Kim Manley Ort's Blog, page 14
February 15, 2017
Wisdom from the Desert
Zabriskie Point, Death Valley National Park
Currently, I am away on vacation in the American Southwest. One of the things I was most looking forward to on this trip was spending time in the desert. We visited Death Valley National Park last week. This week, I hope to visit Joshua Tree National Park and later on, Saguaro National Park.
Before leaving, I revisited the work of photographer Linde Waidhofer. I have her beautiful book, Stone and Silence, which I purchased many years ago after heari...
February 8, 2017
We Are the Earth – Remembering Thomas Berry
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“I speak of the earth as subject, not as object. I am concerned with the maternal principle out of which we were born and whence we derive all that we are and all that we have. In our totality we are born of the earth. We are earthlings. The earth is our origin, our nourishment, our support, our guide.” ~ The Spirituality of the Earth, Thomas Berry
Thomas Berry (1914 – 2009) was a Passionist priest, religious historian, and a pioneer in ecological theology. He strongly believed that revelati...
February 2, 2017
Magical Seeing – Guest Post with Sally Drew
Sally Drew is the co-facilitator for the visual journaling workshop, Once Upon a Time: Your Photographs have Stories to Tell. I first met her online when she posted her original Magical Seeing exercise on a different blog. I was fascinated by her process and we began conversing. This exercise is one we introduce in Session 2 of the workshop – Exploring Meaning and Heart in your Photographs. I hope that you’ll take Sally’s invitation to try the exercise and post your response here.
January 31, 2017
What Sherlock Holmes can Teach us about Photography
Last year, I wrote about the art of close observation, inspired by Amy Herman’s book, Visual Intelligence: Sharpen your Perspective, Change your Life. Sharpening and changing your perspective, or the lens through which you see, is a good practice in photography and life.
Later in the year, I read another book on this same theme of visual intelligence – Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes – by Maria Konnikova. Konnikova describes how Holmes used the steps of the scientific method – o...
January 25, 2017
The Power of Patterns
A pattern isdefined assomething that occurs three or more times, imposing a sense of order and rhythm. Patternsare strongly embedded in nature, in our lives, and in our photographs. We crave them.
In her book, Sight and Sensibility, Laura Sewallsays that “patterns arise naturally when our eye follows an edge.”Sheuses the example of a tree. We follow the line of the tree trunk up to the first branch, then to the next, and the next. We become aware of the patterning of the branches. The branchi...
January 18, 2017
The Wisdom of Insecurity
For many of us, the world feels like an insecure place. We don’t know what will happen next and we’re concerned. Yet, isn’t this always true of life? We never know for sure what’s ahead. So, how do we live wisely with this insecurity?
One of the books that meant the most to me last year was a classic by the philosopher Alan Watts – The Wisdom of Insecurity. The summary of the book on Amazon begins with the following line (remember that this book was written in 1951): “We live in an age of u...
January 11, 2017
The Power of Beautiful Questions
Last year, I spent a weekend with a friend at a retreat, where we experienced the wisdom and poetry of David Whyte. One line in particular from Whyte stuck with me.
My friend and I talked about what this meant while driving home. We wondered,“what is a beautiful question, anyways?”
“A beautiful question is an ambitious yet actionable question that can begin to shift the way we perceive or think about something — and that might...
January 4, 2017
John Berger and The Art of Looking
“The secret was to get inside of whatever I was looking at, get inside it.” ~ John Berger
Earlier this week, we lost a giant in the world of looking and seeing. John Berger (1926-2017) was a gifted thinker, writer, and art critic. I was drawn to his writing on photography and especially his classic book, “Ways of Seeing,” based ona TV show with the same name. You can watch episodes of the show on YouTube. FYI, this book is more about art history and the way we look at art. Here are a few of...
December 30, 2016
Have Yourself a Vintage New Year
It’s that time of year where we reflect on the year that was (oh boy) and make plans and goals for the year to come. The implication is that the new year will be bigger and better than ever before. There’s nothing wrong with doing this, of course, so long as we realize that life is uncertain and anything can happen. We’ll simply have to roll with whatever comes.
In her fabulous book, The Confidence Game (about the psychology behind con artists), Maria Konnikova cites a 1988 study out o...
December 28, 2016
The Books that Shaped my 2016
As part of my review of the year that was, I like to remember my favourite books of the year. I’ve always been an avid reader, although it seems to get more so every year. So many books, so little time! Reading for me is an adventure in seeing. It introduces me to new worlds and new ways of thinking I might not have entertained otherwise.
The books listed below (in no particular order) are the ones that I feel shaped me in some way. They’re the ones that I found myself sharing snippets with...
