n_onaga

<p>I totally agree that there is difficulty of communication about spirituality because people have different understandings of words and concepts related to spirituality and spiritual meaning and experiences. But I still think it can have meaning to talk about it because it is part of some people's experience. <br>

It seems to me that people that have no interest or experience in spirituality, do not have those words in the vocabulary, because they don't understand those ideas or experiences, and therefore think discussion about those ideas and experiences are meaningless. But to me it's like how there are many different languages in the world, and each language has its own paradigm of culture and thought. There are always words in a language, that has no precise equivalent in other languages, because it's a cultural concept or phenomena that has no equivalent. The best we can do in that instance, to try to understand that word, is to get a description of the concept and its context, and guess at the best translation. We shouldn't dismiss what people are talking about as their experience, just because we don't have that personally speak that language. To me that is like saying everything that is spoken that is not English is gibberish and has no meaning unless translated into English, and the words that are not translatable should simply be discarded. Yes it's true that it's disconcerting that we won't all understand each other perfectly because of barriers in language (and experience), but it's still worthwhile to be open minded and trying to understand and hear as much about different human experiences as we can. </p>

<p >Hi everyone,</p>

<p >I was the one that posted the initial question, sorry I didn't have a chance to comment in the discussion earlier, I got caught up with various deadlines</p>

<p >There is more that I would want to say, but I'll just start with a few thoughts now:</p>

<p >First, I wanted to say that I am very appreciative of all your responses, they are so thoughtful and contain wonderful insights on the question from so many angles.</p>

<p >Julie H thank you so much for the quotes from Ghost in the Shell, I will look for the book. I am very interested in the idea that photography can show a reality, whether it's physical or abstract, secular or religious.</p>

<p >What we each consider reality, and whether "spirituality" exists or not within that reality, and within a photographer, photograph, or photographic experience or creative energy ~ that seems to be at the crux of some of the discussion?</p>

<p >For people that don't really believe that spirituality exists separately than anything else, it's better not to use the term and to use other words like mind, meaning, purpose. But for people that believe spirituality exists, separately from other things, it's not accurate to conflate it with such words. Does that seem accurate?</p>

<p >As an example, on the early discussion that Matt raised about whether it's more useful to substitute the word "mind" for spiritual -- doesn't it depend on your view world view? For many spiritual philosophies, there is a distinction between “mind” and “spirit”. Both are hard to define and understand, but I know a lot of eastern philosophies (and non-eastern ones) see spirit/soul as a separate part of the self, that is distinguished from the mind. I think a frequent type of categorization of the parts of the self are mind-body-spirit, or heart(emotions/desires)-mind-spirit-body, etc. That a person contains many aspects is a widely utilized concept, for instance in modern psychology (conscious, unconscious, ego, emotions, etc.) I think “spiritual" views add “spirit” or “soul” as an aspect to a person (and the world), while the secular does not. I think those spiritual philosophies usually see a person's will or purpose as often coming from the mind or ego. (Though as Julie said, I think they see spirituality as having the power to intervene to affect someone's will or purpose (or anything.) But they are distinct.) So while some of the discussion is about words, fundamentally we are talking about differences in world view.<br>

I agree "spirituality" is hard to talk about because it is broadly defined and each person understands it a different way. But aren't alot of words and concepts the same? Like "beauty" -- hard to define, differs for each person, runs risks of fundamentalism and imposition on others. IF we choose to talk about art, isn't it necessary to talk about beauty, at least some of the time? If spiritual inspiration, process, or impact is something real within photography, isn't it necessary sometimes to talk about it? Isn't it helpful for us to know that Glenn Gould saw his process as being "other worldly"? And that some listeners felt the music had an other worldly effect. <br>

I think the idea that Alan Zinn raised about rationalists being able to accept more mystical things when it comes in art is totally fascinating. And that a "true" photograph has a quasi-magical component. Some "spiritual" philosophies might consider that one of the functions of art -- the analogy of pointing to the window of light, and breaking it open.</p>

<p >But I totally agree with Alan Klein's comment early in the discussion that defining or broadcasting oneself as being spiritual might come from ego and can be antithetical to spirituality, and I agree that truly “spiritual” people often don't know they are. I guess my personal view is that it's not good to discuss one's spirituality all the time, but it is good and necessary sometimes, and it can be done (to the extent anything can be done), without alot of ego. If “spirituality” exists, I personally think everything and everyone is “spiritual”, but some people are more oriented to recognizing that aspect in themselves, observing its operation, nurturing it. They may or may not like to discuss it with others. The same way everyone has some kind of philosophical paradigm within which they define meaning and operate, but some people like to think and talk about it, some people like to think about it but not talk about it, some people know it's there but don't want to think about it consciously, and some people don't think it exists at all.</p>

<p >I think words are generally an imperfect approximation of what we mean, and it's a very imperfect medium of communication, but it's still worthwhile, at least sometimes, to share and exchange our views on things. That's one of the functions that art can serve, to express, communicate and to raise discussion about our views of reality, and our range of human experience? I've personally found all of your comments and discussion have been extremely helpful and has opened up alot more depth and space for me to explore, thank you, and I am sure I will reflect on them more over time. I look forward to any other thoughts and discussion. </p>

<p > </p>

<p > </p>

<p > </p>

<p > </p>

<p > </p>

<p > </p>

<p>I am interested about what people think about the relationship between photography and spirituality. Do you think there is a relationship generally, and/or do you think your photography has such a relationship?<br>

I feel like there are a significant number of photographers who articulate a relationship with spirituality, such as feeling a spiritual motivation or purpose to photograph, feeling that spiritual practice impacts their photographic technique, or feeling the source of their photography is spiritual (for instance, the photographs come to them from a spiritual source.) I've also seen a few books about photography itself as a spiritual practice (for instance, the practice of seeing and the world with more care, which is required for photography, can be a contemplative practice). I have a feeling that there are more photographers out there that don't normally talk openly about their relationship with spirituality.<br>

I'm also interested in why this topic seems to be under-discussed. Is it because of contemporary art trends (as well as world trends) devalued such ideas? I wonder for instance, whether there was more discussion on this topic when Minor White was a prominent figure. And whether some views that are critical of his work and his significance is related to the devaluation of the idea that photography does/should have a relationship with spirituality?</p>

Great!

So for the Eye One Display 2, which I think is a colorimeter (it's to measure the light/colors

in a computer monitor), then I put it on table during the calibration of the instrument (ie

the Eye One Display 2 itself), right? I read in some places to put it on a black surface but

I'm assuming you mean the same thing - just calibrate it with absence of light

That helps alot, thank you!

Hello!

It's nice to have company in trying to figure this out,

If you do the Advanced, there is a section for you to calibrate the device

Give it a try and tell me what you think

Hello!

I'm embarassed to say that i bought an Eye One Display 2 a few months ago, and I still can't figure out

some basic things

The tutorial says to calibrate the device itself, but i was confused about if i am supposed to put it on a

black surface. The instructions says to put the plastic cover on it and says nothing about a black surface,

and the accompanying drawing looks like the person is just holding it instead of putting it on a surface...

I'm not even sure if the instructions and the tutorial actually were written specifically for the Eye One

Display 2, it might have been for an older version of it...

can anyone give me any information on this?

thank you!

oh great, thank you very much Erik! That answers my questions, thank you

I can adjust the brightness with buttons on the keyboard, and I'm happy I don't have to worry about the rest!

Thank you!

Thank you Richard!

That's very helpful, but um, how do I adjust the Contrast for the monitor?

I did go through the tutorial but I still couldn't figure out how to disable/unstill Adobe Gamma and whatever other profiling programs, and how to manually adjust contrast and RGB settings...

Hello,

I just bought a Gretagmacbeth Eye-One Display 2 for my iBook G4 (Mac OS X), but

am a beginner at this and am rather confused about how to use it...

Can anyone give me some pointers, or refer me to a previous message or tutorial

on how to do it? I have tried to search but have not found anything that was

understandable to me

In particular, I am confused about how I go about disabling or uninstalling

Adobe Gamma. I am also confused about whether there are other profiling systems

that are already in my iBook that I need to disable, and how I find them - does

anyone know what they are, and how I disable/uninstall them?

Also, I am also confused about whether the Gretagmacbeth Eye-One Display 2 works

with my laptop at all, because at some point when I was trying to run it, it

said that my monitor is not supported by Eye-One Match... I am confused as to

this is only with regard to the "pushbutton" calibration, or if it just doesn't

work at all

If it's just with regard to pushbutton calibration, then what should I do? Do I

manually adjust the monitor settings? How do I do that? I can see there are

manual controls for the brightness, but I have not figured out how to manually

change the contrast, or the RGB settings...

So yeah, to sum it up, basically I have no idea how to use it is the problem...

Any help would be appreciated,

thank you!