G. Steve Journal

On Being Not Dead

Came across a thoughtful Op-Ed piece in the NY TIMES by Bill Hayes a short time ago that echoes one of the themes of this blog: pay attention.  It contrasts being dead -- you either are or you aren't -- with being alive, which is more nuanced:

After all, there are many ways to die — peacefully, violently, suddenly, slowly, happily, unhappily, too soon. But to be dead — one either is or isn’t.

The same cannot be said of aliveness, of which there are countless degrees. One can be alive but half-asleep or half-noticing as the years fly, no matter how fully oxygenated the blood and brain or how steadily the heart beats. Fortunately, this is a reversible condition. One can learn to be alert to the extraordinary and press pause — to memorize moments of the everyday.

Observation As Authorship

I came across an article in FORBES by Jonathan Keats describing the work and outlook of photographer Joel Sternfeld, best known for his pioneering color photography back in the 70's:

 Sternfeld recognizes the passive-aggressive coerciveness of pictures, and enlists their manipulative power. “You take 35 degrees out of 360 degrees and call it a photo," Sternfeld observes. "No individual photo explains anything. That’s what makes photography such a wonderful and problematic medium.”

Yet... we remain all too confident about our unmediated vision, which is also inherently selective, limited by when and where we’re looking. Sternfeld’s pictures remind us that, like a camera, our eyes are essentially passive. Like photography, observation is an act of authorship.

A New World

Earlier this year I gave a presentation to a group of photographers and observed that the only variables a photographer has at his disposal is the scene before him and the camera's frame.  So it was gratifying to read that noted street photographer Garry Winogrand drew the same conclusion when he was shooting back in the 70's:

“Putting four edges around a collection of information or facts transforms it. A photograph is not what was photographed, it’s something else…a new world is created”. 

F#%k It!

Don't mean to be profane, but this is literally the message I came across in this excellent and provocative video of designer Jonathan Adler telling the story of his creative success (thanks 99u!)

In a nutshell, his advice -- you've no doubt heard it before - is to "follow your heart" -- though he has a much more colorful and entertaining way of presenting that notion.

Maybe Even Today

I thought this recent post by Seth Godin was spot-on:

In the face of billions of dollars of destruction, of the loss of life, of families distrupted, it's easy to wonder what we were so hung up on just a few days ago. Many just went face to face with an epic natural disaster, and millions are still recovering. Writer's block or a delayed shipment or an unreturned phone call seem sort of trivial now.

We're good at creating drama, at avoiding emotional labor and most of all, at thinking small. Maybe we don't need another meeting, a longer coffee break or another hour whittling away at our stuckness.

There's never been a better opportunity to step up and make an impact, while we've got the chance. This generation, this decade, right now, there are more opportunities to connect and do art than ever before. Maybe even today.

It's pretty easy to decide to roll with the punches, to look at the enormity of natural disaster and choose to hunker down and do less. It's more important than ever, I think, to persist and make a dent in the universe instead.

We've all been offered access to so many tools, so many valuable connections, so many committed people. What an opportunity.