-
(http://www.vam.ac.uk/images/image/1695-large.jpg)
Christine Keeler, by Lewis Morley
-
(http://images.easyart.com/i/prints/rw/lg/2/5/Frantisek-Drtikol-The-Soul--1930-250160.jpg)
The Soul by Frantisek Drtikol
-
(http://www.actuphoto.com/files/36034rheims2.jpg)
by Bettina Rheims
-
(http://ronis-savart.chez-alice.fr/Dossier_pietonisation_clip_image019_0001.jpg)
Rue Laurence Savart by Willy Ronis
-
(http://www.taz.de/blogs/wp-inst/wp-content/blogs.dir/22/files/2007/09/Che%20Korda%20Foto1.JPG)
Che by Alberto Korda
-
(http://www.chaldej.de/images/stories/chaldej/reichstag.jpg)
"On the Reichstag" by Jewgeni Chaldej
-
(http://xicoriasexicoracoes.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/ghandi.jpg)
Mahatma Ghandi by Margaret Bourke-White
-
(http://fototapeta.art.pl/2004/i/bef/Weston_Nude_on_Sand.jpg)
"Nude on Sand" by Edward Weston
-
(http://evelynrodriguez.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/white_barn_and_clouds_3.jpg)
by Minor White
-
(http://www.stevenkasher.com/html/..%5Cpublish%5Cworksimages%5CStockBillieHolidayWEB_LG.jpg)
Billie Holiday by Dennis Stock
-
(http://www.metmuseum.org/special/Gilman/images/PH9097.L.jpg)
Rodin - Le Penseur by Edward Steichen
-
(http://scan.net.au/scan/magazine/images/0704mansfield/Schuh-Slide-7.jpg)
Java - Gotthard Schuh
-
(http://www.candacedwan.com/jelly/data/photograph/image/Maximum_Width=1000,Maximum_Height=322/4.jpg)
by Pentti Sammallahti
-
(http://www.nazraeli.com/cover_images/100155_cov.jpg)
"One" Ken Ohara
-
(http://www.ilterzoocchio.it/public/_media/foto_news/coming_grande.jpg)
"They are Coming" by Helmut Newton
-
(http://www.gallery.ca/125/images/Negre_ramoneurs-en-marche.gif)
"Chimney Sweeps Walking" Charles Negre
-
(http://www.popa.com.br/docs/livros/No-coracao-do-mar-capa.JPG)
"The Wreck of the Arden Craig" by Francis Mortimer
-
(http://dorshav.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/09/04/susan_meiselas_cuesta_del_plomo.jpg)
"Cuesta del Plomo" Susan Meiselas
-
(http://www.hurrellphotos.com/images/cart_images/18b.jpg)
Marlene Dietrich by George Hurrell
-
(http://massengale.typepad.com/venustas/images/wellsevans.jpg)
"A Sea of Steps" Frederick Evans
-
(http://www.pcnw.org/gallery/past/200111_eerwitt1.jpg)
"New York City" Elliot Erwitt
-
(http://n8.nl/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/afghangirl2.jpg)
"Afghanistan" Steve McCurry
-
(http://www.photographychannel.tv/graphics/mccurryafghan.jpg)
"Afghanistan" Steve McCurry
-
(http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s158/trobichat1/edith_piaf_shot_by_cosette_harcourt.jpg)
Edith Piaf by Cosette Harcourt
-
(http://www.watsonspierman.com/fineart/IanBradshaw/images/STREAKER.jpg)
"Streaker" Ian Bradshaw
-
(http://www.1adventure.com/archives/images/dorothea-lange-migrant-mother-ver1a.jpg)
"Migrant Mother" Dorothea Lange
-
(http://web.ncf.ca/ek867/killip.going.home.jpg)
"Rocker and Rosie going home" Chris Killip
-
(http://images.artnet.com/artwork_images_357_349536_ralph-gibson.jpg)
Ralph Gibson
-
(http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w9/fyamma/1990NikosEconomopoulos.jpg)
"Nomads by the side of the road" Nikos Economopoulos
-
(http://www.doobybrain.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/death-of-a-loyalist-soldier.jpg)
"Death of a Loyalist Soldier" Robert Capa
-
(http://www.artcurial.com/Full/931/10149931.jpg)
"Lella" Edouard Boubat
-
(http://www.school-portal.co.uk/platforms/21311/2908/CustomPages/55260/6255_original.jpg)
"El at Columbus Avenue and Broadway" Berenice Abbott
-
(http://www.abc-fotografia.com/galle/2006-sella-04.jpg)
Vittorio Sella
-
(http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/398664531_d523baae3b.jpg?v=0)
"Sea and Sky" Gustave Le Gray
-
(http://jerryandmartha.com/yourdailyart/images/mann.jpg)
"Emmet, Jessie and Virginia" Sally Mann
-
(http://www.leni-riefenstahl.de/images/dienubav/81.jpg)
Nuba, Leni Riefenstahl
-
(http://achfoto.com.sapo.pt/hf_653_10_hans-staub-31.jpg)
"In Front of the Kindagarten" Hans Staub
-
(http://lh6.ggpht.com/_8DoGvTi4z60/R-PW4p9stXI/AAAAAAAAAoc/-WkMbB18bA4/mataHari_Garbo.jpg)
Greta Garbo by Clarence Sinclair Bull
-
(http://jerryandmartha.com/yourdailyart/images/mann.jpg)
"Emmet, Jessie and Virginia" Sally Mann
These are all great Michael! I recently watched a 2 hour documentary on Sally Mann's life and work.. incredible artist. She did a whole series on death that was rejected by the public for the most part due to its content... but I think did end up in museum.
Also alot of hoopla about her photographing her children nude. ::)
Heartfelt story if anyone has the chance to watch it.
-
(http://n8.nl/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/afghangirl2.jpg)
"Afghanistan" Steve McCurry
Another favorite of mine.. I have it framed from its viewing in national geo magazine.
Again.. nice collection!
-
Beautiful selection. If I could pick a fave...
I really like
"A Sea of Steps" Frederick Evans
and Nomads by the side of the Road
and the very first picture, nude lady on the chair looks so much like my Mother.
-
Yeah, good photos. I thought also which one would be my favourite and started to look for it in this thread, but then it isn't here. Saw it somewhere else. Don't know why it came to my mind, it's not very pretty, eh. But very ...naked
-
Thanks, M!
-
Yeah, good photos. I thought also which one would be my favourite and started to look for it in this thread, but then it isn't here. Saw it somewhere else. Don't know why it came to my mind, it's not very pretty, eh. But very ...naked
taimi, you need to find another version - that location won't allow you to display outside the original web page.
-
Odd, i can see it here. Well, i saved it and here it is as an attachement.
And the text from that page:
"Stricken child crawling towards a food camp.
The photo is the “Pulitzer Prize” winning photo taken in 1994 during the Sudan Famine.
The picture depicts stricken child crawling towards an United Nations food camp, located a kilometer away.
The vulture is waiting for the child to die so that it can eat him. This picture shocked the whole world. No one knows what happened to the child, including the photographer Kevin Carter who left the place as soon as the photograph was taken.
Three months later he committed suicide due to depression."
taimi, you need to find another version - that location won't allow you to display outside the original web page.
-
That photo made me feel sick to my stomach.
:'(
-
Cerelia, google Aghora.
-
to whom nothing is terrible
The extreme offensiveness of what they do in their different rituals is purposeful, and intended to break all cultural taboos. The aghoris seem to me to be “anti Brahmin” or at least a lot of what they do goes against what a God fearing Brahmin is supposed to practice. Sex with women of lower caste during their menstrual periods, eating dead bodies i.e. what’s considered most unclean to a Brahmin; no food taboos are all what aghoris practice. Typically these taboos are so ingrained that we’re likely to find it very difficult to accept the meaning behind what the aghoris are doing. That’s the fascination of being with the aghoris and the challenge it presents as well. It’s also what makes the path the aghoris have chosen strenuous and complicated.
-
I like this picture of a crawling child because i feel somekind of emptyness in it. Like the humanness has fallen and then there's just emtyness or death. Face to face with reality, no human games.
-
Yes, I see that, too.
But what bothered me was that a photgrapher would seemingly rather get a good shot (o a Pulitzer Prize) than help a starving frightened child. That's very sad to me.
Just as it is when, during a hurricane or natural disaster the camera men and newsreporters sit by and do nothing so they can get their story.
I don't agree that's all.
(course I don't know what happened when the camera was off, I like to think somebody picked up the child and hugged him and got him some help)
Even so, for the sake of entertainment...?
-
I am fascinated by scientists who have a common law that you never interfere with nature - observe but leave to own devices. Time and again I have heard this from them.
But I know that journalists/photographers differ. They often intervene and yet still take their photos or stories. As a result they end up in all sorts of tacky situations.
In this case, what happened after the photo event, may be known somewhere, but just realise this is happening somewhere in the world right now, with no camera. And the person dying is you.
-
Same girl in 1985 and 2002:
(http://s.ngm.com/afghan-girl/images/afghan-girl.jpg)
Here is the bare outline of her day. She rises before sunrise and prays. She fetches water from the stream. She cooks, cleans, does laundry. She cares for her children; they are the center of her life. Robina is 13. Zahida is three. Alia, the baby, is one. A fourth daughter died in infancy. Sharbat has never known a happy day, her brother says, except perhaps the day of her marriage.
Her husband, Rahmat Gul, is slight in build, with a smile like the gleam of a lantern at dusk. She remembers being married at 13. No, he says, she was 16. The match was arranged.
He lives in Peshawar (there are few jobs in Afghanistan) and works in a bakery. He bears the burden of medical bills; the dollar a day he earns vanishes like smoke. Her asthma, which cannot tolerate the heat and pollution of Peshawar in summer, limits her time in the city and with her husband to the winter. The rest of the year she lives in the mountains.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2002/04/afghan-girl/index-text
-
(http://n8.nl/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/afghangirl2.jpg)
"Afghanistan" Steve McCurry
That one was a cover on National Geographics. What eyes, stone staring awareness!
-
(http://www.leni-riefenstahl.de/images/dienubav/81.jpg)
Nuba, Leni Riefenstahl
Que?
So the Nazis front lady in film and propaganda made that shot? Interesting. It is much power in that woman, and she is black.
-
(http://restlesssoma.com.au/soma/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4723.0;attach=2541;image)
So who's the vulture now?
-
Okay, I have a question just to ease my own mind.
Does anyone else feel anything when looking at these pics? The lil child starving to death and the chickens about to be slaughtered?
I can't be the only one here that is troubled by our lack of compassion toward other humans (babies even) and animals.
Right?
(I mean I understand that it is what it is and life goes on, people die, we need to eat etc. So I can rationalise these feelings away, (somewhat) but does everyone do this? And if so... why?)
-
Rationalize this:
we (humans) beat horses to run in circles and jump over obstacles. Then if one falls and breaks his leg we shoot him in the head.
I stopped to feel anything about the world at large a long time ago.
Besides I have enough stuff of my own to figure out.
-
We are all deeply rooted animals.. it just is what it is.. beautiful in a very primal and perfect way.
May you walk in beauty.. in balance, in light and love, Jennifer
-
Does anyone else feel anything when looking at these pics? The lil child starving to death and the chickens about to be slaughtered?
I can't be the only one here that is troubled by our lack of compassion toward other humans (babies even) and animals.
To me, what you are describing is disingenuous. You lack the ability to fully fathom the suffering of the world.
If so, you would be asking about all the murders, rape, slaughter, torture, disease, pain, starvation, orphans, widows, etc. etc. etc. that is happening RIGHT NOW at this very moment. Thats NOW, as in, at the same time you are currently reading this. People are dying in horrible ways, children murdered in front of their mothers, as well as other untold tortures and atrocities by the millions. This is not something that is only happening when you cast your eyes on a picture of it - it is happening continuously, every second.
You see, if you were truly troubled by the lack of compassion in every single one of these events - you would likely have a psychotic breakdown. These atrocious events are always happening. You would not be able to be troubled one minute, then go have pancakes and laugh at cartoons the next. Of course this is possible, but to me it is not being truly troubled at all - but rather only when it suits the circumstances, and only in a way which does not interfere with your comfortable routines, except as a show of some kind.
For instance, someone feels no pain when another person unknown to them dies, but when someone close to them does - then they feel pain. Is this compassion? No, it is simply the selfish mind that cannot let go. One cannot weep for someone elses sake, it is only a placation of one's own suffering that is projected onto the world.
People make excuses for this kind of compassion, and say "well, what i dont see cant trouble me". This excuse does not create genuine compassion. Its only an excuse for an image that society deems appropriate.
If you truly care, the only way to deal with it is to simultaneously truly not care - that is, to see the big picture. To realize the dust in the wind. There is no need for any complaints at this point, only the actions which flow from your nature.
-
Each has to find their own answer, or rather find it their own way.
The whole point with all these pictures, not just those last two, is to feel them.
The great task of the being who's sensitivity has been opened, is how to extend towards the beautiful and not be flooded by the harsh, the horrific and the sad. There were some famous photos I left out - the man being shot by the police commander in Vietnam, the naked napalm child in Vietnam, and some others. I just didn't feel like going there, but I have been there.
The first and foremost answer is to find one's way past the reaction. If you look carefully you will see that these reactions are about the suffering of others. We unconsciously place ourselves in their shoes. We feel their anguish as ours.
The task asked of us is to arrive at the point where nothing matters. That is our only escape. And with each situation it is different, and I can talk about each situation and how I personally made my way through their prison of pain to come out to the only point of absolute freedom. Each is different, but the way out is always the same.
Don Juan said: when I see something painful, I simply switch my eyes.
But he didn't always switch his eyes ... he disliked overcast days and loved poetry.
When each of these pictures no longer upsets you, when you can switch your eyes, then your compassion has value, and then you can read poetry in the sunlight.
Was a time I decided to face this once and for all - I stood in the street in India one day for a very long time looking at a cow with a mangled bloody leg, whom no one tendered nor cared for. The cow looked at me. I knew I could not go on till I had answered. Sure I could have taken up a life of being Mother Therese - she was not the only one, there are many people in that country and mine who have devoted their life to the relief of suffering, and I have only the highest praise for them, but that was not the question.
The question was how could I go on knowing this pain existed. What if I had walked down a different road, would the pain be any less. If I just 'don't want to know', will that answer the question?
Finally I answered the question, but it was no answer really. It was that pain exists - no point in hiding or denying. We live with pain. It was okay. It didn't need healing.
When I heal now, it's not because I need to, it's because I choose to, for no reason ... its my way of living.
So when I look at these pictures, I feel the beauty, and I feel the agony. And much agony is not known except by those who are free. That was Buddha's compassion - not for the suffering, but for the fact people didn't know the answer to suffering. That point is commonly misunderstood.
So I no longer hide from the pain. I don't enjoy it, but I enjoy life, and pain is part of life. I don't seek it, but when I see it, I feel it, and I accept it first, before I seek a remedy. As Jahn would say, I own it.
-
For instance, someone feels no pain when another person unknown to them dies, but when someone close to them does - then they feel pain. Is this compassion? No, it is simply the selfish mind that cannot let go. One cannot weep for someone elses sake, it is only a placation of one's own suffering that is projected onto the world.
Thoughtful and well stated post Josh, thank you.
I learned the lesson of this above only through self observation and exploring. If someone had suggested such before this experience it would not of been understood for what it truly is.
Ive had the blessing to have been part of the experience of death over and over in my life.. Ive explored what it is to mourn and carefully combed over myself seeking answers to explain this over whelming pain.. not only my own but all those who are intimate with the situation.
In every single case if observed unattached it points directly inward to each persons own personal holdings.
Im not suggesting not to mourn or to fully experience the act of mourning. I have chosen to do that as well in release of energy. (self related) Ive cried for the mother who has lost her child (self related) Ive felt sickness in my stomach at the chaos of a spouse's passing (self related)
Its not a reaction any more but a conscious action.
Understanding this reaction learned from the experience of death.. ripples over my life and washes away the hooks to all of this sort of self related, self created suffering.
Again.. wonderful post..
If anyone struggles with the death of a loved one internally.. explore that.. you will learn so very much about yourself.. and others.
If you truly care, the only way to deal with it is to simultaneously truly not care - that is, to see the big picture. To realize the dust in the wind. There is no need for any complaints at this point, only the actions which flow from your nature.
Yes!
-
Each has to find their own answer, or rather find it their own way.
The whole point with all these pictures, not just those last two, is to feel them.
The great task of the being who's sensitivity has been opened, is how to extend towards the beautiful and not be flooded by the harsh, the horrific and the sad. There were some famous photos I left out - the man being shot by the police commander in Vietnam, the naked napalm child in Vietnam, and some others. I just didn't feel like going there, but I have been there.
The first and foremost answer is to find one's way past the reaction. If you look carefully you will see that these reactions are about the suffering of others. We unconsciously place ourselves in their shoes. We feel their anguish as ours.
The task asked of us is to arrive at the point where nothing matters. That is our only escape. And with each situation it is different, and I can talk about each situation and how I personally made my way through their prison of pain to come out to the only point of absolute freedom. Each is different, but the way out is always the same.
Don Juan said: when I see something painful, I simply switch my eyes.
But he didn't always switch his eyes ... he disliked overcast days and loved poetry.
When each of these pictures no longer upsets you, when you can switch your eyes, then your compassion has value, and then you can read poetry in the sunlight.
Was a time I decided to face this once and for all - I stood in the street in India one day for a very long time looking at a cow with a mangled bloody leg, whom no one tendered nor cared for. The cow looked at me. I knew I could not go on till I had answered. Sure I could have taken up a life of being Mother Therese - she was not the only one, there are many people in that country and mine who have devoted their life to the relief of suffering, and I have only the highest praise for them, but that was not the question.
The question was how could I go on knowing this pain existed. What if I had walked down a different road, would the pain be any less. If I just 'don't want to know', will that answer the question?
Finally I answered the question, but it was no answer really. It was that pain exists - no point in hiding or denying. We live with pain. It was okay. It didn't need healing.
When I heal now, it's not because I need to, it's because I choose to, for no reason ... its my way of living.
So when I look at these pictures, I feel the beauty, and I feel the agony. And much agony is not known except by those who are free. That was Buddha's compassion - not for the suffering, but for the fact people didn't know the answer to suffering. That point is commonly misunderstood.
So I no longer hide from the pain. I don't enjoy it, but I enjoy life, and pain is part of life. I don't seek it, but when I see it, I feel it, and I accept it first, before I seek a remedy. As Jahn would say, I own it.
Wonderful post Michael, thank you.
Own it... also as part of what I just shared about my own experiences with this suffering.. It wasnt until I was 'willing' to own it that I could even grasp it was mine in the first place!
I had gone through a period of numerous deaths, each one striking at my heart and knocking me right on my ass.. as this continued.. another death.. oh god another funeral.. another day of my head spinning and my heart breaking.. another death.. I step out of myself to witness others.. oh no it's still terrible.. it hurts inside my heart!another death.. I start to realize so much about this.. its all me.. it was always just about me..
and who is this me.. ha!
How silly, yet how very real.
-
Zam put this snip up in Restless Soma today.. seems fitting for this thread as well.
"How does a man of knowledge exercise controlled folly when it comes to the death of a person he loves?" I asked.
Don Juan was taken aback by my question and looked at me quizzically.
"Take your grandson Lucio," I said. "Would your acts be controlled folly at the time of his death?"
"Take my son Eulalio, that's a better example," don Juan replied calmly. "He was crushed by rocks while working in the construction of the Pan-American Highway. My acts toward him at the moment of his death were controlled folly. When I came down to the blasting area he was almost dead, but his body was so strong that it kept on moving and kicking. I stood in front of him and told the boys in the road crew not to move him any more; they obeyed me and stood there surrounding my son, looking at his mangled body. I stood there too, but I did not look. I shifted my eyes so I would see his personal life disintegrating, expanding uncontrollably beyond its limits, like a fog of crystals, because that is the way life and death mix and expand. That is what I did at the time of my son's death. That's all one could ever do, and that is controlled folly. Had I looked at him I would have watched him becoming immobile and I would have felt a cry inside of me, because never again would I look at his fine figure pacing the earth. I saw his death instead, and there was no sadness, no feeling. His death was equal to everything else."
Don Juan was quiet for a moment. He seemed to be sad, but then he smiled and tapped my head.
"So you may say that when it comes to the death of a person I love, my controlled folly is to shift my eyes." I thought about the people I love myself and a terribly oppressive wave of self-pity enveloped me.
"Lucky you, don Juan," I said. "You can shift your eyes, while I can only look." He found my statement funny and laughed.
"Lucky, bull!" he said. "It's hard work."
We both laughed. After a long silence I began probing him again, perhaps only to dispel my own sadness. "If I have understood you correctly then, don Juan," I said, "the only acts in the life of a man of knowledge which are not controlled folly are those he performs with his ally or with Mescalito. Isn't that right?" "That's right," he said, chuckling. "My ally and Mescalito are not on a par with us human beings. My controlled folly applies only to myself and to the acts I perform while in the company of my fellow men." "However, it is a logical possibility," I said, "to think that a man of knowledge may also regard his acts with his ally or with Mescalito as controlled folly, true?" He stared at me for a moment.
"You're thinking again," he said. "A man of knowledge doesn't think, therefore he cannot encounter that possibility. Take me, for example. I say that my controlled folly applies to the acts I performed while in the company of my fellow men; I say that because I can see my fellow men. However, I cannot see through my ally and that makes it incomprehensible to me, so how could I control my folly if I don't see through it? With my ally or with Mescalito I am only a man who knows how to see and finds that he's baffled by what he sees; a man who knows that he'll never understand all that is around him. "Take your case, for instance. It doesn't matter to me whether you become a man of knowledge or not; however, it matters to Mescalito. Obviously it matters to him or he wouldn't take so many steps to show his concern about you. I can notice his concern and I act toward it, yet his reasons are incomprehensible to me."
-
Que?
So the Nazis front lady in film and propaganda made that shot? Interesting. It is much power in that woman, and she is black.
She was a fascinating woman - I have her whole book on her Nuba expidition. I think they have all been destroyed as a traditional culture now, but a fabulous book.. She was very unique - went scuba diving in her late 80's.
I have tried watching her famous Olymics film, the name I forget now - I could not get through too much of it, as it was just too disturbing for me (there we go again, but I did try), but I also felt she knew very well the real nature of what she was filming - there is a sense of irony, in that she understood on one level that she was displaying the folly and horror within their pride of those days - just my sense.
This is one of her's that I love from that book:
(http://buriedshiva.com.au/assets/nuba1-w.jpg)
And while we are on about good pictures, here are two more from her Nuba collection:
(http://buriedshiva.com.au/assets/nuba2-w.jpg)
(http://buriedshiva.com.au/assets/nuba_death-w.jpg)
-
(http://www.artcurial.com/Full/931/10149931.jpg)
"Lella" Edouard Boubat
This is perhaps my favourite of the set. I can't say why, but I suspect the feeling is secretly influenced by the face behind.
-
(http://scan.net.au/scan/magazine/images/0704mansfield/Schuh-Slide-7.jpg)
Java - Gotthard Schuh
This is another that I love - the quality of grace and concentration in a very relaxed atmosphere. It has some archetypal quality.
-
and the very first picture, nude lady on the chair looks so much like my Mother.
you make me laugh Lori, to think you are too young to remember the Christine Keeler affair (or that I am that old)
-
(http://farm1.static.flickr.com/164/398664531_d523baae3b.jpg?v=0)
"Sea and Sky" Gustave Le Gray
This one reminds me of death
-
Another I couldn't resist:
(http://culturalshifts.com/wp-content/uploads/archie/Dali-Halsman.jpg)
"Dali Atomicus" by Philippe Halsman
-
(http://www.vam.ac.uk/images/image/1695-large.jpg)
Christine Keeler, by Lewis Morley
Candle in the wind...
Butterfly...
There are many names for creatures like her.
Some are ugly and even uglier.
The energy of that flame is so soft.
I wonder how she will see her life lived in the first moments of being dead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Keeler
(http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41423000/jpg/_41423624_keeler_colour.jpg)
-
(http://achfoto.com.sapo.pt/hf_653_10_hans-staub-31.jpg)
"In Front of the Kindagarten" Hans Staub
This is a good one to use as an example. Many of you know about my use of the words feeling and emotion. Feeling being something that emanates from outside of us, registering a mood with our senses. Emotion being something that emanates from within us, being a mood triggered internally from thoughts or from automatic associations launched from an external input.
The problem is that we often confuse these two, and ascribe emotions to the outside situation. We see a child all alone somewhere, and we take that image, and it triggers our own inner aloneness, which we then project to the child, saying, "oh how sad". When in fact the child may just be sleepy and in no sadness whatsoever. We do this all the time - ascribe our emotions onto external objects.
In this picture, what first registers for me as feelings is the softness, the texture of their coats, and the simplicity of the whitish background, the wheels, all giving me the feeling of simple natural and unpretentious pleasure. A feeling I seek in my own life, from what I call 'ramshackle beauty' which I like to create in my home.
But then my emotions begin and I feel a mood of love and happy home life - that these people have a beauty of relationship that is too often missing in the world today.
See what I have done now - I have assumed this image pictures two people who are happy - why? There is nothing in the image to say that. And then I make extensions of mood to picture their home life. For all I know they may have just had an argument, and are engaged in a purely perfunctory parting kiss. Look at the child. S/he is actually quite unemotional, almost disengaged.
And the man is not giving any reason to say he is happy. It is my own inner processes of emotion that for whatever reason has jumped to purely internal imaginations and moods.
Then I end up making an emotional projection about the world, and what it isn't and should be. Not that those projections may not have value, but they have nothing to do with the image - they are flights into abstraction with emotive connotations that are about my own filtering of the world.
There is nothing wrong with this transference from feeling to emotion, but we must be aware when we part company with the external source. The image Rudi put up of poultry says nothing about their happiness, or our responsibility or lack there of, for the world we inhabit. They are a bunch of chooks, and that's all. But that it causes us to reflect about how we acquire our food, is a reasonable extension, so long as we realise we are now in abstract emotive associations. They may be perfectly reasonable reflections and emotions, but that feeling does not come from the picture - just so long as we know the source of our moods.
The child and the vulture: again there is no sign of anguish on the child's face. I feel a sense of struggle and determination, but what makes me sad and troubled, is nothing emanating from the image itself, but rather what it is telling me about the state of humanity, and what it has done to the world and itself. Its behaviour in light of how I know humanity could be.
I recall the book Snow Leopard, in which the author described different villages he passed through, and how some gave off a healthy wholesome feeling, and others a feeling of decrepit energy. Anyone who has travelled will immediately know what he is speaking of, how one place has vitality, urjong, shakti, and another reeks of despair or degeneration. Humans can create power, or weakness - individually or socially.
That picture speaks of a choice humanity has, and one which is hard to see it is making in the direction of fulling its potential and its place in the matrix of the earth's potential. That is a story for another time, and I usually don't speak of it - we have to walk before we can carry. However you should know that carrying is how muscles are developed - muscles which can be used for a dramatic leap.
All these pictures have their own moods, their own feelings, and even those feelings have to be in us for us to register, but we do travel through a world of feelings. However, best you be absolutely aware, that when these feelings trigger powerful internal emotions, the first consequence is that we shut off the flow of feelings from outside. Emotions isolate us from the universe. They trap us in a cycle of repetitive internal obsessive inflammation, which cuts us off from the most incredible experience of our short life - out there, the passing indescribable.
just so long as you know....
-
There is nothing wrong with this transference from feeling to emotion, but we must be aware when we part company with the external source. The image Rudi put up of poultry says nothing about their happiness, or our responsibility or lack there of, for the world we inhabit. They are a bunch of chooks, and that's all. But that it causes us to reflect about how we acquire our food, is a reasonable extension, so long as we realise we are now in abstract emotive associations. They may be perfectly reasonable reflections and emotions, but that feeling does not come from the picture - just so long as we know the source of our moods.
The image I've put up was a trick.
The real message was that there are no inherent differences between the two pictures. And in fact it was about our emotions, not food.
There are no humans in the second picture. The only human is you looking down on a bunch of chickens.
Undoubtedly, the vulture is the key element in the first picture. I'd bet that most people would find the image less disturbing without the vulture in it. Who's the vulture?
But who's the white rabbit?
(Follow the white rabbit to see how deep the rabbit hole goes.)
-
The real message was that there are no inherent differences between the two pictures.
True. I wonder how much the real physical experience of what is depicted on some disturbing photo makes difference. Chicken or dying child...I know how it feels to kill a bird, haven't looked into the eyes of dying child.
-
The child and the vulture: again there is no sign of anguish on the child's face. I feel a sense of struggle and determination, but what makes me sad and troubled, is nothing emanating from the image itself, but rather what it is telling me about the state of humanity, and what it has done to the world and itself. Its behaviour in light of how I know humanity could be.
-
There were some famous photos I left out - the man being shot by the police commander in Vietnam
Yes, I wondered why that one wasn't among your set of photos, though it is absolutely not necessary, it just struck me when watching . I have that picture in my mind anyway. Many others of these presented photos I haven't seen before, which make them more interesting. US and Vietnam was a black hole in the 1970's.
-
There were a walk one day, some years ago. When the beauty of suffering filled me. I just could see that pain and suffering is a essential part of humanity. Not that there is some point to indulge in it, no rather that the energy behind all this suffer was something that was necessary ... hard to describe since it was not mental, only a deep feeling that passed me by.