In one of the stars I shall be living ..

In one of the stars I shall be living.
In one of them I shall be smiling.
And so it will be as if all the stars were smiling,
when you look at the sky at night.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - The Little Prince


The story behind the Star named in Jenny's Memory is here. It is located in the Constellation of Vela in the Southern Sky and she looks over us as we continue our adventures in life.

Jenny - Mutton Bird Island / Coffs Harbour (Sun 02 Jan 2005)
Jenny's Star Shining Brightly - Constellation of Vela (24 Mar 2011)
Sydney Observatory - (24 Mar 2011)
Jenny's Star - Sydney Observatory (24 Mar 2011)
Looking into the Southern Sky - Sydney Observatory (24 Mar 2011)
Looking into the Southern Sky - Sydney Observatory (24 Mar 2011)
Geoff, Lynn, Grant, Maureen, Jo, Julie, Jo and David - Sydney Observatory (24 Mar 2011)
Jo and Geoff - Sydney Observatory (24 Mar 2011)
The Climb - Jenny's Amazing Climb (more here)

Happy Birthday Jenny,

Happy Birthday Joanne.

Love .. Geoff xo

Thu 24 Mar 2011

The Subject - The Minds Eye by Henri Cartier-Bresson (Extract)

There is subject in all that takes place in the world, as well as in our personal universe. We cannot negate subject. It is everywhere. So we must be lucid toward what is going on in the world, and honest about what we feel.

Subject does not consists of a collection of facts, for facts in themselves offer little interest. Through facts, however, we can reach an understanding of the laws that govern them, and be better able to select the essential ones which communicate reality.

In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little, human detail can become a leitmotiv. We see and show the world around us, but it is an event itself which provokes the organic rhythm of forms.

There are thousands of ways to distill the essence of something that captivates us, let’s not catalogue them. We will, instead, leave it in all its freshness...

The Subject in The Minds Eye by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Originally from The Decisive Moment (full text here).

Intersection - Airport Tarmac / Lyon - Mon 7 Sep 2009 (picasa)

Intersection - Airport Tarmac / Lyon - Mon 7 Sep 2009

Intersection - Tarmac (Lyon Saint-
Exupéry Airport) / Lyon - Mon 7 Sep 2009 (picasa)
Walking across the tarmac to board our EasyJet Flight from Lyon to Toulouse. Could not help but get my camera out and take this photo. Drawn to the green pedestrian strip and the red and white chains and witches hats. Don't think I had come across a green and white pedestrian strip before.

Composition - The Minds Eye by Henri Cartier-Bresson (Extract)

The photographer’s eye is perpetually evaluating.

A photographer can bring coincidence of line simply by moving his head a fraction of a millimeter. He can modify perspectives by a slight bending of the knees. By placing the camera closer to or farther from the subject, he draws a detail—and it can be subordinated, or he can be tyrannized by it.

But he composes a picture in very nearly the same amount of time it takes to click the shutter, at the speed of a reflex action.

Sometimes it happens that you stall, delay, wait for something to happen. Sometimes you have the feeling that here are all the makings of a picture—except for just one thing that seems to be missing.

But what one thing? Perhaps someone suddenly walks into your range of view. You follow his progress through the view-finder. You wait and wait, and then finally you press the button—and you depart with the feeling (though you don’t know why) that you’ve really got something.

Later, to substantiate this, you can take a print of this picture, trace on it the geometric figures which come up under analysis, and you’ll observe that, if the shutter was released at the decisive moment, you have instinctively fixed a geometric pattern without which the photograph would have been both formless and lifeless.

Composition in The Minds Eye by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Originally from The Decisive Moment (full text here).

Anyone who has ever looked through a viewfinder, taken a photo and cared will be able to relate to the above.

Low Tide - "A photographer can bring coincidence of line simply by moving his head a fraction of a millimeter" - Padstow/Cornwall - Tue 09 Sep 2009
Workers - "You wait and wait, and then finally you press the button" - Lyon/France - Thu 17 Sep 2009

Photos: Intersection - Lyon/France - Sep 2009

Intersection - Lyon (Perrache Railway Station)/France - Spe 2009 (picasa)
Another Intersection photo. The red and blue signs were the things I noticed first.