Showing posts with label France. Show all posts
Showing posts with label France. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

On Riding a Bicycle - Ernest Hemingway / Garry Loughlin (Wed 23 Oct 2014)

Untitled - Quai de la Seine / Paris (Mon 15 Sep 2014)

Ernest Hemingway (*) writes on bicycles (*):
It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are...
via California (part 2) (*) by Garry Loughlin (*).

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

I'm Nobody! Who are you? - Emily Dickinson (1891)

Self Portrait - near Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation / Paris (Thu 18 Sep 2014)

Emily Dickinson (*) Poem (*):
I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us — don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
Seen in Eye to Eye: Photographs by Vivian Maier (*)

Saturday, December 27, 2014

On Henri Cartier-Bresson and the Less Decisive Moment - Gaby Wood / Sean O'Hagan (Wed 24 Dec 2014)

Street Portrait - Paris (Thu 18 Sep 2014)

Gaby Wood (*) writes on Henri Cartier-Bresson (*) and the Decisive Moment (*):
The reason his photographs often feel numbly impersonal now is not just that they are familiar. It’s that they’re so coolly composed, so infernally correct that there’s nothing raw about them, and you find yourself thinking: would it not be more interesting if his moments were a little less decisive?
via Cartier-Bresson's classic is back – but his Decisive Moment has passed (*) by Sean O'Hagan (*).

Sunday, December 21, 2014

On Strength - Vernon Gambetta (Fri 19 Dec 2014)

Flower Detail - Monet's Garden / Girverny (Wed 17 Sep 2014)

Vernon Gambetta (*) asks a question on Strength (*):
How much strength is enough?
via Evolution of Strength Training – A Personal Perspective - 51 Years of Experiences (Part Three) (*) by Vernon Gambetta (*).

Friday, December 19, 2014

On Error Messages - Venkat / Ribbonfarm (Fri 19 Dec 2014)

Flower Detail - Monet's Garden / Giverny (Wed 17 Sep 2014)

Venkat (*) writes on Failure (*):
Even an unhelpful error message is better than nothing.
via Learning from Crashes (*) by Venkat (*).

I have seen this error message a few times recently:
Error: Unknown Error.
Probably the most unhelpful error message I have seen in all my time coding Python to an external third party API. At least you know you have an error, even if it is as far away from the root as it just about can be.

On Failure - Venkat / Ribbonfarm (Fri 19 Dec 2014)

Flower Detail - Monet's Garden / Giverny (Wed 17 Sep 2014)

Venkat (*) writes on Failure (*):
You just have to have failed at a given level enough times to have become well-calibrated to the severity of your own responses, and effective at managing those responses. You are adapted to a domain at an advanced beginner level when you can keep trying indefinitely despite failing. You are at an intermediate level when you can look at failure data to learn, instead of being so traumatized you look away in aversion. You’re advanced when you begin failing in ways nobody has failed before.
via Learning from Crashes (*) by Venkat (*).

Monday, December 1, 2014

Getting Started - Bernadette / The Story of Telling (Mon 01 Dec 2014)

Eiffel Tower #3 - Paris (Tue 16 Sep 2014)

Bernadette (*) writes on Getting Started (*):
The best way to do anything is to begin, then to adjust your course based on what happens next.
via What’s The Best Way? (*) by The Story of Telling (*).

I did this when I started out (*) on this blog (*) almost 6 years ago. And I am still doing it 1750 posts (this post being it) later.

Sunday, November 30, 2014

I Learned - Leo Babauta / The Minimalists (Sun 30 Nov 2014)

Untitled - Rue de l'Aqueduc / Paris (Thu 19 Sep 2014)

Leo Babauta (*) writes on Learning (*):
I learned to trust that we’d be OK, even starting life afresh [..]. I learned that we can adapt and survive, and cope with the fear of not being OK.
via A Simpler Family Life: Starting Life Anew with Our Six Kids (*) by The Minimalists (*).

Saturday, November 8, 2014

When it Works - Christopher Nolan / Andrew Purcell / Spectrum (Sat 08 Nov 2014)

Crossing the Garonne - Toulouse (*) / France (Sat 19 Sep 2009)

Christopher Nolan (*) writes Inspiration (*):
when something works the way you intended it to, just in that moment it's a tremendous thrill.
via Interview: Christopher Nolan (*) by Andrew Purcell (*).

Yes. We all know that feeling. It happens when that program compiles and runs the first time, and works exactly as you intended. That's a rarity, but it happened a lot when I was using Eiffel (*). It happens in sport. It happens with photography, though sometimes you don't know it worked until years later.

Always get a nice quote out of the Interview from the Saturdays Paper Spectrum Magazine (*).

Friday, November 7, 2014

An Approach to Modern Life - Kirk Tuck (Thu 06 Nov 2014)

Untitled - Monet's Gardens / Giverny (Wed 17 Sep 2014)

Kirk Tuck (*) observes:
Sometimes experiencing (*) something with undiluted intention (*) is the only way to either enjoy (*) it or even understand (*) it.
via Imagine life at high speed. Imagine the adrenaline on all the time (*) by Kirk Tuck (*).

On being a Photographer- David Campany (Nov 2014)

Bride and Groom - Sacre-Coeur / Montmartre / Paris (Thu 18 Sep 2014)

David Campany (*) writes on being a Photographer (*):
there are only four ways to function as a photographer. Either you are independently wealthy; or you get paid to take pictures (a commercial photographer, with whatever independence of mind you can retain); or you get paid for photographs (i.e. as an artist [..]); or your photography is a hobby, a pastime, and you earn your living elsewhere.
via Walker Evans: the magazine work STEIDL, 2014 (*) by David Campany (*).

I definitely fall into the last category. I have a few photos in books and given away some prints to friends. So, I guess, being a photographer, is mostly about me.

Monday, October 27, 2014

On Self-Published Photobooks - Julia Borissova / Joerg Colberg (Fri 19 Apr 2013)

Julia - Avenue de Flandre / Paris (Mon 15 Sep 2014)

Joerg Colberg (*) writes on Photobooks (*) and Self-publishing (*):
Self-published in a small edition, Borissova’s (*) book (*) reached me from Russia. Here then is one of the beauties of today’s photobook boom, which to a large extent is fueled by the internet and its way of allowing for connections to be made: Stories from far away can be told and brought to one’s door step, without requiring the need of a major publisher. All it takes is an artist willing and able to make a book, and to allow for that little piece of art to sail off into the world - a piece of art not part of the electronically floating world, but a real thing, to be held and enjoyed.
via Review: The Farther Shore by Julia Borissova (*) by Joerg Colberg (*).

Thank you and all the best Julia (*).

Also a big thank you to Joerg (*) for providing a place [The Independent Photo Book (*)] for photographers to promote their books (*).
Julia - just a few metres away from the original above - Avenue de Flandre / Paris (Mon 15 Sep 2014)

Sunday, October 26, 2014

On Photography - No Caption Needed (Mon 20 Oct 2014)

Untitled - Paris (Thu 18 Sep 2014)

Lucaites (*) writes on Photography (*):
Any photograph is both more or less a record of what has happened, and more or less an artistically enhanced experience, both more or less empirical, and more or less interpretive, both more or less accurate, and more or less suggestive. The point here is that photographs –whether analogue or digital—operate in the interspace between reality and imagination. The camera records the surface of the world like no other instrument, but the truth of what is shown can be realized only through an act of imagination. Stated otherwise, the photograph is inherently not reducible to a simplistic realism, but is instead a heterogeneous object where different sources of meaning intersect, and the intersections are lodged in the formal design and explored through interpretation.
via A Realist Imagination (or is it An Imaginary Realism?) (*) by No Caption Needed (*).

Might have to read this a few times.

Friday, October 3, 2014

How to make great things happen - The Story of Telling (Fri 03 Oct 2014)

Untitled - Paris (Thu 18 Sep 2014)

Bernadette (*) writes on Making Great Things Happen (*):
Once we start showing up with the right intention (*) we can begin to make great things happen.
via My New Book—Marketing: A Love Story (*) by The Story of Telling (*).

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Eiffel Tower #2 - Paris (Tue 16 Sep 2014)

Eiffel Tower #2 - Paris (Tue 16 Sep 2014)

Saturday, September 20, 2014

On Photography and Luck - Henri Cartier-Bresson / John Paul Caponigro (Fri 21 Mar 2014)

Untitled - Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation (*) / Paris (Thu 18 Sep 2014)

Henri Cartier Bresson (*) on Photography (*) and Luck (*):
Of course it’s all luck.
via 29 Quotes By Photographer Henri Cartier Bresson (*) by John Paul Caponigro (*).

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Doing the best I can - Seth Godin (Thu 14 Aug 2014)

Doing his everything - Sacre-Coeur / Montmartre / Paris (Aug 2005)

Seth Godin (*) writes on Doing our Best (*):
Doing the best I can

...is actually not the same as, "doing everything I can."

When we tell people we're doing the best we can, we're actually saying, "I'm doing the best I'm comfortable doing."

As you've probably discovered, great work makes us uncomfortable.
via Doing the best I can (*) by Seth Godin (*).

Monday, July 21, 2014

On the Journey of Writing - Paulo Coelho (Mon 21 Jul 2014)

Water - Lac Nere / Haute-Pyrenees (*) / France (Tue 22 Sep 2009)

Paulo Coelho (*) writes On the Journey (*) of Writing (*):
It’s not always an easy task, sometimes it’s very challenging (*), but this is what I do and this is what I like. So the journey itself is the miracle (*); it is the blessing (*). There is no point to reach. You have to travel (*) your journey with joy (*), hope (*), and challenges (*) in your heart (*).
via Paulo Coelho Discusses the 25th Anniversary Edition of The Alchemist (*) by Paulo Coelho (*).

Another formative book (*) I read shortly after Jenny's passing. Jenny's Oncologist rang me about six months passing to see how I was going. In the conversation she mentioned the The Manual of the Warrior of Light (*) and thought I might get something it's pages. So, it was a natural progression to The Alchemist (*) and a dozen other of his books.

Friday, February 3, 2012