Tag Archives: photography

Living unlabeled

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I am not a fan of labels.

Giving something a label, ultimately, is about trying to define a thing, an activity, an individual, whether you are outside looking in or inside looking out.

On one level, this makes sense as it gives us the tools and resources of common language.

Where this is a problem for me is that it tends to establish boundaries in our minds of what something is and what something isn’t.

My cousin and friend, Ian MacDonald, just published a blog post about the labels craftsman and artist, and the semantics game that swirls around those terms in his music and photography.

IMP site

In my own teaching experience, I have witnessed innumerable students striving and struggling to achieve Art; in some cases, frozen in sheer terror at what they believe is unachievable and ironically, unwilling to work on the craft of writing. Unwilling to create dreck on the way to Art, however they define either.

To minimize these boundaries and yet still be able to communicate with people, I strive to use the broadest terminology I can. This is why, when pressed, I refer to myself as a storyteller.

I tell stories with my writing. I tell stories with my photography. I tell stories in my social interactions. I tell stories when I am alone. I tell stories with my body language. I tell stories when I sleep.

Are my stories a craft? There is an element of that, particularly when I tell stories for money.

Are my stories an art? That is a personal choice of whomever experiences my story, including me.

Am I more than my stories? Most certainly. I am not my stories.

My stories are how I interact with my universe. They are a vehicle of communication.

Storyteller is just a label, a definition; but I do not let it limit me or my sense of self.

I lived a large portion of my life in search of the next label. I am now content to be.

 

My thanks to Ian for his blog post. Even if you’re not interested in photography, his web site is worth checking out. At the risk of labeling him, Ian is quite the philosopher.

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Award-winning screenwriter Randall C Willis is Story Analyst & Coach at So, What’s Your Story? (Facebook page). He also teaches screenwriting in Toronto at Raindance Canada and George Brown College, and you can find samples of his photography on Instagram @createdbyrcw.

(How’s that for labeling?)

Creativity unfettered

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Thank you for showing me that there’s a place for all of my thoughts & feelings to go. I was overwhelmed by emotion for almost the entirety of our class.

— Student

The urge to create is a powerful one. It can be so all-consuming that it overwhelms our senses.

At the same time, so few of us are born equipped to know where to begin with these feelings, how to convert that urge into positive, constructive energy. And if left untapped, we are prone to quell the noise, contain the chaos, if only to move forward with our lives in ways that we do understand, in ways socially acceptable.

I truly believe that all of us are born with this urge to create, and that it is as much the environment into which we are born and grow as it is our innate interests that determines what happens next.

For the many, the need to conform, the need to be good citizens, the need to normalize—often initiated by outside forces—leads them to confine those urges in a tightly packed container, left on a dark shelf deep in the lost recesses of their psyches.

For the few, however, those whose urges refuse to be contained, where the pressure to normalize is not so severe, creation is given voice, whether from the earliest days or later in life. Timid hesitant steps of interest give way to running vaults of passion, and creation floods ourselves and our worlds.

I am one of those lucky few; someone whose passions have been supported and nurtured from my earliest days. The hesitations and uncertainties of my past were largely self-imposed and have long since been removed and forgotten.

The need to create and to seek creation consumes and replenishes me. My world is one of possibility and opportunity; and if it is limited, it is only by my time here.

If I have been given the opportunity to act as nurturer and supporter to others—through teaching, social contacts, simple engagement with my universe—then I accept and welcome that function both enthusiastically and humbly. In the exercise, I receive as much and likely more than I could ever hope to give.

The urge to create is a powerful one. But it is nothing compared to the act of creation.

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Award-winning screenwriter Randall C Willis is Story Analyst & Coach at So, What’s Your Story? (Facebook page). He also teaches screenwriting in Toronto at Raindance Canada and George Brown College.

My thanks to Pexels for the free stock photos.

Adventure

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Adventure2

Thanks to a dear friend, whom I originally met through WordPress, I just discovered that this is my 5th anniversary on this platform. That said, it would be completely understandable if my supporters wondered that I was still here, I have posted so rarely in the past year.

Although not an excuse, I have become a victim of the adventure I sought in life. In short, my life is full and it has kicked the crap out of my blogging.

Teaching gigs, story analysis gigs, magazine writing responsibilities and my continuing passions with screenwriting, novel writing and photography of all stripes has simply become too much of a moment-by-moment focus (oxymoron?), no matter how delightful.

This will change, sort of.

With the launch of my story analysis website SoWhatsYourStory.ca last year, and the upcoming launch of my photography website, I will focus this blog on one particular topic that complements the other two platforms. What that topic is remains to be determined.

I appreciate that some of you may not be interested in the isolated topic, but then, I am incredibly grateful that any of you have stayed with me through the creative chaos that is my brain and blog.

Here’s to the next adventure!

(In the meantime, some colour from the past year.)

Laval Rocket’s Zach Fucale
Toe save stops a goal
Bridge to nowhere in Vancouver
Raindrops and colour
Gift of vision
The lure of fishing

Side long

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It’s subtle, almost imperceptible;

The sense you’re being measured.

 

It’s not malicious; it may not be conscious,

And it’s not the metric of any ruler or scale.

Rather it’s based on history.

 

Not world history; not even your history,

But a history of pain and joy;

A history of violence and caresses;

A history of anticipation, both eager and dread.

 

It’s a measurement made during a moment’s pause;

Through a renegade lock of hair;

In a side-long glance rather than challenging stare.

 

We measure the people we meet,

Seeking solace that this one’s different,

Checking for warning echoes of past sorrows.

Hoping for the best. Wary of the worst.

 

I am measured. You are measured. And yet,

The result speaks more of the measurer than the measured.

Passing

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Droids

When you walked by me tonight,

Did you see the holes in my jeans

Or see the whole of my being?

 

When you crossed the sidewalk,

Did you see the dirt on my face

Or witness the pain in my eyes?

 

When you whistled to yourself,

Did you hear the hack of my cough

Or consider the song in my heart?

 

When you looked away,

Did you see the tracks on my arms

Or the bruises of past abuse?

 

When you accelerated your step,

Did you smell the stench of urine

Or breathe the scent of possibility?

 

When you turned your back,

Did you dread unrestrained need

Or wonder at untapped potential?

 

When you blocked out my cries,

Did you fear the monster before you

Or lose the veil of your delusions?

 

When you walked by me tonight,

Did you think you could escape?

My truth is your truth.

 

Walk all you want;

The longer you walk,

The longer I remain.

Stranger

Curtained call

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Rides

Tears carve channels

Through caked whiteness,

Intersecting painted smiles,

As limbs that juggled

And balanced on beams

Seem weighted and dead.

 

The music no longer plays,

Replaced by heavy silence

As tired hands wrestle

Cold cream jars and tissues.

The show has ended.

Only reality remains.

 

The face in the mirror

Beams gleefully back,

Yet the seated corpse

Sobs uncontrollably;

Everything left behind

On saw dusted floors.

 

If I give you everything,

Leave nothing for me,

How do I pass the night

Alone with this shell?

What can I be when

The clown is not here?

 

I frolicked; you smirked.

I stumbled; you laughed.

I collapsed; you roared.

I died; you applauded,

Departing for dull lives

As I melted to decay.

 

Who am I if not an

Echo of your delight?

As I remove my makeup,

Do I not erase myself?

Who will love the man

Who cries alone?

Hope

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Choker

Silence pours forth

Where eloquence fails,

Unable to find words

When thoughts vanish.

Boiling with purpose,

I have no direction;

Faced with the inertia

Of fear and question.

 

My mind races on,.

Ready to reach out

A touch, a smile,

Connection desired.

You sit so close

That I feel your breath

On my very soul;

Yet mute is my song.

 

I can still see you,

Feel your musical heart,

Rest in your warmth,

Nestle in your voice.

You, me. One, all.

Easily experienced,

Soundlessly recalled,

Hopefully repeated.

Unknown

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Kelp crow

Raven beckons me on a journey.

Its rasping voice pierces my spirit,

Pulling me to a future unknown.

 

Questions I ask, options propose,

Yet the ebon wraith remains evasive,

Demanding faith when will is weak.

 

What lies ahead in the darkness,

Where illusions of control are lost

And footing is no longer certain?

 

Raven ignores my fears, urges me forward.

When I look back for sights remembered,

His tar-pitched plumage absorbs my view.

 

With vision gone, I now see the unseeable:

The darkness that stills my timid heart

Is the freedom my soul has sought so long.

 

Where I am, light surrounds me;

Where I’m not, nothing exists.

I am the journey, unceasing while I live.

 

There is no stasis. There is no rest.

The raven that calls me is me;

And fear dissolves with my next step.

Our songs

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SONY DSCWhere are the troubadours?

Who will sing our songs,

Tell our stories, shed our tears?

 

Our world has so much to say,

Yet our streets and courtyards

Boom with unrelenting silence.

I witness the horrors of another world,

Hear the cheers and jeers of strangers,

But my neighbour weeps in solitude,

Oblivious to the bonds we share,

Unknowing of my face, my voice, my heart.

 

Where are the troubadours?

Who will hear my story, my song,

Bring it to strangers in a familiar land?

 

Ghosts pass every day, unseen,

Faces held to the ground they trod,

Eyes focused on illusory distances,

Cacophonous words uncommunicated;

A wall of flesh and bone and cloth,

Devoid of spirit, absent of connection.

 

Where are the troubadours?

Who will touch our hearts, our souls,

With music, with stories, with love?

 

A strum of string. A strike of key.

Tremulous glottal vibration.

And an audience thirsting:

To see, to be seen;

To understand, to be understood;

To connect, to love.

 

Where are the troubadours?

Connection

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Chickadee-1

From his water-laden branch,

Hidden among protective leaves,

The chickadee stares down

At the strange cyclops below;

His grasp on the limb

Is tenuous at best,

Close enough for details

Distanced for quick escape.

 

The one-eyed beast is calm,

Open to new connections,

Seeking only an audience

With his avian companion.

Words are unspoken, unnecessary,

As a bond is formed

In the hush of gentle rain,

Whispers of waving branches

Broken only by buzz-clicks

Of monocular blinks.

 

For this instant, this

Sodden, frozen moment,

Relationships are formed,

Connections are made,

Eventually to dissolve

Into photographic memory,

But vitally important

Both to he and to me,

Shared in wonder and awe.

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