Serendipity - The Happy Accident!

Dictionary.com defines serendipity as “an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident.” That’s a bit dull for my tastes. Instead, I prefer the UrbanDictionary.com definition: “a very good coincidence, often leading to something really awesome.”

So, with that second definition in mind, I’d like to briefly explore the idea of serendipity – happy accidents – in my photography. It seems to me that there are two different kinds of happy accidents in photography: the images you just happen to find while wandering around, and the images that contain an element that you aren’t aware of until you examine them later. Both sorts of serendipitous images add to the ‘Woohoo Factor’ in my photography.

Let’s start with the images you come across while just wandering. I think these are my favourite images because they reward the observant, expectant eye. And I’ve found that the more I expect to find the unexpected in my daily wanderings, the more I’m rewarded with awesome images. The more you do it, the better you get, not unlike Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 + hour rule to become really proficient at something. Of course, it helps if you always have your camera with you!

Here are some examples. The first is a display in the men’s clothing department at a Hudson’s Bay store in Toronto. I had taken a shortcut through The Bay to get to the subway and came across this marvellous set of mannequins. Wasn’t looking for it, but there it was. What a gift!

Then there was the day I walked across Nathan Phillips Square in front of Toronto’s City Hall. There was this elegantly dressed woman on her cell phone sitting on a bench. Pure poetry.

Next, on a visit to Belleville’s Value Village, a collection of naked Ken dolls appeared unexpectedly. Not something you deliberately set out to find.

And then there’s the front end of my friend’s Audi reflected in the afternoon light of his carport. Beauty!

The second kind of serendipitous image features an element you didn’t know about when you recorded it – a surprise that adds a bit of OMG to the ‘Woohoo Factor’.

Consider this image that I recorded yesterday in Toronto on my way back to Union Station from Ripley’s Aquarium. While walking through the condo canyon, I spotted a building on the south side of the street attractively reflected in the midday light of a building on the north side. What I didn’t see until I got home was the phallic flourish. Normally, I notice this sort of thing right away… 

Then, there’s this photo of Canada Geese on the Moira River in Belleville. I didn’t notice until later that at the instant I recorded the image, a rogue seagull tried to swoop through.

Next is an image I recorded of the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks in Belleville using my old Canon PowerShot camera with the digital telephoto lens cranked up to maximum. It was only afterwards that I noticed the boy crossing the tracks. His presence helps transform the image from ho-hum to intriguing.

Finally, there’s my favourite serendipitous happy accident: at last June’s Quinte International Air Show at Canadian Forces Base Trenton, I was recording images of the huge Royal Canadian Air Force CC-177 Globemaster. What I didn’t realize was that a random seagull had inserted itself into one of the images – and had managed to stay in focus while consigning the Globemaster to background fuzziness. Gotta love those seagulls, not to mention my very clever Canon 70D camera!

In summary, let me quote the American playwright Katori Hall: “Serendipity always rewards the prepared.” Which essentially means keep your eyes open and your camera ready.

Please check out my Facebook page for more of my photographs.

Until next time.

Deep Seeing

Australia and Australians hold a special fascination for me, to the point that three years ago I had the five stars of the Southern Cross constellation, which also appear on the Australian flag, tattooed on my right forearm. In the early 1970s, I taught in Australia and was immediately smitten by the spirit of that amazing country. What a privilege it has been to return as often as my bank account has allowed. In fact, Bill and I have just booked our flights to Australia next April, when we plan to spend the month exploring Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania.

Over the years, my appreciation of the Aboriginal Australian culture has grown and evolved. That 50,000-year-old culture, the oldest continuous culture on earth, is filled with wisdom, sophistication, resilience, and more than its share of tragedy. Similar to the First Nations people of Canada, the Australian Aborigines have suffered mightily since the arrival of the Europeans. But – again, similar to what is happening in Canada – there is a resurgence of Aboriginal culture that has much to teach the other people who now call Australia home.

My photography has been influenced by an emerging understanding of Aboriginal spirituality. In putting these thoughts into words for the first time, however, I am trying not to appropriate a cultural tradition that is not my own.

Let me direct you to an excellent Radio Australia program, The Spirit of Things, hosted by the Canadian-born Rachael Kohn. Each week, Dr. Kohn explores issues of spirituality and religion; her podcast is appointment listening for me. Her July 31 program, “Listening to the Land”, presented an elegant overview of the Aboriginal concept of Dadirri – deep listening to the land. Her interview with the highly respected Aboriginal elder and spiritual teacher Miriam Rose Ungunmerr Baumann, AO, is a marvel of depth, humility, and power. One of Dr. Kohn’s other guests, Dr. David Tacey, is Professor Emeritus at La Trobe University in Melbourne and an expert in Jungian spirituality. I commend to you his book Edge of the Sacred: Jung, Psyche, Earth (Daimon Verlag, 2009), a reflection on Aboriginal Australian spirituality. Both of these people speak movingly about the importance of deep listening to our understandings of the earth and ourselves. As my late husband, Spencer Brennan – himself a practitioner of deep listening – used to say, “I will listen you into existence.” All of these people believe in the inherent power of listening to heal the planet and its wounded inhabitants.

Let me segue to how these currents are influencing my photography: if deep listening can help heal the planet, then so can deep seeing. Eyes and cameras can see truths and nuance beyond glib and facile. I find the concept of deep seeing – and I am not the first to use this phrase – to be tremendously exciting. And, to be honest, I’m not sure what it means or where it will take my camera and me. Similar to deep listening, it demands humility and patience. It guides and nudges my eye beyond complacency. It helps me really see.

And so I shall.

The photos below help me understand deep seeing. I offer them to you not as pompous doorways to pseudo-profundity, but as the gentlest, most unassuming glimpses into other ways of seeing. I hope you enjoy them. Your feedback, as always, is welcome. Please feel free to check out my regular Facebook postings.

Until next time.

Shadows in our bedroom.

Bridge over the Bay of Quinte, Belleville.

Bottle in the window of Rose Haven Yarn, Picton.

Belleville's first snowstorm, November, 2014.

Aircraft trails.

Bunker-like apartments in Belleville.

Star lily detail.

Why I Don't "Take" Photographs.

“You don’t take a photograph – you ask quietly to borrow it.”

(Anonymous, perhaps from a Pentax camera ad)

At my recent Contemplative Photography workshop, part of this year’s annual Quaker Gathering in Minnesota, there was much discussion about the phrase, “taking a photo,” and its siblings, “shooting a photo” and “capturing a photo”. To some people, this discussion must seem to be a silly waste of time or a bizarre example of political correctness.

However, in a Quaker context, especially in light of the Peace Testimony that has animated the Religious Society of Friends (aka Quakers) for over 350 years, the discussion was more than just words games – it went to the heart of our calling as both Quakers and photographers.

Before continuing, I have to add an *asterisk* to this posting. I have been a Quaker for over forty years. I love Quaker culture, rituals, and eccentricities. It is an enormously varied faith traidtion, ranging from atheist Quakers at one end of the spectrum to fundamentalist Quakers at the other end. Some Quakers call themselves Christians; others do not. There are active groups of Jewish Quakers, Buddhist Quakers, and Muslim Quakers. There are Quakers who believe in the literal truth of the Bible and those who see the Bible as an inspired, albeit flawed, account of human experience. Some Quakers worship in silence, while others have a minister. There are about 300,000 Quakers in the world today, the largest single group being in Africa. In the 19^th century, there were more Quakers in Prince Edward County than there are now in all of Canada.

And, dear reader, lest you think that being a Quaker anoints me with the glow of sainthood, let me assure you that I am not a poster boy for Quakerism – I rarely attend Quaker services and have often questioned whether I am still a Quaker. But that’s a topic for another day and another forum. Suffice to say for now that I consider myself a cultural Quaker, to borrow the approach of my secular Jewish friends. And, yes, it’s complicated. Perhaps my husband, Bill, has the best approach – he considers himself a small ‘q’ quaker!

But back to the discussion about “shooting photographs”: as a group of Quaker photographers, we felt uncomfortable with the concept of “shooting”, “taking”, or “capturing” photographs. In each of those verbs, there is an implicit act of appropriation, almost aggression. The group recognized that these terms are firmly entrenched in the world of photography and in our own speech patterns. Nonetheless, we determined that for at least the duration of the workshop, we would change our language.

We would record photographs, not take them.

And such a difference that one small change makes – for me, it reframes the entire experience of photography. It turns it into a respectful, two-way dialogue.

With these thoughts in mind, I was excited to discover the quotation at the beginning of this posting: “You don’t take a photograph, you ask quietly to borrow it.” What a perfect summary of my new approach! I’d love to give credit to the person who first wrote these words, but they are cloaked in anonymity, with some websites claiming they were used in a Pentax advertising campaign.

I could go on for hours about this topic, but I don’t want to test your patience, dear reader. If you have any thoughts or feedback, please post them. In the meantime, I will leave you with some photographs that I recorded in 2014 and 2015. They are all images that I quietly asked to borrow. At least I think I did. Enjoy.

Lawn sculpture on Herchimer Avenue, Belleville

Garden grasses on Bridge Street East, Belleville

Baked potatoes ready for the oven at Bib's Meats in Belleville

Bridge pylons on the Bay Bridge leading to Prince Edward County from Belleville

A co-operative bee in the east end of Belleville

Chinese lanterns in the east end Belleville

A wavy swing on Queen Street, Belleville

Roof detail of the VIA Rail Station in St. Mary's, Ontario