“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world”

-CS Lewis

“We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls.”

-Mother Theresa

An artist must possess Nature. He must identify himself with her
rhythm, by efforts that will prepare the mastery which will later
enable him to express himself in his own language.
-Henri Matisse

It was scum, ordinary scum on the surface of a lake. (more…)

Kia ora tatou:

I received this email from Mary Jo, who was on the second workshop at Martinborough this year. Mary Jo’s journey is an interesting one (she will tell you if you ask)and in some ways mirrors my own. The clarity of this letter is such that I felt (and she agreed) it should be published. I am sure she would appreciate your comments.

Hi Tony,

I returned from Martinborough visually spinning. Poor Ross. He had to put up with it till I’d acclimatised.

“Look at this. Look at that. Freeman said. I felt this. I became that. I did this and that overcame me.”

He’s a patient man when it comes to creativity. (more…)

Nā te kune te pupuke
Nā te pupuke te hihiri
Nā te hihiri te mahara
Nā te mahara te hinengaro
Nā te hinengaro te manako
Ka hua te wānanga.
From the conception the increase
From the increase the thought
From the thought the remembrance
From the remembrance the consciousness
From the consciousness the desire.
Knowledge became fruitful

Part of a cosmological chant recited by Te Kohuora of Rongoroa

Kia ora tatou:

The eagle-eyed amongst you( incl. the PRFH) will probably have noticed a new category has suddenly emerged, labelled Visual Diary. this is not an indulgence (I hope). Rather it is an attempt to show my working method (is that an oxymoron?) in another way, and to share it online. (more…)

Ko Te Kore (the void, energy, nothingness, potential)

Te Kore-te-whiwhia (the void in which nothing is possessed)

Te Kore-te-rawea (the void in which nothing is felt)

Te Kore-i-ai (the void with nothing in union) Te Kore-te-wiwia (the space without boundaries)Na Te Kore Te Po (from the void the night)Te Po-nui (the great night)

Te Po-roa (the long night)

Te Po-uriuri (the deep night)

Te Po-kerekere (the intense night)

Te Po-tiwhatiwha (the dark night)

Te Po-te-kitea (the night in which nothing is seen)

Te Po-tangotango (the intensely dark night)

Te Po-whawha (the night of feeling)

Te Po-namunamu-ki-taiao (the night of seeking the passage to the world)

Te Po-tahuri-atu (the night of restless turning)

Te Po-tahuri-mai-ki-taiao (the night of turning towards the revealed world)

Ki te Whai-ao (to the glimmer of dawn)
Ki te Ao-marama (to the bright light of day)
Tihei mauri-ora (there is life)

Kia ora tatou:

Not the usual stuff I publish here, but I thought you might find it interesting. I subscribe to a blog called How to Save the World, published by a Canadian scientist, Dave Pollard. It’s often depressing, but never boring. This is a recent post( I hope you have a thing for maths!)

An article in yesterday’s NYT says we’re producing digital information in volumes that will soon exceed our capacity to store it. Something about these huge numbers didn’t ring right. “Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”, TS Eliot once wrote. Do we have the capacity to actually use all this digital exhaust? Is it all worth producing, and is the ease of producing and storing it just making it harder to find the stuff that’s actually useful? And for all the zeroes after these numbers, is this really a lot of information for nearly seven billion humans to be producing? I decided to do some math to find out.

Since we’re speaking in large round numbers, there are about 5 x 10³⁰ bacteria on Earth. Even if these remarkably complex creatures only produced one byte of information each in their lifetimes, their total information production would be 30 billion times the aggregate human output of a mere 161 exabytes. So by comparison with bacteria, we humans are still junior league information producers.

Our bodies are also pretty good information processors compared to computers. A recent study claimed that our bodies process 2MB of information per second (most of it unconscious or subconscious) or 5 x 10¹⁵ bytes of information in a lifetime. So all human bodies currently on the planet process 5 x 10²³ bytes of non-digital information each year, or about 2500 times as much as the digital information which we are collectively producing and which all our machines are collectively processing, storing and distributing. But then our machines are pretty dumb and slow compared to the marvel of the human body.

Even more remarkable, the conscious human mind is only able to absorb an average of 3 bytes of information per second over a lifetime, or 7GB of information in an entire lifetime. That means the 6.7 billion humans brains on the planet are only able to absorb 6 x 10¹⁷ bytes of information in a year, of which at least 95% is sensory or interpersonal (i.e. non-digital), so collectively we are absorbing only 3 x 10¹⁶ bytes of digital information in a year, increasing by our population growth rate of about 2%/year. Meanwhile the amount of digital information we are producing (presumably in the hope others will somehow use it) is currently (according to the NYT article) 161 exabytes or 2 x 10²⁰ bytes of information per year, growing at over 50% per year. So we are already producing 6000 times as much digital information as we’re consuming (1500 times as much if you exclude duplicates/copies of information), and by 2010 we’ll be producing 30,000 times as much digital information as we consume (7000 times as much if you exclude duplicates/copies).

That means at least 1499/1500 (99.93%) of the digital information being produced by us and our machines will never be read or consumed or otherwise used by any human. We are producing and capturing it “just in case”. And an increasing amount of the digital information we produce is designed to be read and used only by other machines.

Just as well I guess. My head’s already full.

( So is mine!)

Kia ora tatou:

The Sitka workshop is now a reality. The dates will be July 6-13.

You can read about it on the University of South-East Alaska’s website. Because I will be working under the umbrella of the Art department, the workshop will take a creative focus. It is described as:

What is the effect of digital photography on how we see and the way we make photographs? In this course, students will look at the impact of the digital camera on process and content and development of seeing and personal style. Through a series of lectures, exercises, discussions and fieldwork, the class will look at how they can use the freedom from technical tyranny offered by digital photography to better make photographs that reflect their unique view of the world. They will be introduced to photographic art-making concepts, including use of a visual diary, and the freedom offered by the RAW format, current and next-generation software. They will be introduced to concepts of idea flow, workflow and conceptual pre-visualisation. Students are encouraged to develop a portfolio of work from the workshop.

To unpack that a little….

The emphasis will be on Seeing and developing personal style. We will look at using digital photography in a creative way, and gettting each of you to consider your own photographic direction and learn to use the example of masters to inform your own photography.

Which won’t stop us getting out there and responding to a huge landscape.

I am currently involved as a beta tester for a new generation of processing software. Think of it as PhotoShop being generation 1, Lightroom/Aperture generation 2, and this new software as generation 3. More about it as I get to grips with it.

If you have the time and inclination I would love to see you there.

The University is able to help with enquiries re accommodation, etc. Just give Jill Hanson a call/email.

Ka kite ano

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
1 Corinthians 13

L’arte nel suo mistero le diverse belleze insiem confonde:
Art, too, with its many mysteries, blends all together
such different beauties.
Recondita Armonia (Tosca)

Each morning I have arisen, usually around 4 am, gone out onto my balcony and stayed there for some minutes in the moonlight, looking across the fields to the mountains to the west. With the evening insects mostly gone, it has been possible to leave the door open, to be at one with the land, with the landscape and to feel the subtleties in the air currents. It seems to me that this is a magic hour, the Time Between, the place where night and day hold hands. (more…)