Kim Manley Ort's Blog, page 10

Revisiting Mindfulness with Ellen Langer

 
It’s Thanksgiving week in the U.S. of A. and I’m off visiting my family. Recently, one of my favourite sites, On Being, rebroadcast a podcast with the wonderful social psychologist Ellen Langer – The Science of Mindlessness and Mindfulness.

Langer has been doing research on mindfulness for decades, long before it was the current rage. Today, we think of practices like meditation and yoga as ways to be mindful. Langer says that these things are good practices, but they are just that practi...

Advice for Writers/Photographers

While at a workshop with writer, Dani Shapiro, she referred to a piece in her book, Still Writing – Advice for Writers from Poet Jane Kenyon. I realized that I’ve incorporated many of these things into my life over the past few years. Below I’ve adapted them for photographic use (in italics).

Jane Kenyon’s Advice for Writers/Photographers

 
* Tell the whole truth. Be clear about your subject. Get to the heart of the photograph.

* Don’t be lazy, don’t be afraid. Learn how your camera works. Pr...

Still Learning to See

Confession: I’m still learning to see. Even though I’ve been practicing visual design principles for my photography for fifteen years, I’m still learning. Even though I’ve been teaching workshops on seeing for seven years, I’m still learning to see. Noticing perceptions and seeing the whole picture is part of my daily life and photo walks, but I can always go deeper. There’s still so much I don’t see. My husband points out things I’ve missed all the time.

Of course, there is no end to this le...

Still Learning from Freeman Patterson

 
Last weekend, I spent a day with Freeman Patterson, one of my mentors in seeing. Patterson is a well-known and loved Canadian photographer, known for his workshops with Andre Gallant in New Brunswick and South Africa, as well as other places. He’s been photographing, teaching workshops, and writing books for more than 50 years.

After graduating from University (a very long time ago), my Mom gifted me with a 35mm camera and Freeman’s first book, Photography for the Joy of It. I used my cam...

The Art of Stoicism – Choose Joy, Choose Not to be Harmed

I’ve been studying and practicing stoicism recently. If you’re like most people, you may have a picture of a stoic as someone with a stiff, upper lip and not having emotions. This is a misunderstanding. Stoicism as a philosophy goes back to the 3rd century B.C. and practitioners include Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus. It is all about choice and how we respond to external events that are out of our control. You can learn more about stoicism through links at the end of this post. In th...

Ordinary Life

I’ve just returned from a meditation/writing workshop called The Stories We Carry, at the Kripalu Center in western Massachusetts. Our facilitator was Dani Shapiro, author of many books including her latest memoir, Hourglass. It is the story of her 20 years (and still going) marriage; a thoughtful meditation on time, memory, and relationships. The thing is that, while we remember the big life-changing events in life, it’s the memories of ordinary life that are the most precious.

I often find...

What’s more important – the experience or the memory of the experience?

Memory is such an interesting topic. It’s one of the things that makes us human. It’s what gives life meaning. Our particular memories tell the story of our life and are are unique to us. What we remember from a particular event can be very different from someone else who was there at the same time.

This is one of the many topics studied by behavioural psychologist Daniel Kahneman. He is the author of the book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, which I wrote about back in 2016 (Perception and Intuit...

It Isn’t that I Have Nothing to Say

“All of reality is interaction.” ~ Carol Rovelli

Recently, I had an email exchange with a gentleman who attended one of my in-person workshops. He wrote out some thoughts responding to a blog post I’d written in March on photographs as interactions. That post was inspired by an On Being interview with Carlo Rovelli, author of the book, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics. When Rovelli spoke of all reality being made up of interactions, it reminded me of how I approach a photograph – as a visual de...

Times of Transition, Times of Possibilities

On a recent walk through a forested trail, I was astonished at the abundance of colour and blooms. It’s that time of year, at least where I live, where summer is not quite over but signs of fall are creeping in. Leaves are beginning to turn colour and seeds are dropping. Summer blooms are near their end and new fall plants are sprouting.

It’s a time of transition. It’s a time of new possibilities, even if I can’t quite see them yet.

What is Transition?

 
According to several dictionaries:

*...

A Mindfulness Exercise for your Photo Walks

“Mindfulness means learning to pay attention to what’s happening in the present moment. In the mind, body, and external environment, with an attitude of curiosity and kindness. Mindful awareness training tunes the region of the brain called the posterior insula. This is the place of our moment by moment awareness.” ~ Meg Salter, Mind Your Life

Meg Salter’s book, Mind Your Life, is full of practical exercises, both sitting and movement, for bringing greater moment by moment awareness to your...