Simple lessons need no words

Los Angeles - Robert Frank

I found this little video by accident.  Its little message about the meaning of life needs no words.  Please watch it to the end and share your comments and thoughts. 


Fallen from Sascha Geddert on Vimeo.

Someday you will have to say goodbye to the sun.

Someday you will have to say goodbye to the sun.

Someday you will have to say goodbye to the sun.
You will bid farewell to the moon, the sky, the clouds, and the stars.
As all things that live, we dim out to a smoking wick, our quiet goodbyes to those things that were  always with us acknowledge we were the grain and they were the beach.
They may not hear our goodbyes, but their existence in our beings need to be recognized and bid proper adieu.

Dennis Hopper - RIP

Dennis Hopper (l )  Peter Fonda (r) Movie Sill from Easy Rider

Dennis Hopper died a couple of weeks ago from cancer.  He was 74.  The first time I saw Dennis Hopper was while watching the movie he directed and acted in, Easy Rider.  Even though many liked Peter Fonda's character, I always understood and related to Hopper's character better.  Hopper was  a great photographer and artist in multiple genres.  Maybe his broad creation and appreciation for art is one of the reasons I am saddened by his passing.

Hopper was not a perfect man.  He had drug and alcohol addictions, anger problems, was micro-managerial over artistic vision, was obstinate, opinionated, and an egotist.  He  burned bridges and almost destroyed his career multiple times in multiple ways.  Through it all, he lived his life with a need to escape being ordinary.  His path may not have always been true, fruitful, or even that good artistically, but he was willing to reinvent himself and go about his life in another direction.  I respect that brave sense of self-renewal.

"Drugs can work for you, but at one point you work for them." - Dennis Hopper

Paul Newman - Dennis Hopper

Hopper attended the Actor's Studio with all the other great method actors of his time.  It is amazing how I can watch a movie staring him or other *Actor's Studio alumni and see a depth to their craft that many current movie stars lack.  Hopper had this depth of talent as well.  Whether he was playing a biker seeking freedom in Easy Rider, an avenging, homicidal bomb-making ex-cop (Speed), or a stoned reporter in Vietnam (Apocalypse Now), he always had a unique edge and depth that made you want to learn more about his character. 

Much of Hopper's early acting craft came from working with James Dean on Rebel without a Cause.  In a 1990 interview** with Hopper, he shared that Dean told him with acting, "Do things.  Don't act like you are having a drink, have a drink.  Don't indicate, react.  If in the part you are supposed to open the door and someone is there with a gun, react to the gun like you didn't know it was there.  The moment is the reality.  Never anticipate what the next moment will hold."

"Photography is not like painting," Henri Cartier-Bresson told the Washington Post in 1957. "There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative," he said. "Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever. " -Wikipedia (emphasis by me)

As a photographer, Hopper appreciated Henri Cartier Bresson's concept of the Decisive Moment. Look at Hopper's photo, Biker Couple.  In that one instant, he captured all the youth and disillusionment in those two and their relationship.   When watching his acting, you can tell that he was living as that character at that moment.  In each moment, his character "... never anticpate(d) what the next moment (would) hold."

Biker Couple - 1961 Dennis Hopper

This is a key element of both his and my art.  The moment is the reality, even if we are creating it.  We create and capture the decisive moment when we trip the camera's shutter.  Life went on before that moment and continued after, but something made us need to capture that moment.

I've written before about the fermata, a controlled pause in music,  In photography, all that is important is  what is photographed in that fraction of a second.  Nothing else matters except what we saw and knew to be the defining or decisive moment we just captured.

Dennis Hopper understood the value of the moment, whether in a role, painting, or photo.  In many ways he lived his life that way too.  The moment was where he lived.  Thanks for sharing it with us.




Great quote from Easy Rider that summed up the whole point of the movie.

"It's not who you boys are or what you look like, it's what you represent that scares these people." George, played by Jack Nicholson - Easy Rider

Below are a few references, photo essays, video clips, and deeper reads.    I recommend them all.
Slate/Magnum Photos

Retracing Early Rider  after 40 Years
* Karl Malden, Steve McQueen, Beatrice Arthur, Rod Steiger, Marlon Brando, James Dean, Anne Bancroft, and many more. 
** Fresh Air interviews with Dennis Hopper from 1990 and 1996

One important note about these videos from Easy Rider.  Hopper was one of the first directors to use complete contemporary songs as a part of the movie and then match the scene cuts to the music.  He attributes this style to what he saw on TV commercials.  Maybe this was a forefather to music videos?  Hopper thought so.


The Weight - Easy Rider 

Easy Rider - Born to be Wild Opening Credits.

The Big Sky State

Evening in Lavina, MT

Alpha

I was not born there, but I grew up there not far from where this photo was taken.

I've been in correspondence with Joe from What We Saw Today.  We both shared some memories of Montana and places we both visited.  It got me to thinking of the Big Sky State.

I have just about every emotion and feeling for that state.  I love it, hate it, fear it, miss it, adore it, envy it, lust for it, and have been hurt by it.  These feelings are for both the people and the land.

I am in love with Montana . . . Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans."    Norman Maclean - A River Runs Through It

Here are a few of my photos of it. 

Top of the World

My Life
Duck Lake Road - Rocky Mountain Front - Montana

Evening at Many Glacier - Glacier National Park

 

Sunset on the Cold Yellowstone

Dusk and Seeley Swan Range

Bear Grass - Glacier National Park

Logan Pass - Glacier National Park

A Little Too Comfortable with People - Marmot

 

Glacial Grandeur

  

Evening in Lavina Fading to Black

Omega

Whats it Matter

 Uscita and the woman in red 

Rome Underground

I was watching an episode of the TNT show, Men of a Certain Age.  It is a pretty good drama about three middle-aged guys.  Two characters were discussing fate and an interesting line came up, "For what its worth, in 100 years, there will be all new people."

I hadn't thought of that.  In one hundred years, everybody alive now will probably be gone.  I know I will be gone too.  In 100 years, I don't think people will discuss me, pontificate on me, or even remember me.  I am not being sad or mid-life crisis depressed.  I actually find this kind of liberating.

I can do what I want.  It will not change the world.  If I can make myself satisfied with who I am and what I do, then that is enough.  Everything else is frosting.

 The Coliseum Stop

Rome Underground

Ciao Bella Roma

Women in Advertisements 2

I missed posting yesterday due to work. After a full day of meetings, we went on a bus tour of the city and then dinner and bar hopping. I got to bed at 2:30 and had to get up at 7am for meetings. Yesterday was a bust for exploring and seeing things on my own.

Generations of the Fiat 500

Today was a new day. After my morning meetings, I slept off my night of multiple over indulgences and headed out to the Trastevere area. It is across the Tiber river and is not the posh, idyllic beauty of the Centro Storico. It is grittier, dirtier, and has graffiti on the walls. It has tight, dark walkways that spill out into beautiful small plazas. The people are not the wealthy, but they have a bohemian grit that drives the pulse of the area. I found many small art galleries, book stores and great little eateries. All of this was accompanied by the soft tap, tap, tap percussion of the rain on my umbrella. At times I felt like my umbrella became a permanent attachment to my body.

Feels Like Telegraph in Berkeley, but With Fur

My goal for this neighborhood was to get a feel for that lifestyle and also to see a recommended Bernini sculpture called The Blessed Ludovica Albertoni (1674) in the Chiesa Di San Francesco a Rippa I had heard that it could compete in sensuality with The Ecstacy of St. Teresa that I saw a few days ago. For me, it does.

The Ecstasy of St. Teresa on a Rainy Day

When I saw The Ecstacy, I thought I was watching a romantic sensual climax. Ludovica Albertoni made me feel like I was peeking into her room as she was having a beautiful private moment. It was quiet, dark, and full of mood. My photos' quality is crap, but I hope you can see some of the erotic detail from them. I also found a photo by Susan Sanders that is much better.

Too Grainy, Too Shaky, but it Wasn't Her Fault

The Blessed Ludovica Albertoni
Susan Sanders

After doing a little research, I found out the history of Ludovica Albertoni. Here is a brief excerpt from Wikipedia.

She is also known as Louisa Albertoni; Ludovica Albertoni Cetera. She was born to a wealthy and prominent family, and married to Giacomo de Citara. She was the mother of three, but was widowed in 1506. As a Franciscan tertiary, she spent her fortune and ruined her health in caring for the poor. She was renowned for her religious ecstasies, and became known as a miracle worker, and, according to accounts, had the gift of levitation.

Ludovica is best known for the famous sculpture by Gian Lorenzo Bernini housed in the church of San Francesco a Ripa in Rome. The recumbent statue captures Blessed Ludovica in her death throes, portraying her as suffering but also in the light of her religious ecstasies as she awaits union with God. It is believed that she experienced a special nuptial union with Christ as portrayed in Bernini's work.

So, Bernini was trying to capture "her death throes, portraying her as suffering but also in the light of her religious ecstasies". He sure liked to capture lots of ecstasies. It makes me think of a French term for orgasm, Le petite mort, of the little death. I've already written about this little death before so no need to expand here. It does look like that is what she is enjoying as well.

Mort or Le Petite Mort?

Along the way, I found another church and saw a small relief sculpture that had a surprise for me. It looks like another woman in ecstasy. The Catholics of Rome sure did like their woman to be in ecstasy in art. I enjoy these pieces today and feel that it can be art to see someone as they are in that moment of le petite mort.

Good Times

Sadly, I have to say "Ciao" to the this magic city tomorrow morning. I am ready to go and look forward to going home, but I know I need to return here. The gelato is addicting and the city is now an itch that can never be scratched away.

I Was Tying My Shoes When She Asked Me For the Time

Photo Notes - I have more images to edit. Sadly, I only have my old 5mp Nikon with me so the images are not of the technical quality that I prefer. That means no prints, but I still enjoy them.

I think I have a crush on Renata. Here is another one of her campaign posters.

Women in Advertisements 2

Can't Go Back

Katie 110809 - 1
Photo by Karl

Six years ago this month I went into the woods to photograph Katie. You can read about our photo session here. That session yielded many great photos that I enjoy working with.

A few weeks ago I scanned all of the 35mm negatives from that day. A few days later, I took a drive through the Berkeley hills trying to find the location. I drove by it twice before finding it. After parking along the curvy road, I walked the thirty or forty yards to the location. My heart sank. Almost all of the trees have been cut down, the dead snarls removed, and the brush cleared out to reduce fire danger. I felt my heart sink because I wanted to sit there and reminisce on the session.

I've tried contacting Katie to see how she is doing and hope she would want to model again. Shortly after I photographed her, she transferred to UCLA and the trail disappears. I want to let that pursuit go. She has moved on with her life and I am honoring that.

Katie 110809 - 2
Photo by Karl

So, the model and the location have moved on. As I grow older, I am learning that I can't go back. Whenever I go to Montana, I am feeling it slip away as a home. I get the same feeling when I look at old photo albums from my high school and college years. So many of those people have children going to college now and we have all lived a whole life apart.

Last Tuesday, a friend that I had lost touch with in the last year died of prostate cancer at age 60. Angus entered hospice care in early October when his doctors said all treatments had lost efficacy.

I regret I spent more time trying to recapture a moment from six years ago than taking a moment to say goodbye to a friend. He was a good man with a kind heart. I am guessing that as time goes by, my memories of his infectious laugh and sparkling eyes will slip away as well.

A few years ago I heard a presentation from an eighty-something year old woman. Every year she swims a race from Alcatraz to San Francisco. The race is over a mile long in cool waters with a current pulling the swimmers out into the Pacific. She told us that during the race she flips over and backstrokes to rest and use other muscles. During that time she looks back at where she came from, Alcatraz. She has learned though if she becomes to fixated on it, the current will pull her off course, so she has to continually look around and forward again to keep her bearing. Before she ended her talk she gave me some of the best advice about living.

"It is OK to look back at the past, just don't stare."

____________________

Photo note - A few unseen ones of Katie from that day. Angus was a photographer and appreciated beauty, including women. I feel he would have liked these photos.

I Died vs. I am Dead - Mini-Deaths -Part 1

Well Played
Photo by SB

I've written about my nightmares before. In many of them I am killed. The most graphic dream of this sort was when I am unlocking my car door in broad day light. I take my keys out of the lock and in my peripheral vision I turn and suddenly there is a guy one foot from me who stabs me in the heart. He kills me instantly, dream flicks to black and I awaken hyperventilating.

I've died in many dreams from accidents, murder, and other nasty endings. Each one ends with the suddenness and finality of a song stopped mid beat. My light is turned off. Each is terrifying in its finality and instant switch from living to empty black void of nothing.

Last night I had a new dream. Not only did I die, but I was dead. In this dream I was in a room at a construction site with a group of people. My dog was there and suddenly I see a flash. A second later a narrator says, "You will notice no gore or pain. All fifteen of you were electrocuted and died instantly. " All of us in the room look at each other confused and then suddenly we see the images of us leading up to it and again, flash. We know we are all dead and having to see our last moments replay again and again. No gore, just seeing our last five seconds happen over and over. At one point we wonder if we can change the scenario by avoiding the situation that caused the electrocution. Nope, we are all dead and this is our eternity.

On my drive in today, I thought about this dream. It wasn't scary. I realized this was first time that I knew I was dead in a dream. I wondered if my Christian upbringing affected my interpretation of death and how this dream played. I thought about what death must be like. I do not know how to interpret this dream. This was the first time I internally learned the difference between died vs. dead. Died is the instant when life ceased. Dead is the result and lasts forever. That seems obvious, but I had never felt it in my core being. To die in a dream is scary, to know you are dead will make you think a bit.

After crossing the Bay Bridge, I switched mind gears and thought about moments in our lives when we have mini-deaths. These are moments when time has no meaning and we are out of existence. I came up with at least four instances this has happened and will write more on each over the next few days. Next will be human administered mini-death.