Across the universe – a mental travelogue

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(This post is inspired by something I saw earlier today on another blogger’s site. So thanks, storiesbyfrances.)

Whether writing or doing photography, one of my personal goals is to look beyond what is right in front of me, to see objects at levels beyond their macro existence (how metaphysical is that). Given time and attention, patterns form, images present themselves, thoughts meander, reality becomes flexible.

Below, I’ve posted photos taken while traveling through British Columbia last year. I was going to tell you what I saw, but instead have decided to ask you what you see in the images, if anything. For the sake of the wondrous places I visited, however, I will tell you where the photos were taken.

(Botanical Beach, Vancouver Island)

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(Botanical Beach, Vancouver Island)

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(China Beach, Vancouver Island)Image

(Port Renfrew, Vancouver Island)

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(Tofino, Vancouver Island)

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Don’t forget to let me know what you see.

I don’t care if we agree; in fact, if you see something I didn’t, then my universe becomes that much larger.

Taking wing in BC – Chilliwack

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As some of you have already discovered, I am a sucker for anything that creeps, crawls and flits, so it should come as no surprise that while I wandered the paths of Minter Gardens, outside Chilliwack, BC, that my eye was tuned to the slightest movements among the myriad flowers.

Here are some of the photos that came through.

It wasn’t until I blew up the photo that I saw the small flowers that explained her interest.

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I like the way the petals practically mirror her wings as she works so intently.

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How one walks on this flower I have no idea, but she seemed to have no trouble.

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These guys always looked like they were on their last legs…a little too ragged to get off the ground.

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On flowers like this, it was almost impossible to see these butterflies at first glance.

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The angle couldn’t have been any better for this shot from my perspective.

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The purity of his white next to the satin-like red of the flower was just amazing to me.

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I wanted to capture some of the chaotic nature of the garden with the butterfly…could have done better, but it’s nice.

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Just hanging out, taking 10.

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The word was “wine”

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As I mentioned earlier (in Thoughts on Thinking), I like a little writing exercise that involves sitting in a bar or restaurant with a notebook and just writing something at random that starts with a word I see nearby. No plan, just writing.

I haven’t done much of this recently–too much “planned” writing–but here is one I did a while ago.

 

“Wine?” Henry asked as he nervously fumbled with his keys.

Jeanine had only been in town for three hours and already she was beginning to regret her decision.

“Why did I come here?” she admonished herself quietly. “He’s not interested in me. He was just being polite.”

Jeanine had only worked at the peanut plant for three weeks, but since day one she had felt like an outsider; like nuts just weren’t her thing. Henry, however; he had nuts written all over him. In fact, he had the biggest nuts contract in the company. That’s why Jeanine had agreed to come to dinner. She knew he could teach her a lot about nuts.

Suddenly, she realized that he hadn’t continued talking.

“I’m sorry, Henry,” she said in a barely audible, embarrassed whisper. “I must have faded out on you.”

He smiled at her, but there was a sadness behind his eyes. “That’s okay,” he said. “I just wondered if you’d like a glass of wine before we headed off to dinner.”

As he spoke, she watched his lips move, but somehow it was all disconnected; as though the sounds were coming out of a television playing in another room. “Sure,” she mustered. “That would be nice.”

For an almost imperceptible moment, Henry’s gaze hung on her and then his shoulders drooped as he took a shallow breath and rose from the edge of the couch. “White okay, or do you prefer red?”

“White’s fine,” she said. White’s always fine, she thought. She’d stopped drinking red some time ago. The tannic acid left a sour taste in her mouth these days. The oaky smell brought up too many painful memories.

Henry had moved to the kitchen and Jeanine could hear the fridge door open momentarily before sliding shut with a dull pfft. “It’s like you knew my preference,” Jeanine called from the couch, trying to sound lighter than her mood dictated. “But I don’t remember that question being on the job application.”

“I always like to keep a white wine in the fridge. Just in case,” Henry replied. Jeanine couldn’t be sure if he’d missed her little joke or was just ignoring it. Either way, she was glad he hadn’t tried to reply in kind.

Henry re-entered the living room with two large tumblers of wine. A Riesling if Jeanine’s nose still held. “Sorry about the glasses,” he smiled. “I guess you can give the boy a corner office, but you can’t make him shop.”

Jeanine just smiled, as Henry gave her a glass and raised his own. “Here’s to new beginnings,” he toasted. Jeanine hadn’t even realized that she had inhaled, however slightly, but Henry’s demeanor changed instantly.

“Look, Jeanine,” he started, putting his glass on a coaster without even taking a sip, “if this makes you feel awkward or uncertain, please just say so. No hard feelings.” He tried to smile, but his hands instinctively reached for his keys, giving away his unease.

“Shit, I’m blowing it,” Jeanine thought to herself. “No, Henry, please,” she said aloud. “I’m sorry. You asked me over for a drink and for some dinner to discuss work and here I am off in a fog. It’s my fault.”

Unsure what to do or how to approach her, Henry rose and walked across to the stereo to adjust the music level. It gave him a half-second to think. For the company’s biggest sales guy, Henry berated himself for his inability to function one-on-one with people.

Sales was easy. It was getting outside of yourself and being the professional. An actor as much as a sales person. But people? Individuals? Women? They made Henry nervous, for some reason.

It wasn’t Jeanine, but she didn’t know that.

“I’m really glad you asked. I really want to learn more,” she said rapidly to fill the void. Suddenly adding, “About the company.”

“Oh Christ,” she thought. “You sound like a ruddy schoolgirl. Calm down.”

Henry turned back and smiled. “Of course,” he replied, at a loss for what to say next. “I just wanted to make sure you were comfortable. You’ve only been with the company a few weeks and I ask you if you want to see my portfolio. A girl might get the wrong idea, but I want to assure you that this salesman is an honourable one.”

She smiled despite herself. “An honourable salesman?” she laughed. “A bit of an oxymoron, isn’t it?”

It was Henry’s turn to laugh. “Oxymoron,” he repeated. “I’m impressed.”

“Hey, they may not teach us much at York University,” she said mock defensively, “but I came away with a good vocabulary.”

Henry held up his hands in submission. “I surrender. I’m just a poor Ryerson grad. I don’t even think we were taught the word ‘vocabulary’.”

That seemed to have broken the ice a little and they both sat there, quietly, noses into their wine glasses, surreptitiously surveying their companion.

Jeanine was 35. A blonde by birth, a brunette by practice, she had long ago given up any hope of ever getting control of those odd silver hairs that forced their way through into the sunlight every few weeks. And given her fair complexion, sunlight was one thing she avoided religiously.

She was of middling height and had once heard herself described by her art history professor as a cross between Rubens and Botticelli. Unfortunately, she sucked at art history, so she was never sure if she should be flattered, embarrassed, or angry. In any event, she was happy with her figure, even if it was a little over-exuberant in a bathing suit.

And it never seemed to get in her way when it came to sex. By no means easy, she flattered herself, she was playful and for that very reason, had to be careful about her drinking. Everybody, it seems, loves a happy drunk.

Henry was 43 and to ask him, he’d earned every one of those years. In fact, in his eyes, he should have gotten double credit for ten of them; the ones he’d spent married. He’d married shortly after leaving college to begin a career as a traveling salesman. And cliché as it might seem, that’s exactly what led to his first divorce. And ironically his second marriage. Well, that and a ruptured condom.

Henry and Sarah, his second wife, had left on relatively amicable terms about four years ago. Together, the happy couple had produced a beautiful son, a mortgage, two ulcers, two very wealthy lawyers and for Henry, an entirely new appreciation for how much shit you can pile into a Mazda Miata. They’re roomier than you might think.

If you asked him, Henry would be just as likely to blame his salt-and-pepper mane on a decade of liquid lunches as much as his history with women. Oh, it’s not that he didn’t have definite opinions on his ex-wives, but he was too much of a realist to believe that all of life’s problems were their fault. The wine belly—if one can have a wine belly—was the other clue.

Wither the pro- in protagonist?

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I just read a review of the new movie The Incredible Burt Wonderstone and one of the complaints is that the lead character, the one after whom the movie is named, the protagonist is completely unlikeable. As the reviewer states about the seminal moment in the movie, “it’s too late for Burt or the movie to win back audience affections, on or off the screen.”

This highlights a problem I find in a lot of movies right now: there is nobody to like or cheer for.

I appreciate that this is all personal opinion and tastes differ. What I will write next may totally rankle with your own opinions. Cool.

In too many movies I see of late, I walk out of the theatre dissatisfied because I could find no one for whom to root. And for me, I need to root for someone when I spend time with a story.

Stoker? I found none of the characters likeable or in any way redeeming.

Prometheus? I want them all dead at the end. The closest I came to cheering for anyone was the robot.

I understand that the root “proto-“ means leading or first rather than in favour of and so each of the main characters of these movies fulfills the role of protagonist, but that doesn’t make me any happier with these films.

Hell, in the two films I named above, I couldn’t even cheer for the antagonist, as I did with Alan Rickman’s character in Die Hard (I’ll never be a Bruce Willis fan).

Decades ago, anti-heroes became all the rage (think Clint Eastwood in practically anything), and I thought that worked well. Unforgiven was a great movie.

But somewhere along the line, the world-cynical smarm of the anti-hero turned into two-dimensional self-absorbed slime.

Yes, we are supposed to see the protagonist fall a few pegs as their world collapses around them only to watch them triumph (or not) in the end. If I like the character, my heart bleeds for them at every crisis, at every moment of conflict, whether internal or external.

If I don’t like the character, however, I either don’t care about their knocks or I take sadistic pleasure in it.

On some level, I think it’s lazy writing. Rather than find interesting ways to show the internal humanity of the protagonist through a cloud of jack-assedness, the writer bets the farm on swaying the audience with a massively redemptive climax, where the protagonist makes some life-altering self-sacrifice and does the right thing.

As the reviewer above alludes, however, the writer runs the risk that it’ll be too little too late.

So please, screenwriters, let’s agree. I will try harder and you’ll try harder. It’s win-win.

Playing with light – Hawaii (big island)

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As I play with my camera, empirically learning its ins and outs, I find pleasure in capturing different moments of natural light.

On my trip to Hawaii last year, I managed to capture some nice shots that really highlight, I think, the wonders of the sun (or other suns) at the extremes of the day.

Morning light in Kailua-Kona has almost an ethereal quality, especially when combined with waves.

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As sunset approaches, it was fun to play with silhouettes that just barely capture the colours of the leaves.

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With dozens of other hotel patrons, this girl sat patiently waiting for that perfect sunset moment. Her face had some quality that just made me want to keep taking photos of her.

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And so I did, until I started feeling stalker-ish. This is my favourite of the group for the way the reddening light plays with the colour of her hair.

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Photography mentor and friend Sam was a great target as the sun sets on his balding pate.

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Another favourite, sunset on Mauna Kea. The colour strata were amazing and being above the clouds means not having to worry about poor photo conditions.

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Go to paradise and freeze your buttocks off. Astral photography from near the top of Mauna Kea. This was a 30-minute exposure. I wish I could say I planned to get an almost perfect wedge of rotating space (okay, rotating Earth) but I got lucky.

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One week in

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Well, it’s now been a full week for my new blog, and I wanted to thank everyone for their interest and support.

36 of you, in fact, have gone so far as to sign on to follow my blog, which is quite thrilling and humbling…I shall try not to disappoint.

I don’t know where I am going with this blog, but I know it will be an adventure, and I very much look forward to hearing your feedback. Not just your likes (which are lovely and appreciated), but also your thoughts and impressions on what I have written or photos I have posted.

Do they stimulate ideas, do you disagree, do you have suggestions on improvements?

I want to hear it all. I want to engage, not just entertain or bemuse.

Let’s have fun!

Thoughts on thinking

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Thinking is over-rated. And by that, I am not espousing advocacy for unthinking, so much as non-thinking or as it is known in some circles, doing.

Think before you speak is an admonishment often heard (or at least by me) and perhaps there is some wisdom in this. More on that in a future post.

But I worry that too often, people think before they write and for many, thinking means never writing. These individuals become so encumbered by or enamoured of their thoughts that they are unable to commit anything to paper.

To me, writing or any other form of creation is a spiritual thing. I personally don’t feel that I create so much as simply channel or act as conduit for creativity itself—the good, the bad and the ugly. I bring into being that which was no so moments earlier. Thus, my pretentious tagline of “Seer of the invisible, scribe of the unwritten”.

I worry that people spend way too much time mulling things over, trying to come up with every angle and waiting until they find the perfect angle. Pen hovers over paper. Fingers hover over keyboard. And nothing happens as the writer becomes paralyzed in thought.

As I’ve written before, I set a destination, but I revel in the journey. I let the road dictate my next step and feel that I discover more wondrous things than I could ever have pre-conceived.

Sure, the road can lead me to a cliff or into a wall that I cannot surmount, but what of it? If I have discovered one thing in my life, it is that the return journey from a place is so much more than simply the backsides of things you saw on the forward journey. Perspectives change and so therefore does the story your journey provides.

Take the thinking out of your writing and see what happens. Sit at a table with your laptop or notepad and write down the name of the first thing you see. Let that be the first word in whatever follows, no matter how short or nonsensical that might be.

The story will tell its story. You don’t have to.

(I don’t know what’s on your table, but this was on mine!)

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Reptiles of Costa Rica – Tarcoles River

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While in Costa Rica, my brother thought we should go on a tour of one of the rivers not far from Jaco, the Tarcoles River, where crocodiles swim in abundance.

He had warned me of their size, but you really have to see these things to realize what you’re up against, and are very glad that you are in a pretty large boat.

Still, it was invigorating to get up close and personal.

The Tarcoles makes its way down to the Pacific Ocean and so is quite brackish in places.

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My brother checks out Osama Bin Laden, one of the larger crocs in the river (the locals have named all of the crocs for famous people).

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He was even brave enough to reach out and touch Hugo Chavez while the other end was quite occupied.

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Our cruise guide would get out and walk along the shore, feeding the crocs chicken and fish. Not sure what we were supposed to do if the croc was not satisfied with the limited menu.

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Poor Hugo had lost part of his top jaw in a fight, so much of his sustenance came from these tours.

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Osama was quite hungry that day, once he was awoken from his slumber.

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A red iguana gets a bit of sun, well above the water.

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The basilisk is also known as the Jesus Christ lizard for its ability to run at high speeds across the surface of ponds and rivers.

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Mangrove roots were thick and lush as the river approached the ocean. This was also research for me as the opening of my animated feature film screenplay takes place in a mangrove.

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A young croc basks on the mangrove roots…wonder what his name will be.

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I thought they might kiss, but apparently our guide wasn’t that crazy.

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Relieving some of the heat of the day…or enjoying a really good joke.

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Not to be short…

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That’s it! I’ve had it! I’m not going to wait any longer.

After waiting an eternity (okay, two years) for Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard or some lesser known film maker to discover the genius of my several screenplays, I have finally gotten fed up with waiting for one of my stories to become a movie or television show. So, I am left with one option: write a short and make it my bloody self.

All my friends are doing it. (And before you ask, only my fear of heights prevents me from jumping off a bridge if my friends jump off a bridge.) So why can’t I?

Weekend before last, I jumped in front of my laptop and cranked out a screenplay for a 15-minute short film, based on an idea that has been sitting on my computer for about a year.

36 hours. 15 pages. Done!

Is it perfect? No, but that’s what editing and rewrites are for.

Is it funny? Yes. Quirky? Yes. Unlike anything else out there? As far as I can tell.

Can it be filmed? Okay, now I have to get outside advice.

So, last week, I leaned on my friends further down the movie-making-business chain. Friends with expertise in film production (not sure if these are the jump-off-a-bridge type).

This week, I expect conversations to begin in earnest.

Next week, with any luck, will start the conversation of “How in the hell am I going to pay for this?”

I fully expect obstacles and challenges, but I don’t care. I’m not waiting around any longer.

Life in black & white – Hawaii (big island)

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Back in the days of waning days of film photography, I was always frustrated when I would see a shot that I thought would be magnificent in black & white (b/w), but I knew my camera contained film for colour photographs.

I hardly wanted to ream off a dozen or more photos just to empty the camera so that I could change for one or two frames of b/w photos…and that assumed I could find anyone who even sold b/w film.

Ah, bless the advent of digital photography and photo manipulation software. While I appreciate that it is not the same, I can now take a colour photograph and make it b/w with a simple click of a button. At the same time, I realize I still have a lot to learn about special considerations for b/w photography, e.g., appropriate light balance.

A friend of mine once told me, if you have a nice photo that just doesn’t pop, try converting it to b/w and see what happens. Wow.

A year ago, I put that principle to work while traveling through the island of Hawaii.

Sometimes the object you’re photographing is already black and white, so making it b/w may seem redundant, but I found it softens things and adds depth to the image, in this case, a blow hole in the lava rock (Kailua-Kona).

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B/w is also great when you want to focus the eye on the emotion of the image rather than have it distracted by the surroundings. I loved the expression on the dog’s face. The most active I’d seen him all week. (Kailua-Kona)

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Same scenario here. I think the b/w helps simplify this image, allows me to focus on the key elements: the man serenading the Pacific Ocean, the white cross of commemoration, the crashing waves dancing to the song. (Kailua-Kona)

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I think b/w can also impart a sense of history to an old building that otherwise would simply look derelict. The rust and decay are still there, but become a patina rather than a sign of decay. (Hilo)

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The treatment can also add a bit of emotion to an otherwise ordinary image. Whereas I took a photo of a woman standing bored while her husband and son fish, the image becomes that of a woman from any era, possibly considering the plight of her family. (Kailua-Kona)

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Cannery Row was the first thought that popped into my head as I walked by the back of this building, but in colour, that thought couldn’t be realized. (Hilo)

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I call this image “Porcelain”. I was on the fence as to how best to treat this image. In colour, the flower is a gorgeous cream, but the flaws in the petals told me I had to make it b/w. I should really show the colour and b/w side-by-side here. (Kona coffee plantation)

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Damned smartphone! To me, that is the only flaw in what I wanted for this photo. An aging warrior rests in a pool surrounded by lava stone, weary of life (and checking his ruddy email). (Kailua-Kona)

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One of my favourite images from this trip. To me, it looks like the little tree is getting reamed out by the big tree, a la “What the hell were you thinking?” In colour, this image is meh. In b/w, it speaks volumes to me. (Mauna Kea)

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