News, Views & Inspiration
Enjoy this mysterious, expressive drawing by San Francisco artist, Yelena Lark. She has extended her creation by adding her own expressive hands moving to “Carmen Suite, Second Intermezzo.” By Rodion Shchedrin/Georges Bizet.
Update March 2012: this video is no longer available.
Sonya Sophia Illig was dressed in soft layers and had a fairy tale look about her with her flowy long locks. “Find the sore spot about an inch below your collar bone and and inch out and tap it gently. Take a deep breath,” she said, and thirty five people in unison heaved and released a loud AHHHHH.
That was part of an introduction to the Emotional Freedom Technique (“EFT”), which was developed by Gary Craig in the mid-1990s. It involves tapping along the meridians of the body as identified in acupuncture.
Some leaders in the personal development field speak positively of EFT include Dr. Deepak Chopra, Dr. Joseph Mercola of the Optimal Wellness Center, coach and best selling author Cheryl Richardson, developmental biologist Dr. Bruce Lipton, and the co-creator of the enormously successful Chicken Soup for the Soul series, Jack Canfield.
Naysayers of the effectiveness of EFT claim that it may be auto-suggestion at work. Of note then, something is working.
Here’s a video Craig Brockie created that explains EFT in 5 minutes.
You can find out more at the World Tapping Summit that begins February 21st. To find out more about a film being made by Nick Ortner about EFT check it out at The Tapping Solution.
It was at the Maine Photographic Workshops that I “got” it about composition. My vision got a tune-up there.
I had written about The Rule of Three in writing. Well, in composition there’s The Rule of Thirds (explained quite well at betterphoto.com. It works in painting as well as photography. Think of a grid of three across and three down, creating nine rectangles. Place your subject where any of the lines cross. See the grid.
Of note, in 2007 The Maine Photographic Workshops and the International Film and Video Workshops merged to form the Maine Media College.
Rockport reminded me of Louisiana (where I grew up) – big trees and very green, with the added pluses of more hills, ocean and not needing an air conditioner. I rented a bike for the week, and food, room and board was included in the package. I stayed in an old rickety Victorian house and to my surprise, my roommate was a Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist for the San Jose Mercury News.
Through the week we had various assignments. One was to use plastic Holga cameras and think of new ways to take pictures. The teacher encouraged us to smear the camera lens with Vaseline.
The main thing that I learned from the workshop was something simple yet changed the way I composed my photographs. It wasn’t the first time I had heard of the Golden Meanwhich is the ratio 1:1.618034. At the workshop I saw it in practice more than ever before. There is a dynamism in the almost 5/8ths (roughly 8:13 ratio), in framing slightly off-center.