Saigon

Photography: facts, subtleties, nuances, chance ...

world photography day

Tibet

Laos

Burma

Indonesia

China

Cambodia

Turkey

Vietnam

Nepal

Whisper

Laos

It's a walking meditation.

How do you spell loss?

What I called "memory" contained an entire world.

Imagination is memory.

A blind painter paints from memory. A blind writer. A blind poet. A blind musician.

Painted words of yellow laughter.

A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.

The old monk in the shade reads to his 95 year-old blind friend resting/dreaming in a hammock.

The wailing infant gets a job as a siren on an emergency vehicle.

Once upon a rainy day Whisper paid attention to sensations.

Whisper paid Now.

Whisper is Now. Not Later.

A heavy deluge increased the density of murmurs and ideal idea voices sat quiet.

Voices heard rain bouncing off recycled Asian war PSP sheets in sheets. Steady yellow Agent Orange rain hijacked a life jacket.

He shuddered with the sensation that an entire life had ended that day.

Another unpredictable life was beginning.

Designing the charcoal elements of crisp fire as infants scream at talking heads women drive young ones crazy in out in out their tongues banging like pistons on a desultory 125cc engine propelled by virgins returning home with their unblemished shy dignity intact.

One woman fans skewered buffalo meat to a crisp.

A grandmother cradles an infant. She suffers from diabetes Type II.

Shuddering wedding photos are frozen on a wall. It never turns out like people imagine.

They breed, work and get slaughtered. They trade hands and hearts.

She skewers another hypnotic form of laughter to preserve her conversation.

Fat lost European tourists waddle past.

With an accusatory tone men get smashed on beer Lao.

A mechanic hammers one sharp line of description vs. mundane observation.

Fire

Traveling isn't supposed to be fun, said an American father to his whining son sitting on a cafe balcony in Istanbul overlooking the Bosporus. It's an adventure.

I used to be someone else but I traded him in.

Begin this day at dawn.

Pashupatinath Hindu cremation ceremony along Bagmati River.

Shiva is the destroyer and creator.

Wood pyres. A woman kisses her shrouded husband goodbye.

Light his fire.

Fire is the beginning and end.

Fire is your rosé flame.

Stir his bones.

His ashes flutter with death and mortality.

Silence. Solemnity. Serenity. Grounded and transient. Flowers. Offerings.

Glorious color dancing fire.

Return to Source.

emotion expression

Everything going in an ear comes out as language.

A tool for emotion and expression.

The greatest sorrow is the death of the heart.

Life is found in a desperate situation. - Chinese proverb.

All you have to do is take out the garbage, said a writer. Separate the cans, glass, plastic, paper products, adverbs, and adjectives. Editors want it short fast and deadly. They want to feel a character facing obstacle(s) and their motivation. They want characters to reveal themselves through dialogue and action. How is the character living and feeling? Focus the lens through the protagonist’s eye. Live forever.

Make it immediate and dramatic. Show their vulnerability, their worries, hopes and fears. Use active verbs. Be specific so we feel the experience. Clarify the narrator's interpretation.

Please continue with your delightful story, Jamie.

Yes, well, it needs a central character, like Omar here, he's a good one with a woven thread and laborious languorous tension to move it along now doesn’t it? As I was saying before you went off a tangent Point, which I see you are prone to do, he understood their wingspan.

See, one of the largest nesting colonies of tawny vultures in Europe was here. While living and hiking in the region he’d seen several species: the golden eagle, Hieraetus fasciatus, Aquila heliaca, Hieratus pennatus, and Circaetus gallicus. Goshawk and the Egyptian vulture also inhabited the Sierras.

Amazing. I once was a screaming eagle in Vietnam, said Point. Strange place for eagles eh? Remind me and I’ll spin you a tale about them.

Ok. A large vulture grabbed air toward the mountain cliffs, sailed along the rocks and it was difficult to keep it in focus because their brown body blended perfectly with trees and mountains. It sailed, banked, disappearing into cover. Breaking through clouds another vulture flew into the sun splashing hillside and peaks in blazing light. It dropped in elevation, turning, showing quick flashes of golden feathers, brown body, in and out colors as the bird played on the air. Really incredible I tell you.

Then it flew near ridges turned toward his position for a moment, just long enough displaying complete wingspan and I’d guess a good 6-8 feet across, then it blended into the foliage finding its mountain perch.

Excellent. Nothing like a little free form flying exercise in the morning I say. Free morning drafts. Gets the blood flowing, lowers the heart rate and strengthens the spirit, said Omar.

Spirit of flight, flight as freedom the vision they must have, said Jamie. Imagine, if you will, how it feels to be rising on air, feeling the slightest push or pull as wind whips past you and you climb into and through clouds flying past you. You circle through endless space able to maneuver, balance, floating higher and higher. He felt good feeding small birds watching big ones fly. Always maintain your awareness.

History is the symptom.

People are the disease.

Language is a virus.

Weaving A Life, V1