Sunday, January 28, 2007
Listen to Life: You're Beautiful
“YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL…”
“You’re beautiful,” the man said as he looked over my shoulder to the image of his wife that I showed him in my camera’s screen. The images that I create are not for the men in women’s lives, but for the women and for me. That makes the man’s comments more special. Each comment came in a whisper as a reaction to what he saw.
Of course I am proud when I hear such things, but there is something more important about the comments of Emily’s and Jennifer’s husbands: they were spoken spontaneously.
The men responded to the beauty of the women they love. The images were not glamorous, nor of the “beauty” genre, yet they clearly revealed beauty. The men responded with “you’re beautiful” with the power of loving whispers.
We all need to be open to beauty—particularly other than that which the media defines—and we need to respond to it. Respond to her.
Let beauty take our breath away, and allow ourselves to say so.
Listen to Life is an electronic newsletter that presents lessons for living by listening to life, based on the writing, poetry, photography, presentations and workshops of Dion McInnis. Stories such as these inspired the book, “Listen to Life: Wisdom in Life’s Stories,” published in 2005, available at Barnes and Noble, Amazon and Borders. Dion’s next book will share his views of being father and son.
To subscribe, send an email to: addnewsletter@dionmcinnis.com. To be removed from the subscription list, send email to:unsubscribe@dionmcinnis.comWeb link: www.dionmcinnis.com© 2007 Dion McInnis. All rights reserved.We encourage sharing Listen to Life in whole or in part if copyright and attribution are always included.
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Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Thank you, Mrs. Owens
Mrs. Owens taught English class at St. Cecilia's school in Houston back when the decade of love and peace was drawing to a close. I have no idea where she is now, but I'd be happy to give her a hug and a thank you because she turned me on to writing with a simple classroom assignment. I remember it well.
It was probably only a make-work project to help keep the students occupied while improving their writing skills. It lit a tinder. The assignment was to write a description about something. Anything. Maybe it had to be something in the room, or maybe not. I don't recall. I do remember my subject.
After much searching, I decided to write about the pen I was writing with. It was beige. Three colors of ink--red, black and blue--selected by pushing down colored slides at the top. The top and the bottom of the pen were separated by a metal collar that had tarnished. There were teeth marks on it--plenty of teeth marks--because I gnawed on my pens a lot back then. There was writing on the side. I didn't realize then that pens like that are called "advertising specialties"; my dad had brought it to me from one of his clients. As I went on to describe the pen, I "saw" an image of the pen appear on the paper through words. I was hooked.
In hindsight, I imagine that it was the clarity of the image that hooked me because by the time I was 13, I had already spent seven years capturing my world in photographs. When words became images, I was hooked. My life changed; it has been influenced by words and images ever since.
Thank you, Mrs. Owens.
It was probably only a make-work project to help keep the students occupied while improving their writing skills. It lit a tinder. The assignment was to write a description about something. Anything. Maybe it had to be something in the room, or maybe not. I don't recall. I do remember my subject.
After much searching, I decided to write about the pen I was writing with. It was beige. Three colors of ink--red, black and blue--selected by pushing down colored slides at the top. The top and the bottom of the pen were separated by a metal collar that had tarnished. There were teeth marks on it--plenty of teeth marks--because I gnawed on my pens a lot back then. There was writing on the side. I didn't realize then that pens like that are called "advertising specialties"; my dad had brought it to me from one of his clients. As I went on to describe the pen, I "saw" an image of the pen appear on the paper through words. I was hooked.
In hindsight, I imagine that it was the clarity of the image that hooked me because by the time I was 13, I had already spent seven years capturing my world in photographs. When words became images, I was hooked. My life changed; it has been influenced by words and images ever since.
Thank you, Mrs. Owens.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Listen to Life: Teach With Silence
TEACH WITH SILENCE
Her name was Vicki. She passed away this weekend, after a too-long battle against cancer, well before her midlife. I won’t pretend after her passing to know her better than I really did, but one could learn a lot from her by what she did not say, as well as what she did.
Vicki had a difficult adult life, most of which will not be referenced here. Included in her list of challenges were breast cancer, near remission, and reoccurrence of cancer throughout her body. Despite those circumstances over the past several years, people did not hear her complain, place blame, or curse fate. In her silence, one could hear her faith, poise, peace and resolve.
We often can say much more when we don’t speak; we can teach about reacting by our lack of actions. Life is neither easy nor fair; it is neither logical nor just; and, we can have few true expectations from it. In tribute to Vicki, I shall say little here tonight, other than that sometimes the most important lessons we can teach are those of our silence over speech, calm over rage, peace over fighting, and acceptance over blame.
God bless you, Vicki.
Listen to Life is an electronic newsletter that presents lessons for living by listening to life, based on the writing, poetry, photography, presentations and workshops of Dion McInnis. Stories such as these inspired the book, “Listen to Life: Wisdom in Life’s Stories,” published in 2005, available at Barnes and Noble, Amazon and Borders. Dion’s next book will share his views of being father and son.
To subscribe, send an email to: addnewsletter@dionmcinnis.com. To be removed from the subscription list, send email to:unsubscribe@dionmcinnis.comWeb link: www.dionmcinnis.com© 2007 Dion McInnis. All rights reserved.We encourage sharing Listen to Life in whole or in part if copyright and attribution are always included.
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Sunday, January 14, 2007
Listen to Life: Sold
SOLD
The other day I laid my gray suit to rest. It was ten years old, and, despite its worn condition, it was the best of the three I had. I knew it was time to get a new suit or two, and Men’s Wearhouse was having its fall sale. A perfect opportunity to deal with the business at hand, though only out of necessity instead of desire. Saturday was errand/chore day, and shopping for clothes seemed to fit that criterion, as did an evening trek to a presentation in the Galleria. The two experiences could not have been more different.
An hour after our arrival at the Men’s Wearhouse, my fiancé and I left the store. I had a lot more than I intended, and felt good about it. No buyer’s remorse there. The evening event, a follow on to the big Bridal Extravaganza last week, proved to be quite different. We didn’t buy anything, and if we had, there would certainly have been buyer’s remorse. As we left the evening presentation, she said, “I just wasn’t feeling it.” Feelings hold the root of both situations.
Why did I spend more than twice what I had intended with Clifford at the Baybrook Men’s Wearhouse? Because I felt good in the clothes and I felt good about myself and I felt good about his advice. I told him as we prepared to leave that I had not much cared about my attire for a long time: adequate appearance was plenty fine for me. I didn’t worry about looking good. But, I felt good in the clothes he selected on only his first and third tries off the rack. He bantered with me and Kim as I tried on suits and pants. He didn’t talk to us like a salesman, but like people, and when he had me replace my running shoes for nice Bostonians “just for measuring the pant length,” I told him that I knew what he was doing, but that he did what he did well: create a sense of well being. I bought the shoes, too. The evening salesperson went from showman to snip in the moment we said we were interested in something smaller than he had in mind.
Clifford was attentive, playing off the cues of what I said, and of what Kim said when I was in the dressing room. He had no idea how welcome the chance to look good was for me.
We never know the state of the people we interact with. We never know how open or desirous they may be for a sincere compliment, a moment of attentiveness, a minute of listening, or a chance to share stories. Assume it will make a difference. It probably will.
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Listen to Life is an electronic newsletter that presents lessons for living by listening to life, based on the writing, poetry, photography, presentations and workshops of Dion McInnis. Stories such as these inspired the book, “Listen to Life: Wisdom in Life’s Stories,” published in 2005, available at Barnes and Noble, Amazon and Borders. Dion’s next book will share his views of being father and son.
To subscribe, send an email to: addnewsletter@dionmcinnis.com. To be removed from the subscription list, send email to:unsubscribe@dionmcinnis.comWeb link: www.dionmcinnis.com© 2007 Dion McInnis. All rights reserved.We encourage sharing Listen to Life in whole or in part if copyright and attribution are always included.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The other day I laid my gray suit to rest. It was ten years old, and, despite its worn condition, it was the best of the three I had. I knew it was time to get a new suit or two, and Men’s Wearhouse was having its fall sale. A perfect opportunity to deal with the business at hand, though only out of necessity instead of desire. Saturday was errand/chore day, and shopping for clothes seemed to fit that criterion, as did an evening trek to a presentation in the Galleria. The two experiences could not have been more different.
An hour after our arrival at the Men’s Wearhouse, my fiancé and I left the store. I had a lot more than I intended, and felt good about it. No buyer’s remorse there. The evening event, a follow on to the big Bridal Extravaganza last week, proved to be quite different. We didn’t buy anything, and if we had, there would certainly have been buyer’s remorse. As we left the evening presentation, she said, “I just wasn’t feeling it.” Feelings hold the root of both situations.
Why did I spend more than twice what I had intended with Clifford at the Baybrook Men’s Wearhouse? Because I felt good in the clothes and I felt good about myself and I felt good about his advice. I told him as we prepared to leave that I had not much cared about my attire for a long time: adequate appearance was plenty fine for me. I didn’t worry about looking good. But, I felt good in the clothes he selected on only his first and third tries off the rack. He bantered with me and Kim as I tried on suits and pants. He didn’t talk to us like a salesman, but like people, and when he had me replace my running shoes for nice Bostonians “just for measuring the pant length,” I told him that I knew what he was doing, but that he did what he did well: create a sense of well being. I bought the shoes, too. The evening salesperson went from showman to snip in the moment we said we were interested in something smaller than he had in mind.
Clifford was attentive, playing off the cues of what I said, and of what Kim said when I was in the dressing room. He had no idea how welcome the chance to look good was for me.
We never know the state of the people we interact with. We never know how open or desirous they may be for a sincere compliment, a moment of attentiveness, a minute of listening, or a chance to share stories. Assume it will make a difference. It probably will.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Listen to Life is an electronic newsletter that presents lessons for living by listening to life, based on the writing, poetry, photography, presentations and workshops of Dion McInnis. Stories such as these inspired the book, “Listen to Life: Wisdom in Life’s Stories,” published in 2005, available at Barnes and Noble, Amazon and Borders. Dion’s next book will share his views of being father and son.
To subscribe, send an email to: addnewsletter@dionmcinnis.com. To be removed from the subscription list, send email to:unsubscribe@dionmcinnis.comWeb link: www.dionmcinnis.com© 2007 Dion McInnis. All rights reserved.We encourage sharing Listen to Life in whole or in part if copyright and attribution are always included.
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Thursday, January 11, 2007
Inspiration
It's the Seeing, Not the Taking
The Taking, Not the Seeing
© Dion McInnis
Some time ago, I had the pleasure of teaching two photography workshops to high school artists at the Visual Arts Scholastic Event held at the University of Houston-Clear Lake. Each group of 25 students participated in instruction, conversation and photography that reminds us all of what we are really doing as photographers. As part of the contingency of 1200 art students who were there, it was clear that they understand artistic principles. But, had they really learned to see yet?
Beginning each class with a few reminders about photographic principles, including that photography is "light drawing," i.e., no light, no drawing, depth of field, rule of thirds, perspective, angle of view, dimensionality and more, we then got to the heart of the matter: seeing. Then the group headed out to campus to take photographs, either with their own equipment or with the disposable cameras that VASE provided. After about 20 minutes, they returned to discuss what had happened.
"I'd like to know what you saw. And if you start out with 'I took a picture of…' I will cut you off. What did you see?" I challenged each class. The responses were amazing, ranging from the heavily symbolic ("I saw the contrast of animate and inanimate with the plant reflected in the glass of the building") to the curious ("I saw my own reflection in the glass and beyond that, someone walking up the sidewalk that looked sort of like me") to the sublime ("I saw a neat color contrast of the gray stones and the brown bricks"), but all were sincere and full of discovery. We then discussed the various techniques and steps they could utilize to emphasize in photos what it was that they saw.
A healthy question to ask ourselves while taking photographs, and reviewing our work later, is "What did I see?" All our techniques, software, printing options, and so on are merely tools to help us convey what we saw and the feelings/reactions inspired by the what we see. The classes were reminded that at times we shouldn't take photographs, but pause, absorb and then create. As we stand at dusk by a lake, do we grab the shot of colors and reflections, or do we pause to hear the sounds, feel the breeze and sense the fading heat of the day? If so, then we may choose a shutter speed to show the slight motion created by dusk breeze, or saturation options (digital or film choices) to emphasize the hot colors in the scene.
© Dion McInnis
Some time ago, I had the pleasure of teaching two photography workshops to high school artists at the Visual Arts Scholastic Event held at the University of Houston-Clear Lake. Each group of 25 students participated in instruction, conversation and photography that reminds us all of what we are really doing as photographers. As part of the contingency of 1200 art students who were there, it was clear that they understand artistic principles. But, had they really learned to see yet?
Beginning each class with a few reminders about photographic principles, including that photography is "light drawing," i.e., no light, no drawing, depth of field, rule of thirds, perspective, angle of view, dimensionality and more, we then got to the heart of the matter: seeing. Then the group headed out to campus to take photographs, either with their own equipment or with the disposable cameras that VASE provided. After about 20 minutes, they returned to discuss what had happened.
"I'd like to know what you saw. And if you start out with 'I took a picture of…' I will cut you off. What did you see?" I challenged each class. The responses were amazing, ranging from the heavily symbolic ("I saw the contrast of animate and inanimate with the plant reflected in the glass of the building") to the curious ("I saw my own reflection in the glass and beyond that, someone walking up the sidewalk that looked sort of like me") to the sublime ("I saw a neat color contrast of the gray stones and the brown bricks"), but all were sincere and full of discovery. We then discussed the various techniques and steps they could utilize to emphasize in photos what it was that they saw.
A healthy question to ask ourselves while taking photographs, and reviewing our work later, is "What did I see?" All our techniques, software, printing options, and so on are merely tools to help us convey what we saw and the feelings/reactions inspired by the what we see. The classes were reminded that at times we shouldn't take photographs, but pause, absorb and then create. As we stand at dusk by a lake, do we grab the shot of colors and reflections, or do we pause to hear the sounds, feel the breeze and sense the fading heat of the day? If so, then we may choose a shutter speed to show the slight motion created by dusk breeze, or saturation options (digital or film choices) to emphasize the hot colors in the scene.
Have our years of "taking" images dulled our senses, particularly our ability to see? What do we really see? It is, after all, the seeing not the taking.
Show You Who I See in You
A few years ago, I explained my approach to photography to a woman, and she replied, "I would love for you to show me who you see in me."
That comment focused me like a lens.My images of women are created without judgment or expectation....visual access is all I ask, and then through listening to conversation and to silence, I create based on who I see, who I am learning about, and who becomes revealed to me. Not many women seem to have the courage or feel they have the "permission" to be photographed in such a way. I'm not saying that is a bad thing, though it is artistically frustrating for me....but this isn't really about me. It's not easy to , and I understand the many forces that may prevent a woman from being truly seen. "My spouse/significant other wouldn't want me to," is one I've heard plenty of times. I've seen something else over the years.
It seems that women tend to evaluate themselves as if naked in front of a full-length mirror and under bright lights: they WILL find SOMEthing to not like. A wrinkle here, cellulite there, her mother's hips, a scar...something, anything. But invariably, when a woman says I should photograph her sister, mother, niece or friend, she will say, "She is so beautiful. You should see her eyes (or mouth or hands or skin or ....)." The point is, women tend to deny their own beauty because one "flaw" or another, yet they attribute beauty to another in her entirety because of one beautiful aspect.
In my photography, and in my poetry and other writing, I'm trying to show that I see in each woman the many sources of beauty, reality and humanity that She generally only concedes in others.I'm not saying my way is the right way...but it is the only way I really know.
Feel free to check out "God, You're Beautiful: What We Say, We Say to God," at www.dionmcinnis.com/pdf/GYB.pdf
Starting the Blog
OK, so I'm starting this blog now...finally. Topics will range over a variety of topics. There will certainly be stories; check my web site (http://www.dionmcinnis.com/) and you'll see that stories surround all my work. There will be rants, thoughts and musings on photography, writing, being a father and more. And opinions, plenty of opinions.If you want to receive my weekly newsletter, "Listen to Life: Wisdom in Life's Stories," send an email to subscribe@dionmcinnis.com.
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