As a beginner , what should my topic be if I I need to solve my mysteries of life?

[stephen_asprey2]

<p>I'm nearly 60. I have lived a life of adventure in many countries, known success and failure, sickness and health, made and lost friends, been married and divorced, been rich and poor, brought three children into successful adulthood, once believed in God and now don't, held each of my parents in my arms as they died, have lost a child at 3 months, have also helped bury the child of a good friend, have witnessed the suicide of another good friend, and I can give you my insight into the mysteries of life in terms of a photographic bent.</p>

<p>One thing that life is not, is predictable. Nor is it altogether happy. One can only plan to a very limited extent. So many of the things that influence us or set our way forward are done so at the whim of others. I also firmly believe that this is the only life that we know for sure we will have, so we must live every day to the fullest and try our best before resting our heads on the pillow at the end of the day.</p>

<p>This journey, starting naked when born with nothing, also ends naked, with nothing. But the richness of our experiences, observations, people we meet, can all be recorded in the images created by the photographer in us. Just as every sight, sound, taste, smell is recorded in our memory for our entire lives, Photograpy can also record these for others to enjoy.</p>

[michaellinder]

<p>The answer to THE BIG QUESTION is that THERE IS NO BIG ANSWER. To paraphrase comments that colleagues already have posted, just work up the guts to start the journey. Enjoy the ride; the destination is unimportant.</p>

[john_liberty]

<p>Don't sweat the small stuff. And it's all small stuff.</p>

[mrraz]

<p>"42"</p>

[manuel barrera houston,]

<p>You have to begin with the assumption that there is a higher being who created you (us humans) and that that higher being had a purpose for us. If you don't begin with that assumption then we have the same reason to exist as any other living matter. So if you can figure out the mind of the Creator you have the answers you seek. Enjoy life, it is short.</p>

[jtk]

<p>We DO have the "same reason to exist as any other living matter."</p>

<p>If a "Creator" existed and wanted us to accept a "reason to exist", he'd have provided coherent explanations, easily understood by illiterates who live where religious marketers can't profit. In fact, those illiterates do generally understand why they exist if they live remotely enough.</p>

<p>I won't deny that He (?) might be evil or nuts, but in that case "His" existence perpetuates both the Mosaic superstitions and and their flip side (Nazis, Romans etc). One might suspect that the point of that dynamic would be to generate agony...not a new idea (ask Jesus about that). </p>

<p>My understanding is that if there's a "Creator" it's happy with the current state of affairs and doesn't "care" enough to issue coherent operating instructions. The Bible, for instance, is great reading but in the New Testament it becomes psychedelic, wildly internally contradictory...because, IMO, the "church" warped John's writing to fit its needs.</p>

<p>The Gospels work OK if they're read selectively, but they're modified spins on one writer... if you read them carefully you may conclude that they've been "revised" specifically to make Jesus himself (Himself) issue contradictory messages. IMO there was a Jesus, but he didn't bother to invent a new religion...he specifically said that, and somehow that's been allowed to survive in print.</p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<blockquote>

<p>"As a beginner , what should my topic be if I I need to solve my mysteries of life?"</p>

</blockquote>

<p>In late midnight hours I've been listening to Duma Key ( Stephen King ) as an audiobook. Creativity - and from where it can come from - plays a central role in this novel. Some quotes from it that I've found intriguing regarding such notions as *creativity* and *mysteries of life* :</p>

<p> " Remember that the truth is in the details. No matter how you see the world or what style it imposes on your work as an artist, the truth is in the details. Of course the devil's there, too--everyone says so--but maybe truth and the devil are words for the same thing. It could be you know. "</p>

<p> " How do we remember to remember? That's a question I've asked myself often since my time on Duma Key, often in the small hours of the morning, looking up into the absence of light, remembering absent friends. Sometimes in those little hours I think about the horizon. You have to establish the horizon. You have to mark the white. A simple enough act, you might say, but any act that re-makes the world is heroic. Or so I've come to believe." ~~as stated by Edgar in 'Duma Key'</p>

<p>Just begin with the horizon.</p>

[waltz]

<p>Blah, blah, blah.</p>

<p>Do.</p>

<p>Be.</p>

<p>Do be do be do.</p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<p> Paraphrasing or quoting Sinatra doesn't make it any less blahblahblah. He was all about blahblahblah and the do-be-do-be-do behind the "mystery" of " love " instead of going to the direct source which is a clear cut animal driven instinct for sex in order to survive. To be, to be, to be or not to be. </p>

[waltz]

<p>All right, you caught me. </p>

<p>What I was really trying to say with the "blah,blah,blah", was that all the advice I saw was tangential to the question. If you want to explore a subject photographically, just do it. Be in the question as you're engaged in the activity, and you may be amazed at the results. </p>

<p>I lost my Dad almost four years ago now, and it tore the family apart. He was always "the law", keeping everyone in check through sheer force of will. With that gone, all hell broke loose. Decades-old emotions came roaring to the surface, and most of us have barely spoken since. I'm not a terribly verbal person, so I decided to try to process it through my photography. Some of the resulting photos are amazing to me in their clarity of vision: they describe exactly what I was going through. I doubt others would appreciate them, and I certainly have no intention of exhibiting them, but to me they speak volumes.</p>

<p>The Sinatra bit was just a bonus to keep it light ;-)</p>

[greg_peterson3]

<blockquote>

<p>... what should my topic be if I I need to solve my mysteries of life?</p>

</blockquote>

<p><br />The early work of Miles Davis.</p>

[lovcom_photo]

<p>The Number 42. That is all you need to know.</p>

[dried_squid]

<p>(The Photographer sitting before the computer, with an image file open in Photoshop. Under his right hand is the mouse, immobile. In his left hand, an 8 x 10 color print. The print in hand and on the display are the same image. Sitting next to him, the Philosopher sits quietly.)<br /> The Photographer: (Proudly) This is my favorite capture.<br /> The Philosopher: But which one is real?</p>

<p>More seriously, perhaps photography is more like religion, as in "Question answered; truth found." While philosophy, like science, is always seeking. As in Charles Sanders Peirce's "Truth is asymptotic."</p>

[kludge]

<p>Miles Davis already answered the mysteries of life raised in his early work. The answers are in his later work. Kind of Blue phrased the question; Bitches Brew gave form to the answer; Agharta and Phaedra were his best answers.</p>

[greg_peterson3]

<p>Dave,</p>

<p> I agree with you about Miles' later work, but the poster said that he was a beginner and I didn't want him to jump in over his head. Coltrane should be considered as well.<br>

-Greg</p>

 

[Allen Herbert]

<p>"If a "Creator" existed and wanted us to accept a "reason to exist", he'd have provided coherent explanations, easily understood by illiterates "<br>

<br>

It's important to understand a given subject before you spout on about it. Most scholars understand than the old bloke upstairs, after listening to the cries and moans of humanity, gave them free will. In other words do what you want and get on with it. <br>

<br>

There, how simple is that to understand.<br>

<br>

Of course many religions will give you chapter and verse how to live; easily understandable by the most illiterate, John. </p>

 

[sobeystudio]

<p>Start learning photography,<em> ANY</em> subject- it will help shed some light on (no pun intended) many things that will, when you engage yourself with them, will support a strong philisophical perspective, for example: math, logic, chaos, semiotics and language, physics, quantum mechanics, randomness, nature vs. manmade, time, form, aesthetic, color, work ethic, freedom, humanity, networks, systems, perspective............ </p>

[bmm]

<p>Phylo - what a surprise that your mind went to Duma Key... as I've come back to this thread, the book has crossed my mind as well (I read it while in Thailand last year, on a day of monsoonal rain when it was impossible to go outside). Brilliant book in its genre.</p>

<p>The story is a good warning that the quest for the "mysteries of life" may be a very dangerous one, and that there is no guarantee that the revealed truth will be some serene moment of enlightened bliss. In fact there is just as much chance that it might be absolutely inconteplatably horrible.</p>

<p>Anyway that aside, just a wry grin from me that someone else's brain found the same reference as mine did, along with the same questioning of the (recklessly) assumed positive outcome of such searches for meaning...</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>Why solve the mystery of life? That would take all the fun out of living it.<br>

So I rather just live it, stay awake, and ponder every now and then about what happens, the good and the bad. And try to absorb those lessons to be a better person for the remainder of the mystery trip until that inevitably ends. As said above somewhere, it's the journey that matters.</p>

<p>And photography is just one of the best ways to learn to really look at people, nature, things and try to translate what you see into something you can show to others. A vision on the world maybe, but hardly an answer.</p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<p>Bernard, yes, that's quite the coincidence for us to almost simultaneously consider the Duma Key novel in the context of this thread. I haven't finished it yet, I'm at the art gallery opening and it looks like things are going to get a bit more "fleshy" any time now.</p>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>

<p>So I rather just live it, stay awake, and ponder every now and then about what happens, the good and the bad.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p> Yes, or like Wireman would say : " Do the day and let the day do you muchacho. "</p>

[mt4x4]

<p>The answer is "42".</p>

[david j.lee]

<p>all you do is for you only. all your photographs help you find yourself. all your work talks to you and helps you understand who you are. ( and if somebody else likes it, bad luck. ( Jeanloup Seiff) )<br>

as a beginner you only need your camera.</p>

[ddrake]

<p>Wow!<br>

As a PhD student, just recently completing the philosophy "tooling" courses, I was very interested in this category and impressed by the many deep thinkers who have posted responses.<br>

For many of us, photography is an expression of something else....its our ability to give others something that only we can see and create for them. Every snap of the shutter we think "maybe that one will be the one"...the "one" for what? The one that will take others to the place where we are....where only us, as shutterbugs live every day. When we look around us, we see the shots that others only appreciate superfically, not understanding the way the eye transmitts the impact of our visual environment to our thoughts, knowledge, and feelings.<br>

The question you ask is not answerable, its really up to you. It depends on your own viewpoint (paradigm) of the world. If you express your art phenomenologically for example, you might be content with taking photos of anything that corresponds to the "lived experience" of life. This might be pictures of events, smiles, frowns, trashcans, fire pulls, or anything that is part of our life. If on the other hand you are more of a empiricist/positivist then maybe you care more about objectives and outcomes (ie my subjects want a picture of a house with snow so that is what they will get...physics says that at this light an f-stop of X and a SP of X will produce the proper shot given that there is a house and there is also snow...click). I would imagine that most people on this forum (being artist) will side with the viewpoint of capturing life as its meaningful to us regardless of, or in balance with the science of photography, and somehow hoping that it will also be meaningful to others, now....and many years from now.<br>

Good luck<br>

Dan</p>

[mindfulnomad]

<p>Philosophy for beginners.<br>

3 Rules<br>

1)Paradox: Life's a mystery, don't waste time trying to figure it out.<br>

2)Humor: Keep a sense of humor, especially about yourself.<br>

3)Change: Know that nothing stays the same.</p>

<p>Find the love in what you do.<br>

Life isn't a destination, but a journey, a process.<br>

Life doesn't stop, its always moving, a series of moments.<br>

Find what you love and pursue it.<br>

Quote "Socrates, Peaceful Warrior"<br>

<br /> Cheerio!</p>

[jtk]

<p><strong>Daniel Drake</strong> said interesting things, above... his idea that, at 66, has echoed in my thinking about life and photography for the past few years is:<br>

<em>"....its our ability to give others something that only we can see and create for them." </em><br>

<em></em> <br>

That idea is expanded on by Kitterege, in a non-photo context, "The Nature of Generosity" ...I think Generosity is one of the elements that's essential to "art." <br>

<a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=9780679756873">http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=9780679756873</a><br>

<a href="http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/review?oid=oid%3A80662">http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/review?oid=oid%3A80662</a></p>