Beyond the Frame 29/
Reasons to be cheerful and expressions of gratitude. Plus new photography zines, competitions and workshops.
On Gratitude
I have found myself thinking about gratitude a lot this week. Not only adding to the long list of things for which I am grateful, but also contemplating the nature of gratitude and how its expression can sometimes take unexpected forms.
For a straightforward, heartfelt expression of gratitude, there can’t be many more profound examples than Albert Camus’ letter to his former teacher, Louis Germaine, written shortly after Camus won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
A spikier but no less appreciative example is the letter sent by Charles Bukowski to publisher John Martin, the man who provided Bukowski with a stipend, allowing him to leave his “soul-sucking job” and become a full-time writer.
The Marginalian
Readers who followed the links above will have landed on pages from The Marginalian, a “one-woman labour of love” that has grown over 17 years into a glittering treasure trove of thoughtful writing.
“The Marginalian is a record of my reading and reckoning with our search for meaning: sometimes through science and philosophy, sometimes through poetry and children’s books, always through the lens of wonder.” — Maria Popova
Every visit to the Marginalian prompts a shift in my thinking or a redirection of my attention. Maria’s heavily referenced articles often lead me to places I didn’t know existed. She has managed to compile such a wide range of sources, always lovingly described and joyfully shared. It really is an impressive achievement.
The Marginalian has many more articles on the theme of gratitude.
I recommend The Marginalian’s mid-week newsletter.
MyNoise
Speaking of impressive labours of love, another much-valued resource that I would hate to live without is the myNoise website and app.
The what now?
I know. It sounds like something you’d want to avoid. And, at first glance, might look like a bog standard ambient noise platform. Trust me, there is nothing ordinary about myNoise!
myNoise is another solo operation, run by Dr. Stéphane Pigeon, a Signal Processing Engineer who has built a vast library of expertly-recorded music and ambient sounds.
What’s so special about it?
It’s best explained with an example. Accompany me, if you will, to the Japanese Garden.
Each soundscape on myNoise is formed of ten tracks. In the Japanese Garden we find a waterfall, bamboo leaves, an Uguisi bird, cicadas, a wind chime, etc. Like a graphic equaliser, the volume of each track can be adjusted up and down, so we can blend the tracks to create a unique sound environment.
Better still, clicking the slider animation button prompts the sliders to gradually and randomly move, adjusting the sounds relative to one another, making them seem closer or farther away, creating the sense of moving through the garden.
But that’s not all!
The iOS and Android app versions of myNoise allow for several soundscapes to be combined, giving a virtually infinite number of possibilities.
There’s a lovely beachside cafe in England, which I don’t get to visit as often as I would like. But I can quickly transport myself to that tranquil location by blending wave tracks from the Irish Coast soundscape with the sound of seagulls from the En Route generator and the low background hum of chatter from the Cafe Restaurant sounds.
A selection of tracks combined from Binaural Beats, Distant Thunder, Sleeping Dragon and Duduk Song have been helping me fall easily into a more deep and restful sleep than I ever had before.
It can take a little time and effort to understand exactly how sounds can be combined and finely tuned to achieve exactly what you want, but with such a rich library available, I’d encourage perseverance.
I’m compelled to give one final endorsement, even at the risk of oversharing. About six years ago, I compiled a myNoise soundscape to conjure up the atmosphere of a very specific Bhutanese temple. I played the audio mix each night as I fell asleep. It included the sound of a Himalayan stream, a gentle breeze rustling leaves in the temple garden, echoes of sacred bells and Buddhist monks chanting in a remote wing of the ancient temple. All these sounds rose and fell independently, creating such an immersive, dynamic environment that, one night, I became enveloped in a dream of such clarity that it felt indistinguishable from reality. I awoke from that dream with an appreciation of something that profoundly shifted the course of my life from that day to this.
Friends will tell you that I am decidedly not a superstitious person (one friend in particular will be making this face 😬 at this point), so I don’t believe there’s any mystery. It’s simply that Dr. Pigeon’s sounds are so expertly made, and the ability to mix and match thousands of his soundscapes allows us to create very specific aural spaces, which, in the right frame of mind, are capable of transporting us to any place, familiar or imagined.
Labours of Love
The Marginalian and myNoise are both described as a “Labour of love” by their creators. And they are surely that. But I think they are also expressions of heartfelt gratitude. Without a deep appreciation for the authors she’s written about for 17 years, Maria Popova would surely long since have moved on to a different project. I suspect the many thousands of hours she’s devoted to The Marginalian define Maria’s expression of gratitude to those writers and illustrators she so admires.
Similarly, Dr. Pigeon (a name I will never tire of sharing) must, I think, be expressing his gratitude for all the sources of audio magic when he shares them on his myNoise platform. What better motivation can there be to tenaciously pursue a labour of love than immense gratitude?
Perhaps you are reminded of a similar labour of love, something that you recommend enthusiastically to friends? If so, I’m keen to hear about it.
If you’re wondering how these things relate to photography, you’re not alone! At this point, neither you nor I know why I’m writing about gratitude in a photography newsletter. So marvel now as I deftly introduce an elegant segue.
Giving Alms
Speaking of gratitude (ahem!), have you heard of the Alms-Giving Ceremony of One Million Monks?
Buddhist monks gather from temples around Thailand and congregate in Bangkok’s City Centre, where devotees kneel in long lines, ready with gifts of food, drink and flowers.
The event hasn’t taken place for a few years, to the best of my knowledge, but it does provide a unique spectacle. Of course there aren’t actually one million monks, more like 12,000, but it can seem like many more.
The event was, I believe, organised by the Dhammakaya organisation, about which there has been some controversy, but I shall nimbly side-step that discussion and share the pictures without further comment.
Another Place Press
Two new zines from Another Place Press reached me this week. Another reason to be grateful.
I am familiar with the sentiment — and the rain-blurred views — of Eugene Schlumberger’s project, Rain.
Sometimes, living in northern England, it seems like I’ve spent most of my life looking at the world through a rain-smeared window. Often, detached from the moment, I feel like I’m behind a pane of glass, watching my life take place. Eventually, the two ideas converged.
Joe Dixey’s Diesel and Dust includes portraits and details from a project exploring the UK’s canal network.
‘Diesel & Dust’ aims to explore the allure and significance of the canal network and its impact on the individuals residing on or beside them. It seeks to highlight the waterways’ appeal as an escape from the rigidity of modern society, offering a transient lifestyle and a closer connection to nature.
Another Place Press zines are lovingly produced, beautifully printed and elegantly simple. For just £8, I think they’re an excellent way to collect printed photographs and to support photographers.
Disclaimer: I’m not affiliated with Another Place Press (or the Marginalian or myNoise). I buy the zines because they showcase photography that might otherwise go unnoticed; they’re made with love, and finding new editions in my mailbox brightens my day.
This upcoming edition, Rye Poplar, by Sam Bush (another win for nominative determinism) looks intriguing.
Rye Poplar is the chronicle of a Black Poplar tree as seen from my bedroom window over the span of roughly three years. The tree sits in the centre of Peckham Rye Park in South London. These pictures document the tree’s silent participation in the comings and goings of the local residents throughout the years and changing seasons. Often acting as a meeting point or place of congregation, it provides a sliver of shade in the summer for those lucky enough to get a spot beneath it first, a perch for the local murder of crows to sit upon and a place to string bunting from during a birthday party.
Upcoming Deadlines
A brief selection of some of the more interesting things that landed on my desk this week:
Travel Grants
The Neal Peirce Foundation is offering grants to US journalists covering “stories about ways to make cities and their metro regions work better for all their people,” which is an invitingly wide brief.
Deadline: 7th October, 2024
Apply Here
Photography Competitions
The annual Travel Photographer of the Year competition has been running for 22 years, during which it has awarded prizes to at least one disarmingly modest and ruggedly handsome photographer. 😊 This year’s categories are:
Faces, People, Cultures
Planet Earth — landscape, climate & water
Travel in Monochrome
Wildlife, Nature & Underwater
Deadline: 6th October, 2024
Apply Here
The Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry is in desperate need of a memorable acronym. They’re also inviting entries that illustrate “the incredible diversity of life supported by forests and trees.” Images that document conservation projects, the relationships between trees and people, and “trees in various environments” are welcome.
This is the sort of contest with a brief that’s wide enough for any of us to enter and where chances of winning a prize are pretty good. Don’t dismiss it out of hand. If you can photograph a tree…
Deadline: 14th October, 2024
Apply Here
Exhibitions
The annual World Press Photo Competition is one of the most prestigious for photojournalists.
The exhibition of winning and commended images visits many countries around the world. If it’s showing near you, I can recommend a visit.
The full World Press Photo calendar is online.
Sergio Larrain in Paris
“Every stone, every staircase, every sailor, every shadow and every bar became an inseparable part of the vocabulary of the great poem he wanted to write.” — Agnès Sire on Sergio Larrain
From now until the 30th of November, 2024, the Magnum Gallery in Paris is providing an excellent excuse to visit France: an exhibition of Sergio Larrain’s early gelatin prints.
I am smitten by Larrain’s photograph of a girl in a café in Valparaiso. I wonder if she ever saw it. I wonder what she would have said if she’d known that 61 years after she smiled at Larrain, people would be queueing up to see her image at a Parisian gallery.
If you are planning to visit Paris, let me know; I might hop on a train and see you there.
If Paris is out of reach, you can enjoy some of Sergio Larrain’s images on the Magnum exhibition page.
Workshop
When you’ve seen the Larrain exhibition in Paris, I recommend catching a flight to Tokyo, where you can join Cristina de Middel’s photography workshop.
Cristina de Middel has a reputation for creating work full of ambiguity, and she is, to understate it, an unconventional photographer.
“Playing with the concept of reality and the photographer’s capacity to visually reinvent the world around them, Cristina will guide you through her unique process, inspiring you to experiment with storytelling and push your work beyond the conventional, blending reality with reinvention.”
So, that’s my suggested itinerary: Brunch in Paris, view the Larrain exhibit, fly to Tokyo to explore the “strange and uncanny,” and use the resulting images to become Travel Photographer of the Year.
My work here is done.
If you’ve reached this point in the newsletter, thank you and well done. My editor is on holiday this week, so responsibility for any incoherent rambling is mine alone.
I’m off to try out a few myNoise mixes with some rather splendid new headphones, for which I am especially grateful.
Wow! Another extraordinary newsletter. So much here to lose myself in. It took me ages to read as I was on the slippery slope to so many online nooks. Can’t wait to further explore MyNoise. It looks great. Oh, and the segue to your photos made me smile. Thanks for all the competition, exhibition, workshop information. I appreciate exposure to the interesting things you have discovered and share.
😬🤣❤️❤️❤️