Latency in Dicontinuance
Saturday, November 09, 2019
To be able
to previsualize takes a little talent. Certainly takes a little talent. Certainly
those photographers who can see through surfaces to the truths within can learn
to previsualize freely and spontaneously.
Minor White
– Zone System Manual
Because I
am product of that former century I learned to use the Ansel Adams system of
photography to the extreme point of testing all the f-stops of the cameras that
I then owned for accuracy or variance.
With film
cameras unless you shot with some sort of Polaroid the image taken was imbedded
in the negative or slide waiting to be developed. This was called the latent
image.
If you were
not an efficient photographer it was always pleasant to find out after
developing your film commercially or in your home darkroom that the pictures
had “turned out”. It was seen as a miracle.
To me the
miracle is that the image not yet seen that has a tremendous power to surprise
and please. It is sort of like a Platonic essence, an idea in our head when we
press that shutter (this is recapitulation of Minor White’s previsualization )
that from the world of ideas, perfection, becomes not quite so in our physical
reality.
This wonderful
exercise is lost with a digital camera in which we shoot and our action at
looking at the image just shot is a sort of photographic interruptus. And to
make it all worse sometimes our flow (and flow of inspiration) is ground down
by having to show the image to our subject for some sort of approval.
On the
other hand, particularly with those film cameras and when combined with the now
film in discontinuance (a Kodak term!), that is Kodak B+W Infrared Film there
was another element of wonderful uncertainty. I miss that.
November was finishing when I found you
Friday, November 08, 2019
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| Arisaema ringens & Acer japonicum 10 November 2019 |
Nuestro
mundo global del momento parece ser más chico pero aún existe ese Ecuador. Mis
navidades de niño eran durante el intenso calor del verano porteño. Como mi
papá era inglés y mi mamá filipina educada en los Estados Unidos ellos
celebraban esa navidad con el arbolito y Santa Claus me dejaba regalitos debajo
de un pinito rociado con nieve artificial Noma.
Our present global
world seems to be smaller but we still have that defining equator. As a boy my
Buenos Aires Christmases happened during the intense summer heat. Because my
father was English and my Filipina mother had been educated in the United
States we celebrated Christmas with the tree sprayed with Noma artificial snow.
My gifts appeared under that tree.
Al estar
leyendo las poesías de Emily Dickinson he notado que ha escrito por lo menos
dos en donde menciona el mes de noviembre. Y muy interesante es esta carta que
encontré que ella escribió a su hermana Elizabeth.
When I was reading the
poems of Emily Dickinson (at least once or twice a week) I have found that she
mentions November at least twice. I found an interesting letter to her sister
Elizabeth in which that month is mentioned:
To Mrs. J.G. Holland
From ED
early November 1865
Dear Sister,
Father called to say that our steelyard was fraudulent,
exceeding by an ounce the rates of honest men. He had been selling oats. I
cannot stop smiling, though it is hours since,that even our steelyard will not
tell the truth.
Besides wiping the dishes for Margaret, I wash them now,
while she becomes Mrs. Lawler, vicarious papa to four previous babes. Must she
not be an adequate bride?
I winced at her loss, because I was in the habit of her,
and even a new rolling-pin has an embarrassing element, but to all except
anguish, the mind soon adjusts.
It is also November. The noons are more laconic and the
sundowns sterner, and Gibraltar lights make the village foreign. November
always seemed to be the Norway of the year. [Susan] is still with the sister
who put her child in an ice nest last Monday forenoon. The redoubtable God! I
notice where Death has been introduced, he frequently calls, making it
desirable to forestall hid advances.
It is hard to be told by the papers that a friend is
failing, not even know where the water lies. Incidentally, only, that he comes
to land. Is there no voice for these? Where is Love today?
Tell the dear Doctor we mention him with a foreign
accent, party already to transactions spacious and untold. Nor have we omitted
to breathe shorter for our little sister. Sharper than dying is the death for
the dying's sake.
News of these would comfort, when convenient or possible.
Emily.
Sufrí un
leve shock al buscar y encontrar poesías relacionadas con ese mes en mi libro
de Alfonsina Storni. Su noviembre es diferente. Es sobre un verano que se
viene.
El
ensueño:
I
Acababa
noviembre cuando te encontré. El cielo estaba azul y los árboles muy verdes. Yo
había dormitado largamente, cansada de esperarte, creyendo que no llegarías
jamás. Decía a todos: mirad mi pecho, ¿veis?, mi corazón está lívido, muerto,
rígido. Y hoy, digo: mirad mi pecho: mi corazón está rojo, jugoso, maravillado.
INovember was finishing when I found you. The sky was blue and the trees were very green. I had been slumbering for long, tired of waiting for you, thinking you would never return. I told everybody: Look at my breast, do you see?, my heart is livid, dead, rigid. And today I say. look at my breast: my heart is red, juicy and marveled. (my translation)
More- Más - Alfonsina Storni
More Emily Dickison:
