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I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you - Nobody - too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Dont tell! they'd banish us - you know!
How dreary - to be - Somebody!
How public - like a Frog -
To tell your name - the livelong June -
To an admiring Bog!
In a world full of narcissistic frogs croaking about how great they are, it is a blessed relief to sit back and allow life to wash over us. The river of life flows from a distant past to an undetermined future and we exist to share in it. Our time in the river is but a blip, meaningless in itself, but at least we can say (with all extinct species that have preceded us) once we were here.
Our uniqueness as humans (as far as we can tell, though I wouldn't discount the intelligence of all sentient creatures to some extent) is that we face existential questions about our fate. We know that we are going to die. Our creative endeavours have been suggested as responses to this reality - we seek a kind of immortality through our works, hoping against hope that when we are gone we might be remembered.
That's true to some degree, we all know of the works of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, Leonardo Da Vinci, Rembrandt and Vincent Van Gogh. But there is no one alive who can tell us exactly WHO these artists were in themselves. Long gone, and forgotten. Geniuses might delay the truth of oblivion by centuries or even millennia, but no one can tell the name of the proto-realist artist who painted the animals on the cave walls of Lascaux 30,000 years ago (and even that time is but a blip for a planet that is 4.5 billion years old).
One day soon we will ALL be forgotten. The poet Shelley put it starkly when he wrote of the great Egyptian Pharoah, Ramesses II (using his Greek name of Ozymandias).
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
The last two years have given me much pause for thoughts like this. I used to feel invincible - never a sick day - tall and strong. And then one after another my physical being starts to show signs of serious wear. I've already told how there are two conditions I have right now that at some point in my future will probably steal my life away (it's not a matter of if, but when).
Both those particular conditions in themselves can be controlled through medication or even surgery when the time arises, but it's the flow on effect that is truly debilitating. My recent lay off from Flickr is a good illustration of this. Last year I was struck down with the Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). It attacked my lungs in a way I've never experienced before, and sadly it has led to a further weakening of my entire respiratory and cardiovascular system.
So when a little over two weeks ago I started getting the flu (ironically I was to have my vaccination the next week), I got much sicker than I would normally. There were several times when I thought the congestion in my lungs would necessitate being hospitalised. Only today (the sun is shining beautifully outside) have I felt well enough to get back on Flickr, though even that leads to some trepidation.
The lack of energy is one thing, but the real issue for viewing the computer screen has been my hypersensitive eyes. It takes time following cataract surgery to adjust to the artificial lenses in the eyes. Even with eyedrops prolonged screen viewing (even TV) causes serious irritation. The flu virus has probably exacerbated it.
But look, as Emily Dickinson reminds us, whatever our sufferings (and mine are minor compared to many), we are in good company. At the very least our sufferings make us realise that life is real, and it is what we make of it. So late last week I ordered a new stock of film for my cameras (it should be delivered today actually), and I am already planning to get out and shoot again. Why waste a minute in the river of life? We can't tell what's around the next bend, but enjoy it while we can.
Yesterday, a couple of inspiring photobooks that I'd ordered, finally arrived from the UK. They are outstanding works by someone regarded by many as one of the true geniuses of the camera, Sir Don McCullin. He is 91 now, and at the end of what may well be his last book, The Stillness of Life (GOST, 2025) he writes:
"My photographic passion may be waning - the darkroom days are numbered - the deadly chemistry is too much and the place has become like a decayed tooth in need of extraction. Or rather it is most certainly me that has to be extracted - blessed after seventy years floating in that time capsule like an astronaut in space, suspended in the warm cocooning glow of the red light of what has been my life's main purpose and an extraordinary adventure."
Life an extraordinary adventure. It sure is, the good, the bad and the ugly. We can't take any of our material goods and achievements with us when we die (I love that ultimate irony that the richest and most powerful people on earth die with nothing like the rest of us - Nature is communist after all!). We are all "Nobody" and the sooner we recognise that fact the sooner we will suck the marrow out of whatever life we have remaining.
Here's a great article on the legacy of Don McCullin. Note the title. I'll review his books in due course:
www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/ng-interactive/2025/oct/...
According to Robert Frank's existential argument for monochrome. Black & White are the colours of photography. To me they symbolise the alternatives of hope and despair to which mankind is subject.
However I have uploaded both versions of the Dancer in the darkness to explore tones, textures, shape, form, and saturation. I think the monotone version has a bit of a nostalgic feel and appeal.
Dieu est un fumeur de havanes
Je vois ses nuages gris
Je sais qu'il fume même la nuit
Comme moi ma chérie
Serge Gainsbourg
I have been going through an "origami existential crisis" lately, because I basically was rusty at first and it really scared me, blah blah blah, anyway. Actually being able to finally fold and completely assemble both of the Quadra-Hadra-Pudra-Phedron and the Ditrigonal Dodecadodecahedron was a huge thing for me and it helped me actually get my self-esteem to a normal level (aka way too high). BUT AGAIN, I'M RAMBLING. I just wanted to say that for some reason I preferred folding the Woven compound of 5 octahedra, even though it was waaaaay harder for me to wrap my head around the weaving. It just feels solid, dense, and it's way more stable than both the QHPP and the DDD.
But hey, they still have all been a lotta fun to fold.
[all models designed by Daniel Kwan ]
SHE WRITES TO ME ABOUT the experience of being in several places when she is walking through a city. The physical space, but also the overlapping spaces of dreams, memories, and desires. She observes that the possibilities of any city are infinite, often frightening in the variety of combinations they present.
SHE SENDS ME A PHOTOGRAPH ON THE THRESHOLD OF HERSELF , about to become someone else, someone other. Do all the borders crossed cancel us out, reducing us to zero?
Amid the quiet hum of a barangay center in Iligan, Mindanao, a lone goat rests atop a weathered rock, a makeshift plywood cushion softening the hardness beneath. Its tether, anchored to the earth, speaks of quiet restraint—a moment of stillness shaped by unseen boundaries. Sunlight catches the rough texture of its fur, the muted tones of stone, and the contrast of freedom just beyond reach.
"I sometimes look into the face of my dog Stan and see a wistful sadness and existential angst, when all he is actually doing is slowly scanning the ceiling for flies."
~ Merrill Markoe
Posting for 12 months group...please don't feel a need to comment until I'm back again for real!
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No blogging please! All of my photographs are Copyrighted and All Rights Reserved.
(© All rights reserved), Every single image is protected under the United States and International Copyright laws and may not be downloaded, reproduced, copied, transmitted or manipulated without written permission.
Thank you
It was one of those existential cries to the Universe asking for some kind of sign to be shown that I would know who I am and why I was living my life…to do what? I was up in the air, flying to Europe and feverishly writing in my journal as thick salty tears poured from my eyes onto my notebook. It was a time in my life when I had to let go over and over. These were the years of grieving the loss of my husband, changes in my work and feeling tremendous tension around the next part of my life. As words poured out on the page, I distinctly remember challenging the Great Unknown to prove to me that I’m not deluding myself on my journey of constant self-exploration and that we are indeed connected to every point in space. I wanted proof in that moment so desperately. When I was done,
I closed the notebook and slipped it into the pocket of the seat in front of me. I sat back as the light in the cabin was dimming and a large movie screen descended slowly. Those were the days before the personal digital devices so everybody watched the same film. I settled back in my chair and started to relax. Usually there was a short featurette of some kind to warm up the audience and my heart skipped a beat when I heard what it was about. The pleasant rolling voice of a woman spoke as the camera focussed on a beautiful elephant being prepared for a sacred ceremony. The voice said:
“Today we will take you to India to meet a special elephant named “Prem”. He is being prepared for a ceremony to celebrate the Goddess Ganga and to take a dip in the river of the same name. Who is Ganga and what does she stand for? We will explore this in the following film.”
Cue Twilight Zone theme.
Prem means Love in Sanskrit. The elephant was an embodiment of Love itself. Love has its own profound Intelligence and leads us to unknown heights. In a time of a world pandemic and massive unrest, each of us is never alone. When we cry out to the Great Mystery and we deeply listen, an answer comes like a still small voice and in some rare cases even a whole movie.
I wish you courage and strength friends xxxooo
Feel free to interpret the photo [what does it mean?] in comments left below. Or feel free not to. Whatever you do, remember that you will be defining your essence by the way in which you respond. If you ignore the issue while being aware of it, you will enter a state of bad faith.* It's all up to you.
*in a state of bad faith one denies one's own consciousness or awareness in the face of changing reality
This image represents THE TOTALITY OF REALITY UP TO JANUARY 16, 2011.
A free Spirit
Mirit Ben-Nun was born in Beer- Sheva in 1966. Over the years she has presented in solo exhibitions and participated in group exhibitions in Israel and around the world.
When she was six, her father was killed in a car accident, leaving behind his wife and two daughters, Mirit and Dana.
Ben-Nun had difficulty concentrating on studies, which caused behavioral problems, and at the age of fourteen she dropped out of the education system and went to work. The colors and writing tools gave her a quiet private space and her own way of surviving. Creativity eased her tumultuous soul.
Until her early 30’s she worked as a telemarketer and for the next fourteen years she doodled and doodled. While talking to customers she filled thousands of pages with lines and dots that resembled hundreds of compressed eggs and seeds which she threw away.
In a large portion of each page she would pick a random word and would write it down over and over while concentrating on her hand movements.
Even then she noticed the rising of her need and obsession as she practiced the endless doodling and writing.
Ben-Nun testifies that the lack of artistic training to paint "correctly" freed her from adhering to the rules of painting and allowed her freedom and spirit of rebellion.
In 1998, she received a bunch of canvases and acrylic paints as a gift from her sister.
She brought the acrylic into her world of lines and dots; she went back to painting women and masks that appeared in her childhood paintings and flooded them with lines and dots without separating body and background.
This is also the moment when Ben-Nun began to refer to herself as a painter.
and when art became the center of her life.
The intense colors in Ben-Nun's paintings sweep the viewer into a sensual experience. The viewer traces the surge of dots and lines formed in packed layers of paint. The movement leads to a kind of female-male hormonal dance within the human body and to a communion with an artistic experience of instinct, passion, conceiving and birth.
Contributing to this experience is the wealth of characteristics reminiscent of tribal art. Ben-Nun merges these with a humorous and kicking contemporary Western Pop art. In the language of unique art, Ben-Nun creates an unconventional conversation between past and present cultures.
It is evident that the paintings emerge from a regenerated need and desire, a force that erupts from her soul, a subconscious survival instinct to which she cannot or does not want to resist.
Ben-Nun places women at the center stage where they are her work focus. The paintings obsessively deal with the existential experience of being a woman in the world. A few of the women's paintings carry feminist slogans stressing the women's struggle in society, a critique for being held to perfection and being required to perform as a model of "beauty, purity and motherhood". Feminism pulsates in Ben-Nun's psyche, through her diverse female images and the play between beauty and unsightliness; Ben-Nun assimilates the consciousness of feminine possibility, of not being "perfect", of being powerful, influential, and outside social norms. This mandates a departure from acceptable limitations where Ben-Nun creates a new world of free spirit for women.
Mirit Ben-Nun is a mother of three and the grandmother of three grandchildren.
Mirela Tal
Do you wanna start a cult with me? I'm not vibrating like I ought to be. I need a purpose, I can't keep surfing. Through this existential misery.
Me + my boat + bad decisions 💣.
Oars? Decorative ♀️. Motivation? Lost . GPS? Lol 🚫.
Damsel in distress but too stubborn to yell ️. Peaceful drowning vibes 😴⚓💀
Taco Cat is having an existential crisis ... (Is he a palindrome? Or a t-shirt design? Or both?)
For the shirt.woot derby
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KENqo_h8qvc
Marvin & Miles ... Gare du Nord ( Sexy vibes for pre week end ! )
Photo of one of my stolen originals
2005 lac Waterloo
2_ducks_Stuckinthemiddle
Warmth or love they seek ?
Or same thing ?
Great thursday
Guy
NOT ONE. TWO.
Seahorse - Borealnz - thank you again
Debris in water - Terri Lynn - Bless you
Glass brick - Gerla Brakkee - my friend, thank you
Inspired by a conversation with Andrea
and the father that cares for his children.
treated myself to a Panasonic LX100 last year thinking it would serve as a "pocket" camera. Never really got on with it. Well enough constructed but I find it a bit fiddly to use.
Just getting round to clearing out the memory card now after 6 months of sitting jacket pockets, this one was shot in the seasonal German market in Edinburgh. Not as sharp as it might be but the best of a fairly mediocre bunch.
Here we've got an existential classic from the id-iom stable. Just as I was getting a little bored during the spring clean of my 'studio' I came across the old 'How can I tell her?' stencils and thought putting that on canvas for a little street drop is a far better use of my time than actually doing any cleaning. I think my favourite aspect of this picture is his desperation at his inability to tell her that they aren't really lovers and are, in fact, just stencils. Life can be tough, can't it?
Cheers
id-iom