Truth? Fiction? Or something in between?

Some of my friends are aware that recently I have become (for the umpteenth time as they say) once again interested in photography. Unlike those many other times, however, I seem to be taking it quite seriously and have actually sold a few (not many, alas) photos through a photo agency. I could even venture to say I am actually learning how to take better pictures. Now, that is a turn up for the books as they say (I mean who is the 'they' that says these things? I mean, really?).

At the same time, my acquisition of a couple of high quality lenses (and thank you here is due to my wonderful partner who is amazingly insightful of my needs and skills and extraordinarily generous as well) has pushed me to explore an old love: Street Photography, or as it is known to its devotees, SP. I have spent many many hours exploring SP websites, Flickr groups, online videos and blogs. It's a fascinating genre and one that has got me really thinking deeply about all kinds of things, from truth in picture taking to story telling, to ethics. As I say, all kinds of stuff.

Take this guy for an example. When I posted this photo on my Facebook site and on the Flickr groups I have joined I called the image "Shaded Reflections of a Country Man". Why I called it thus should be fairly obvious I think: he's wearing a "cowboy" type hat, he's got a beard and he has dark shades which accounts for the shaded reflections bit of the title.

I spotted this man as I sat and photographed a really groovy band outside a pub during a recent Celtic Festival in my town. He was pretty engrossed in the scene and he seemed to be really digging the music. He moved seats a couple of times, always avoiding tables at which other people were sitting. In other words I made an assumption that he was a quiet kind of guy, a loner really, just out for a beer and to listen to some live music. I guess this also is referenced by the shaded reflections bit of the title and attests to the cleverness of my captioning!

But, how much, if any, of this is true? I mean, how do I know he is a country man? How do I know he's reflecting? In truth I only know my own guesses, my own assumptions about this fellow. And for an artist who is seeking to find and to tell the truth this brings up some fundamental issues. Do I have a right to "brand" this guy with my own story? Wouldn't I have been wiser and more honest had I talked to him, to have him tell me his story? Did I have the right to be taking his photo in the first place?

All good questions, and I have no hope of answering them here and now. Nor do I really wish to do so. Not now anyway. I make certain assumptions as I go about my artistic practice; what I mean is, I am directed by a set of guiding principles. Two of the biggies are, do no harm, and try at least to tell or record some essence of the truth. On the first, this image passes without a worry: I have not hurt this man; nor has titling the image in the way I have been harmful to him. I suspect any person of good will would get a chuckle at the very least out of being photographed and labelled in this way.

On that second criterion, however, I am on shakier ground. I have recorded his "physical" image just as he was that day. No problem there. But what if he isn't a country man? What if he didn't have a thought in his head (ie no reflections)? What if he isn't a loner but merely out alone? What if it's all a total fiction? Well, we can't know the answers here can we?

There is one way we could find out isn't there? This guy, or someone who knows him, just might come across his image, which is now spread far and wide across the WWW. Then we might meet him and know his story. His true story.

Now, I personally would very much welcome that contact. In the meantime, the very idea is a trip isn't it? And, for a second meantime, I continue to ask the hard questions. The answers will or won't come as they are meant to.

Peace and love to you all

Fingers poised? Look before you leap - I mean click

I wonder, have you heard about the columnist at a major metropolitan newspaper in Australia who was ‘let go’ because she sent some ‘controversial’ messages via Twitter while at a TV awards night recently? No? Well I’m not surprised: it’s hardly Earth shattering, and it isn’t really important on any number of levels if you ask me.


What I want to talk about here is a follow up opinion piece I read a few days later. In it the commentator, while putting the responsibility squarely on the offending Twitterer, writes, ‘... the availability and immediacy of the technology intrude upon the normal choices and judgements which people make.’ He adds: services like Twitter, Facebook, emails and the rest, ‘bring into the public realm many things that would previously remain private.’

Of course, he’s right there isn’t he? You read all sorts of stuff out there in cyberland and it ‘ain’t all pretty, as the saying goes. This guy goes on to say that we are at ‘an evolutionary disjunct between old notions of the public and private spheres and the means of communications now widely available.’

Therefore it seems to follow that it’s not your fault if you blurt out something that you might later regret or that is offensive or libellous or otherwise insensitive. Or is it? Well, of course it is. You, like me and everyone else, are responsible for what we say and do whether it’s online or in person or on a postcard!

Anyway, the writer of this opinion piece then tells a story about US president Franklin Roosevelt. As we all know Roosevelt had polio and used a wheelchair. However, for public speeches he stood with ‘discreet assistance’. Apparently, one day he actually fell over and lay sprawled and helpless in front of the assembled Washington press corp. Of the dozens of photographers there guess how many took a photo? Go on guess.

Not one. That’s right: no photographer thought it was relevant; they all—each and every one of those hungry ‘vultures’—judged that it was a personal matter and therefore not to be reported. You can bet that if a world leader fell in front of the cameras today it would be in your inbox, on YouTube and plastered all over the Internet before he or she was back on his or her feet.

I was out with my camera a day or so ago, down the river and aiming my long lens at a magpie. I got a couple of frames off, then just as I was about to press the shutter for another one, the bird was gone. So, I didn’t press the button. It was then that it struck me: those Washington photographers made the same choice: there was no photograph, so no need to press the shutter.

You know something? I have always thought that if there was one tool that shouted ‘availability and immediacy’ it’s the camera. This isn’t a new idea: it’s about the decisive moment and all that. Photography 101 you might say.

So how come it’s so different with the buttons on your mouse or your mobile? Especially as you have to type a message into the keypad before you get to send it. If you ask me that’s a lot less immediate than the camera shutter. What I’m getting at here in my usual long-winded fashion is this: if those photographers could make the decision in the heat of the moment to not press the button, why do we need to make excuses for us ‘modern types’ with our keyboards and mobile keypads and whatever?

Of course, the answer is we don’t. As I said, we are all responsible for what we say and do. I suppose a good motto to follow in our online or other communications—and in life generally— would be ‘Do No Harm’. Or at least, do as little harm as possible.

Now, I am not saying here that I’ve never said anything on Twitter, or on Facebook or any other place, that was hurtful or insensitive or judgemental or in other ways just not good to say. Mind you, I think that on the whole I pretty much stick to my little motto, Do No Harm (it’s not mine of course, I just adopted it).

And for those times when I have failed, I apologise very sincerely. I do not make excuses; I can choose to press send or click OK or whatever after I’ve typed a message (note my italics please), just as I can choose to press my camera’s shutter button.

Let’s not have any more of this ‘evolutionary disjunct’ stuff. Though, when you think about it, we actually are at a lot of those type of places right now, don’t you think? It’s just that I would rather not use this particular disjunct (I love this word) as an excuse to be sloppy when it comes to how I communicate with friends and strangers alike in cyberspace, or in terrestrial space, or even in my head!

Wish the world truth & honour as you sign your emails and letters

Recently I reconnected with a very good friend. We'd been out of touch for a few years, and I tell you: it was really good to hear from him again. I think we've kind of taken off just where we left off. Anyway, I was looking at some printouts of old emails from him (he used to send his poetry out to people on his list; ah, the good old days when you had to actually email people to share your writing, thoughts, ideas, whatever), and I noticed a really nice sentence he used on one as a way of signing off. He wrote:

Vishwa dharma ki jai

This is Sanskrit and means (according to my friend), 'victory to universal truth and honour'. When I read this expression, I was moved. Now, I don't have a problem with 'yours sincerely' or 'kind regards' and so on, as ways of signing off in an email or (just imagine) in a letter. Indeed, I think those salutations (is that the right word?) can be meaningful and can carry heartfelt and sincere wishes from one person to another.
However, as with all things we do 'automatically' and as a matter of course, these expressions seem to have lost much, if not all their true meanings. In fact, how often do we get emails with no such signing off, and with merely the sender's name at the bottom? Actually, now I think about it, I remember some emails that don't even carry the sender's name as a way of signing off. Now, that is rude on the surface, but in reality it's also meaningless: people and the way they communicate are changing; I guess some of these so-called 'niceties' are just naturally going to be lost.
So, when I read my friend's Sanskrit salutation, I thought, hey, I'm going to make sure that I for one do not forget these traditional expressions of good wishes and salutation. And what better salutation for a truth seeker (that's me) than my friend's?
It might be that a wish for the victory of universal truth and honour sounds a bit old fashioned, a bit formal even. Not at all: how up to date, how necessary in our materialistic, fast-paced and sometimes lonely and corrupt world, is it to seek truth and to act with honour. Honour isn't the fuddy-duddy, formal term you might think. Look it up: it's about honesty, truth, right behaviour integrity, all that good and right stuff.
So, I'm going to try to use this great salutation whenever I can. And my message to you, dear reader? Vishwa dharma ki jai

Beauty, Simplicity and Fearlessness: Art will take you there

Nicholas Roerich was a Russian, one of those crazy Russians who believed in beauty and art and culture as being the way to a peaceful world. Well, if he's crazy, then I sure would like some of whatever he had. Bring it on, that's what I say. Here's just a tiny snippit of what he said, as quoted in a very groovy book called Nicholas Roerich: A Master of the Mountains by Barnett D Conlan:

'... every Art creation is a dynamo charged with uplifting energy and a real
generator of enthusiasm and he (Roerich) looks to Art as the most effective instrument for
leading towards a life of 'Beauty, Simplicity and Fearlessness', to a
'Fearlessness which possesses the sword of courage and which smites down
vulgarity in all its forms, even though it be adorned in riches.'

In the years before World War II Roerich set up what he called Centres of Culture around the world. I don't know too much about this stuff, but I plan to check it out. His idea was that Art and Culture were the perfect tools for attaining peace. He was a painter (I went to his house in Naggar in the Himalayas in India which is now a gallery and museum: his paintings are almost not of this world; ethereal and radiating an energy of their own), an explorer, linguist (he was the first to put together dictionaries for various Tibetan and other central Asian languages), and a writer.
Here my main thought is about how every work of art is a dynamo full of energy. Isn't it so? Don't you feel that with your own work? Whether it's words, paint, clay, fabrics, or whatever you work with? And don't you sense it when you look or read the art of others, at least sometimes?
I do, and I'm sure you do too. And isn't it also true that so much of the 'art' and what passes for 'culture' is vulgar? I mean vulgar as in lifeless, made to service the needs of ego, the market or other mundane purposes.
I do not suggest for a minute that artists (whatever their medium) shouldn't get paid or otherwise recognised for their work. All I say is that it is intention that is key with art. And surely it has not escaped your attention that most art with 'soul' doesn't earn its creators a lot of money. No?
I guess what I'm getting at is all of us who are trying to express through 'Art' and who have as our aim the recording, reporting or whatever of truth, should be encouraged. Every time we create something from our hearts, from our souls, with goodwill, then we set loose an energy that has a life of its own. Of course, the other side is also true: Roerich said every work of art is a dynamo: the resulting energy is there, for good or for ...
Beauty, Simplicity, and Fearlessness. There could not be a more positive, more true reason to get creating Art ... whatever that means for you.

Peace from me to you

What's with the name of this blog?

It's a good question. But it's one that is pretty easily answered: just see the description under the title of the blog. This blog is about a writer's (that would be me) experiment with, or exploration of, truth, or rather the search for truth.

I only write the truth; I've already done a post on just this topic. But the actual words, Dharma Dreaming are interesting. The Dharma of course is a word you find in Buddhism and it refers to the teachings of Buddha or, to put it another way that is to my liking, the laws of the universe. Same thing really... in a manner of speaking. Easy to see how this might apply to the blog of a writer who is seeking to find and to tell the truth.
Dreaming is also interesting. Of course there is the obvious meaning related to the kinds of dreaming we all do when asleep (or sometimes when we're awake!). In the context of the blog title, if we are to use this meaning it's saying that I have a dream (to steal a phrase) that I can find and tell the truth.
In its other meaning, Dreaming is the more correct term for the Dream Time of Australia's Indigenous peoples. It, as with Dharma, refers to the law of the universe; it also encompasses the story of a people or culture ... or an individual. For example, if you were to make a scrapbook or a photo album that you believed contained the full story of your family history, then you can say: 'This is my family's Dreaming'. That isn't a terrific or totally accurate example, but I think you get the drift.
So, Dreaming here for the purposes of this blog is the attempt to explore the truth in the context of my own personal story as a writer ... of course this is going to be in the context of my life story. Also there is an element of my resolve to stick with the Dreaming as in the law of the universe.
All this sounds very grand doesn't it? It's not meant to. It is simply the convoluted and even confused explanation by this writer and dreamer.
thank you for reading this.
Peace!

NOTE: There may be some people who might take offence at my interpretation of the term Dreaming (or other of my writings of course). Any offence caused is of course entirely unintended. At the same time I apologise unreservedly to anyone genuinely offended by what I have written regarding this sacred and important concept and tradition. I am naturally open to any feedback regarding this issue. I have only attempted to make an explanation from my own feelings and all I do is motivated by a genuine search for truth and a desire to do right by all beings. Thank you