Opening Your Minds Eye

Hi everybody!

Years ago I was a store manager for a well know electronics chain. We had all kinds of items which included TVs. In order to demo our wares, we used a couple of videos, one of which was called "Beyond the Minds Eye". I just checked and you can still get the video along with the many sequels online. These were CGI stuff and was revolutionary for the year (1990). Yes we even had indoor plumbing back then. If you haven't watched it or clips like it (some do appear on PBS from time to time) you ought to google it and watch.

During that same era in my life I also watched and laughed at the comedian Gallagher. He did a skit once about looking a thing with "new eyes". He talked about watching babies looking at things for the first time and seeing their reactions. Now maybe your ahead of me on this one but if not I want to take some time to talk (actually type) about photography and how it is a changin' at least as I see it in my minds eye.

I was watching something on one of the news channels a few days ago and took note of the number of people that were taking pictures with just about every kind of device you can imagine. You can't get a cell phone now a days without a camera on it. They even have some with two cameras, one for the front and one for the back. Almost everyone has a camera and thinks themselves as being a good photographer. But are they really? Sure they can take good pictures but so what. Anymore the technology has progressed so that just about all you have to do is point and shoot. But do they make any money off of them? If I don't watch it I could get on a soap box.

The true is that it's just not good enough to take a clear and properly exposed picture anymore. That is no longer a trick that only the pro's can do. No, I think that a pro photographer has to view things from a new perspective with "new eyes". We must see things that others do not see and go where other don't go and use our "minds eye" to be set apart from the millions of others who take pictures with their point and shoot devices. Remember the acronym WWATT and what I said it stood for, "What Would A Tourist Take"? Well here's another saying that might change how we see photography; "If it was easy, everyone would do it". Well, you say that everyone is doing it and that's just the point. Maybe, it's not that technology has made it possible for everyone to be the professional photographer, maybe we as professional photographers have gotten lazy. We suddenly have found that the we can't take pictures of just anything and expect them to be exchanged for the green stuff as easy as they use to be. Maybe we as professional photographers have forgotten why we take pictures for in the first place. Technology has forgotten about we the pro's. It's we the pro's or at least many of us who have chosen not to keep up with the technology well because it's just not that easy to do. But then again if being a pro was easy.......well you get the picture (no pun intended).

I mentioned in my last post that I had been challenged by numerous questions recently and in part, this post is a result of some of those questions. A challenge to see things with "new eyes" has been given me, to see things not as we see them every day, but with the "minds eye". The Good Book even suggest that we should "see thing that are not as though they were" in the book of Romans. That takes faith and vision, something that, in my opinion, has taken a holiday for most of us, cause it's just so dare easy to fall short and fail. So we just keep pushing to make what we have always done in the past work, continue doing the same old thing time and time again because it has work some in the past and besides it's comfortable in doing what we have always done even when it goes bad. What's the definition of insanity?

Let's face it! Ever since the microwave we've all gotten to the point where we want everything cheap, easy, and fast. We have all these wonder devices to make our world easy, even put man on the moon. Life should be easy. Everything should work right the first time and easy to boot not to mention profitable. Does the words "Pipe Dream" come into play here? As technology increase so does the degree of difficulty in all walks of life. The degree of competition has reached a level in all walks of life where we eat our own to get an inch ahead. Yes, I would like to go out and take a couple of pictures of a bird or two and sell them for a lot of bucks everyday. Flying pigs seem to be flashing in my head.

The "minds eye" can show us things that we have overlooked for years. Looking at things with "new eyes" will reveal what has been hiding if plain view, right in front of our nose, but haven't see because we can't get past our nose. We see things as not reachable or impossible while there are those who reach the unreachable and do the impossible everyday! It's that old bumble bee thing, where the bumble bee can't fly because it's wings are to small for the mass of it body. I guess no one has told the bumble bee yet or better yet when told the bee refused to believe it and flies anyway! It's how you see things with your minds eye that effect your life. That includes how it effects your photography efforts. Put on those new eye and open your minds eye to a whole new world that is hiding right in front of you and then make the world a better place by sharing what your minds eye captures through the lens of your camera!

That's all for today guys and gals. Have a great day everyone!

Richard

Call Me Charlie

Hi everyone! First let me introduce myself. My name is Richard and I am the owner of 2C Photography. I do this because it has been a while since I've made a post and I am afraid some of my employees may have forgotten who I am. With that in mind please excuse me for a moment so I can speak directly to my beloved employees and give them a special message. GET TO WORK!!!!!! Thank you. And now for this spot announcement; BARK, ARF, ARF, BARK! Thanks Spot!

So now that I have you convinced that I have finally took my leave of the same zip code that everyone else has and have taken up residency on another planet I can get to the point of the post today and no one will know if they can take me seriously or not. So let's get to it shall we?

With business around here being at a virtual crawl, I have had the opportunity to visit a few "things" from my "it never happened" past. I have had more than a few questions posed to me and many of them have been some humdingers. Many of those questions I have rolling around in my head even now and expect them to be around for a while longer. "Come on over and lets get together and have some laughs!" Never respond to an invitation like that. You wind up playing the "Do you remember when?" game and more often they're things you would rather not remember or at least not talk about because they tend to reopen some pretty deep wounds that you think had long since healed. They all mean well and maybe it does have some benefits but I'm not sure. All I know is that I have found myself doin' alota thinkin'. I have gotten a lot of exercise out of it all and my driving skills polished.

Don't get me wrong, I have made a few decisions. I'm going to be getting a new phone in a day or two. It's one of the 3G iphones and yes I will let the graphics guy now when I get it switched over. I have also decided to get a new piece of equipment within the next week or two for calibrating our monitors (I'll only let you imagine way). I had my brakes checked and to my surprise they were still ok. So things haven't been all ugly. But still those questions keep rolling around in my head like an old obnoxious blast from the past song (you pick it cause I don't want that added to the mix in my head).

The only thing that I have found some comfort in is that over the past few months and even years for some of us this has been happening to virtually all of us. We have all look to the past trying to get guidance for the future. For some that guidance has been to return to the things of the past. I know that as a Christian I have heard many of my fellow Christians having to go back to events or choices of the past and set the record right in order to get back on the path that God intended for them to be on in the first place. I myself have had to do this on more than one occasion. For others it has been "carpe diem" or "seize the day" while others my also use to mean "seize the moment". For still others (and I have from time to time found myself in this group as well) they take solitude in the phrase "Quando Omni Flunkis Moritati" which is my personal favorite Latin phrase meaning (and yes I am serious) "when all else fails, play dead". This is a phrase that is recognized by probably thousands of members of "Possum Lodge" of Red Green fame. You get it right, Possum Lodge and play dead, get it!?

Well anyway, back to the post at hand. One of the questions kind of deals with one of the many stories or parables I heard while learnin' stuff years ago. It goes like this; when you come to a fork in the road, how many choices do you have? No, I'm not going to share the answer with you. Just THINK about it for awhile. It just seems that blast from the past are crawling out of the wood work.

There are other things that seem to be dug up from the past other than questions and parables. Songs, parties, games and even movies get salvaged from the depths of the memory ocean. One such movie was brought to my attention and unlike many other things that the helpful Santa Elves have drug up, this one kind of hit really close to home. What's the movie you ask? Well surprisingly it's not "The Jerk" but it does star the same guy. Steve Martin plays the part of a fire chief in a small community in a movie named "Roxanne". Some times you can find comfort and strength from the strangest places.

So what's my point? We all hurt and have our challenges. Turning to others is almost always a good thing to do. Trying to find answers to questions in our lives can be as difficult and milking a porcupine (hope that passes the PC test). But don't overlook searching for those answers in one of the least obvious places, in yourself and your past. We all have to move on to the future but for many the strength and courage to do that has to come from things that have molded your life to this point. If they're good things, build on them. If they're bad things, blow them up and start with a clean slate. More often than not the fuel we need to lift us out of the muck and mire of the present to help us build a better tomorrow is the BS and treasure we've accumulated in our past.

Let me share a final little story/parable with you to put an ! on this point. I'm told that one of NASA's more difficult problems to overcome in working in the weightlessness of space was how to get their ink pens to work. Since ink needs gravity to make the ink work in the pen, NASA had to spend millions of dollars to develop a ink pen that could work in a no-gravity condition. At the end of the cold war with Russia, NASA was able to interact with the scientist of the Soviet Union where they found that there scientist were able to fix the problem for only 17 cents. How? They went down and bought a pencil. Moral of the story, some solutions are so illusive because there standing right in plain view. It's not that we're stupid or blind, just selective vision!

Well, Spot needs out to conduct some business and I have another letter to write for someone else before I can set on the roof and watch the comet fly by. Have a great day everyone!

Richard

Don't Miss the Shot!

Hi everyone! Lots of things going on, so much so that I think I keep passing myself on the road. I'm really mad at me because when I do pass myself on the streets I always wave but being the kind of guy I am I don't wave back and that just makes me so mad.

Seriously, there are a lot of things a happenin' around here. While I haven't seen the article yet, I am told that there should be an article in the upcoming addition of the Missouri Life magazine that will be discussing the new "Shrine to the Holy Spirit" and the wedding chapel that is located there in. I am told there should be several pictures in the article taken by yours truly. I'm also told that there will soon be fliers placed around town and the surrounding area advertising the new services being offered there. We are very pleased to be associated with this new Mansion venture and look forward to helping to create the perfect wedding day for all those who choose this wonderful location to celebrate the love they have found and their commitment to each other. If you are thinking about getting married and are looking for a place to have your ceremony I would encourage you to check out the services being offered through the Mansion at this wonderful location. Tell Tina that I sent you! Hopefully she would charge you double just for knowing me.

Also, the new "History of Branson" movie is going into its' final production time and I expect that it will be finished and release to the public in the next few months. I do know that Mike at Bear Creek Production has a few one on one interviews to record including me I'm told but that should not take very long at all. I will keep you posted!

Pro Pix Tips: I have had the opportunity to talk to a couple of folks the past few weeks about photography and during each of those conversations it seems that I wound up talking about the same thing. It usually starts out the same way as well. I'm thinking about getting a camera and wonder if I should get a Canon or a Nikon. What model should I get? What lens should I get? Folks, don't get me wrong, next to taking pictures I like talking about photography and taking pictures. But there really isn't a good answer to any of those questions. Now I shoot a Nikon and so my usual answer to what kind of camera to get is "The only people who shoot Canons can't spell Nikon!" That's the partiality talking. In fact, the only true answer is "That depends" on what type of photography you want to do. Camera's for the most part have a lot to do with the degree of comfort you have in using it. I'm not saying that there isn't a difference between the two because there are many, but how comfortable you are with the use of the camera plays a huge role. Both companies put out great products with great accessories to go along with them which also have a role in the consideration of which camera to buy. The thing is that it doesn't matter how good a camera you have if you don't have some good knowledge to go along with it.

With that in mind I would like to touch on something I haven't talked about much if any before this. You have to be continuously look for opportunities to get a great picture. Don't ever let your guard down because you just might miss a great opportunity. Case in point is I was driving though a parking lot the other night around 11:30 pm when I saw several things that looked at first like small branches of a plant or bush. After passing the 5th or 6th one I decided to stop and check it out since it had not been storming or any strong winds. What I found was not a stick or small leafy twig. What I found is below.

I had to give $5 to this Praying Mantis to pose for me (hey, times are tough everywhere) and getting a signed release was another trick in and of itself.

Seriously, I could have just missed this picture if I hadn't been alert or didn't have my camera with me and there have been many times I have done just that. You can't get the shot if you don't see it in the first place. In short, while what kind of camera to buy is important, don't forget to train your mind and your eyes to seeing the things you can capture with that great camera (that would be a Nikon I'm sure) you finally do purchase. Don't forget the WWATT thing (What Wound A Tourist Take) and avoid waisting your time on those shots. And just don't settle on taking just one picture. Take lots of shots from many angles. That's what I did here on this picture and I think the results look great. So keep your head in the game and keep shooting those pictures. Send them to us, we would love to see your work.

Well, that all for me today gang. Have a great day!

Richard