VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): "The important thing," said French naturalist
Charles DuBois, "is to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become."
Did he really mean *at any moment*? Like while we're in a convenience store buying beer? While we're lying in bed ready for sleep and reviewing the events of the day? While we're adrift in apathetic melancholy, watching too much TV and neglecting our friends?
At ANY moment?!
I say yes. At all times and in all places, Virgo--especially this week--be ready to sacrifice what you are for what you could become.
— Rob Bresny
I can't tell you how much the above has been on my mind.
I really love this photo. It is really subtle and even caught me by surprise....a really sharp depth of focus. And prolly, because I'm familiar with buddhism, with rupas, with mudras, with this kind of accoutrement... it really hits home in an ahhhh lovely way.
But not so much with the flickr community, who didn't leave a single comment!
I've been on Flickr now for three years and have lived terms of being a newbie and old skool and popular and just trying to break in. Sometimes the weird "burden" of producing a "hit photo" has weighed on me no matter how hard I tried to say "nuh-uh no it doesn't." So there is a part of me that says, "okay. alright. no comments" and another part of me that kinda sorta quietly freaks out and thinks I better put up something else really quick.
No matter. I, personally, really like it. So I think I'm going to try to ride out the storm of needing to please and be constantly validated. :)
3 comments:
i can relate so well right now with all that you've said. but you know what i love about those pictures that no one really notices but are personal favorites... i have one contact who always comments on them. she always picks up on the hidden jewels, it's enough for me!
can you send her my way? :)
i think there is a natural arc to being a flickr member. the newness, then the addiction, the friendships, the compulsion....
when i was still newish there was a NYT writer around wanting to do a story about "image overload." i thought, "ha! never!" i so wish she'd write that article now. :)
With regards the renewal of self or perhaps more precisely the denial of self, I have been trying an experiment for four months now. I wondered what would happen if I sacrificed my identity.
Here is what I have tried. I removed myself from the groups I was popular in. I culled my contact list. I post very few photos and most importantly I change my screen name almost every other week, and I have done this to see if just one of my photos would pop to the surface as a good photo. It has not happened yet, and I don't think it will.
And why is this?
Flickr it would seem, is a place where you have to make your name a brand. Brock,shhexycorin, Matt are perhaps more famous for the things they say than for the photos they take. If you only let your photos speak for you, then it is all about exposure in the right places to the right people. That is the way of the world. It is about networking and dare I say it manipulation.
Here is what I have found out. It is startlingly obvious, and I really I should not have embarked on this foolish experiment in order to prove something to myself that I already knew intuatively.
Without a brand image or strong identity your photos become a single raindrop in an ocean of photographs. Without contacts and a belonging to community, you fade from existance. The removal of identity, and a denial of self means you slip into Flickr oblivion.
Then you get to ask youfself the really interesting question. Is self worth, honour and esteem dependant on the assurances of others, or is it something that you intrinsicaly know deep down about yourself, regardless of what anyone else has to say.
If you are to sacrifice yourself make sure the sacrifice you make leads to something better.
You will know it before you even do it.
Rob Harper (AKA Hyperbob)
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