Kim Manley Ort's Blog, page 12
June 28, 2017
Why Do You Do What You Do?
This is the third and final post in the series on the topic of intentions. Our deepest intentions come from our soul and tell us why we do what we do and what we value. This is why it’s so important to be aware of them, to watch where we put our feet, and then be open to unpredictability. That is what living a contemplative life means to me, paying attention to my intuition, and then taking a step in that direction.
How do we get off the treadmill of doing what we think should be done, and in...
June 21, 2017
Intentions in Photography
In last week’s post, The Purity of Intention, I explored the difference between egoic and nourishing, liberating intentions, based on the work of Tara Brach. What if we apply these same ideas to our photography?
Egoic intentions in photography are based on fear – wanting to be good, noticed, liked. We choose to photograph what others will like. Our photographs must��achieve a certain aesthetic so that they can win a prize or sell. Note: There’s nothing wrong with wanting any of these thing...
June 14, 2017
The Purity of Intention
Last weekend, I hosted a photography workshop in Niagara-on-the-Lake and we focused on pausing and focusing with intention. Over the next few weeks, I’ll explore this topic in more detail, beginning here with an updated post from 2014.
“You are what your deepest desire is. As your desire is, so is your intention. As your intention is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.” ~ The Upanishads
According to this quote from The Upanishads, desires...
June 7, 2017
Peony Essence
“Peony makes us feel luscious, wild, delicious – like everything is at our fingertips and everything is possible.”
~ Katie Hess, Flower Evolution
This summer, I’m learning more about flowers, not just their names, but how they make us feel, from a book called Flower Evolution. Author and flower elixir expert Katie Hess teamed up with photographer/videographer Louie Schwartzberg to create this beautiful book. The premise is that when we connect with the power of flowers, we can enhance our mo...
May 31, 2017
Turn it Upside Down
One of the exercises in the Adventures in Seeing book is to do a 180. Whatever you’re drawn to photograph, go ahead and take the picture, but then do a 180 – turn around and see if there’s anything you missed while focused on your subject. Sometimes you won’t find anything in particular. Then again, sometimes you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
I started thinking more about this after reading James Clear’s brilliant article on inversion. For any problem, situation, dilemma, question, turn it u...
May 24, 2017
What Kind of Stories do you Tell with your Photographs?
In the visual journaling workshop, Once Upon a Time: Your Photographs have Stories to Tell, there is an exercise on storytelling, which participants really enjoy. The results are often surprising and reveal hidden writing talents. We take a look at three different types of stories – ambiguous, personal, and documentary (inspired by this article, Telling Stories with Photos, from Digital Photography School). The three types are summarized below.
Ambiguous – the story is unclear; it makes you...
May 17, 2017
10 Books on Seeing
Recently, I revisited a post by David Ulrich on his Top Ten Books on Seeing. It’s an intriguing list and I’ve only read two of them, Walden and The Doors of Perception.
In my individual posts, I often refer to favourite books on seeing, but I’ve never compiled a complete list in one post. Here are 10 I highly recommend. Each of these books I’ve read and re-read extensively and each had its own impact on the way I see.
1.The Zen of Seeing by Frederick Franck
This is my number one go to book...
May 10, 2017
Empathy and the Art of Inseeing
Empathy is a word often heard in today’s world, as in we need more of it. It is “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.”
I was intrigued to learn about the origin of this word in this Brain Pickings article. To summarize, the word empathy came into being in the late 1860’s when philosopher Theodor Lipps wondered why art affects us so powerfully. He hypothesized that the impact of a piece of art isn’t in the work itself but rather, is found in the act of viewing. This was...
May 3, 2017
Telling your Story through 5 Visual Elements
“Show, don’t tell. Reveal the carnal details of the scene. Use those details to show and, by inference, tell the story. Images do not only speak to the mind, but also activate the heart and senses, and spark the “blink” of intuition in which the viewer recognizes in an instant what is being communicated.” ~ David Ulrich
David Ulrich is a photographer and teacher from Hawaii. He writes beautifully about the creative process in his book, The Widening Stream: The Seven Stages of Creativity. As...
April 26, 2017
How’s your Vision? Where’s your Voice?
Each of us has a vision of life, whether we’re aware of it or not. It shows up in the way we live, the people we spend time with, the media we consume, the work we do, and the organizations we support. Each of us has a vision in our photography too, which shows up in the photographs we take. Each of us has a voice. What we say and even what we don’t say speaks volumes.
David duChemin says that our voice is the way we express our vision. I’ve been thinking about this lately since taking a...
