make a whole series about this effort, but the time commitments of recording one of these every week, editing them, and then trying to write knowledgeably on the effort punched me in the face harder than if one of those truck dudes had pulled off to the side of the road to do it for me.

    Expertise is earned. I get that. But I think I may need to force this effort a little less.