Tag: balance

  • Shape And Experience

    Shape And Experience

    Light Signatures series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion, red, blue, yellow, muted, streaks, pattern
    Satin Refraction, 2014 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)

    There is a dynamic balance in a city – one that’s in constant flux. From one day or season to the next the geometry is changing – coupled with the constant movement of objects within and you have an ever changing panoply of material to experience

    These images ponder the shape of the city and how best to portray it. Not just the geometry of the space but the passage through it – a combination of the shape and the experience of it. The emotion of interacting and living within it.

     

  • Highs and Lows

    Highs and Lows

    Light Signatures series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion, tan, yellow, blue, muted
    Turquoise Yellow Red Billowing Veil, 2013 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)

    When we’re very young every single day is an entire universe of experience. We cry when it’s time to sleep – perhaps because we don’t want it to end. In time we forget the joy of seeing the world anew each day. We “learn” to plan ahead, think of our future – and in so doing we shift our focus away from each day and the joy we used to feel afresh on each wakening. Life becomes routine.

    It’s time we find a balance so we still feel the joy of each new day – the fresh possibility – the exciting potential – and yet still act responsibly. I’m not just touting joyful BS – seriously – once you lose perspective and shift to the extreme you miss the nuance of life. Everything becomes mashed together into an unchanging pastel blur.

    It’s the highs and lows of life that make it so worth the effort to live. Relish them all.

  • Laying Groundwork

    Laying Groundwork

    Light Signatures series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion, green, blue, muted, streaks, patterns
    Green Brown Snakes Beneath Azure Waters, 2013 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)

    Occasionally during a moment of calm I’ll get this overwhelming sense of impending boredom. Its a weird kind of feeling I think has something do with extreme compartmentalization – something I’ve never been too good at, yet somehow I’ve managed to achieve. It’s as though I have a complete and detached overview of all the campaigns and projects of my life. I see that nearly all the spare space that would normally accommodate random possibility in my life has been squeezed out of existence by these projects.

    Its at once demoralizing and uplifting. I feel pride at the efficiency but boredom with the mundane grind. My life became a chaotic mess after our son was born and from that froth of random non-direction I’ve managed to set my life on a course. I’ve much to accomplish and nowhere near enough time to do it in. But… is this the right way to live? I don’t know. I have a tendency to swing from one extreme to the other it seems.

    While I think its important to have goals and direction I also think its important to embrace the process of living. I’m wondering if proceeding on such a rigid set of goals precludes embracing the process of living or if the process of living need be random. Random in the sense of not planned out beforehand – blown where the wind takes me.

    Am I just pining for the old days when I had spare time and went out with friends? Perhaps. But when I do suddenly have spare time I’m at a loss for what to do with myself. It feels like I’ve fallen off a cliff – I’m in free fall. I do think on the list of tasks or projects but then I think… nah. Its a rare moment of free time – time for myself. Take it as such – don’t squander it on the stuff you already have to do the rest of the time.

    When all is said and done I’m sticking with my projects and campaigns. They’re laying the groundwork for greater things – building a framework from which to hang future goals. I’ve worked hard to choose, define and refine them. Now I have to defend them – but not at all costs. Again it comes down to balance. It’s alright to be goal driven as long as you remain present – experiencing the process of reaching the goals – enjoying the fruits of your labours. That’s life.

  • Why Order From Chaos?

    Why Order From Chaos?

    Light Signatures series, day, colour photograph, art, abstract, abstract expressionism, creative, city street, urban, downtown, cityscape, speed, blur, movement, motion, green, grey, muted, clouds, streaks, patterns
    Stormy Sky Over Dark Water, 2013 – Light Signatures :: (click to see more)

    I’ve been trying to get to the heart of why chaos and order are so fundamental to my efforts. I could cite the patterning by music I was so thoroughly exposed to in my formative years as a source. But also equally important were my summers spent north in the woods camping experiencing the natural world. And then there is my innate desire to build that manifested at an early age – people thought I would become an engineer. Somewhere – held in balance in this triangle of forces – is my desire to find order in chaos.

    Order from chaos is a slippery concept. One could argue that chaos is a relative state dependent on the sample size of the system in question. Order can be found in any chaotic system if you take a large enough perspective… this is my intuitive feeling at least. But if you look closely the overall patterns disappear and all you see is random behavior. In an active system such as a city, it’s at the boundary layer – between the large and the small sample – that interesting things happen. Where the abrupt manifestation of pattern in the noise will give a tantalizing glimpse of the larger order.

    I find this fascinating – and strangely – hopeful.

  • Stop Swimming Upstream

    I’ve got this personal task that keeps popping up each month as a kind of spiritual growth reminder. Stop Swimming Upstream. Another way of putting it would be Go With The Flow.

    As you might guess, this is quite hard for me – which is why I have it popping up every month. To some degree a lot of what I do in life and creatively is go against the grain so its an important trait or skill in my reserve. But as they say – as I often try to remind myself – balance is the key. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow in order to save yourself – its just I find it hard to decide when to let go.

    The other part of this little popup reminder is Follow My Destiny. To some degree I believe in some form of destiny – I think there is a destination or general vicinity to which our lives point, but I also believe in causality – the path to that destination is up to us. For me, I have a tendency to take the most difficult path possible – for the challenge. But as I get older – yes older – I am beginning to recognize a pattern to things. That sometimes the difficult path – swimming upstream – isn’t necessarily the optimum, right, best or fun path. Hence the go with the flow idea.

    I also have a desire – among all my other life goals – to be efficient with my time. So it’s necessary for me to balance my desire for challenge (to combat boredom) with my desire for efficiency. I don’t like to waste my time. This might be why I spend a good deal of my time thinking about things rather than just going at them willy-nilly. I don’t always think so much though. Plenty of times I just plunge ahead and work it out as I go – that’s fun too.

    I don’t have the answers … yet – haha, but if I EVER reach enlightenment, you’ll be the first to know.