Morning Practice

[michael]

Trying fails. Photography for me is a Zen practice. Trying usually produces rubbish.

Michael

[Rob C]

Trying fails. Photography for me is a Zen practice. Trying usually produces rubbish.

Michael

Nothing more true ever written. That was the trouble with trying to shoot stock: it seldom reached any seriously good level. The difference between doing it and shooting to assignment was in the psyche: the assignment ticked all the right ego/desire boxes I could imagine and, thus, provided lots of 'accidental' stock from the surplus commissioned stuff.

Frankly, I believe its the loss of commissioned work that creates my bubble of sloth: nothing photographic seems worth the bother...

However, one has to pass the time somehow, and there could be worse ways, I guess.

I watched a docu on big wave surfers last night. Those people have a death wish that's sometimes granted. I can understand doing it if the runout is onto a beautiful sandy beach with a tiny bar and fresh seafood on the go, but to do it knowing that you have a pile of friggin' rocks waiting for you is strange, to say the least.

Rob C

[Paulo Bizarro]

But are they worth a hill of beans?

Rob C

I do not wish to enter the field of politics and economics discussion, but ss a Portuguese (and proudly so), I resent the PIGS acronym. There are many people suffering in these countries, and going through very difficult times with the increasing unemployment and austerity measures.

All the best,
Paulo Bizarro

[RSL]

Trying fails. Photography for me is a Zen practice. Trying usually produces rubbish.

Okay, Michael, wrong term. By "try" I mean the "be there" part of "f/8 and be there." I agree that successful photography is a Zen practice. "Try" implies thinking, and thinking at the decisive moment produces trash. And to avoid getting off onto another semantic side track: by "decisive moment" I mean what Cartier-Bresson meant by it, not what most people take it to mean.

[Rob C]

I do not wish to enter the field of politics and economics discussion, but ss a Portuguese (and proudly so), I resent the PIGS acronym. There are many people suffering in these countries, and going through very difficult times with the increasing unemployment and austerity measures.

All the best,
Paulo Bizarro

Paulo, I don't see how you can adopt two contradictory stances at the same time: it's impossible to distance economics from perception of worth. The same (almost) symbols of affluence in the individual apply in the case of states. When the bank balance is red, you're in deep poo poo, whether you like it or not.

In the case of Portugal - look at the prices they have been charging for property and, worse sin, time-share in the 'golf' resorts. Put that into a perspective that's slightly coloured by recent memory of revolution, property-grab and Communist rule, and it's a wonder that Portugal is still kicking on any level at all! I wouldn't invest a goddam cent in the place.

As for Greece, have you been there? Italy? My mother lived in Rome for a while and one of her friends, a dear lady just reached retirement age, told her that she couldn't access her state pension because she couldn't find anyone to 'speak for her'...  Spain? A great country, but one beset with the endemic problems of culture and climate, especially in the south; Catalonia clicks to a different ethic. The deep south of Europe is much as I think the US deep south must be: mañana rules. But, I can tell you, the black economy here is as awake and alive as I guess it will also be in Greece. In many ways, I think the southern European problem comes down to tourism: so easy, in times of plenty, to do nothing other than fill millions of foreign bellies and bladders with poor food and beer at high profit margins. You can even go to university in Mallorca to study that...!

A few short years ago you paid through the nose for a thinly walled one-bedroomed drawer in a high-rise apartment block; today, that little cajón isn't sellable; you probably couldn't give it away.

What am I saying, am I happy to see all this? Of course not; my own financial state is held to ransom due to all this shit that's come home to roost. But yes, I do think these countries have been the architects of their own disasters. As for the € - I remember going to the vegetable market just when the change from the peseta took place: boy, did they know how to ratchet up prices! Even a friggin' café con leche was doubled in price. Literally doubled. Then, we paid; today, they/we all pay the price of greed and general sloth.

I'm only surprised that the day of reckoning took so long to arrive.

Rob C

[Ray]

If anyone's offended by my wisecrack, then I apologise. But the fact is this term PIGS is used frequently in the financial news in Australia, often as a heading on graphs depicting various characteristics and trends in these economies of Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain.

Rob's general comments in his previous post tend to resonate with my own limited experience of Italy in 2005. I remember well the first time we sat down in a local restaurant to sample the famous Italian pizza.

It wasn't a 'posh' restaurant by any standards; just an average restaurant. We were amazed at the high prices for what we understood was standard fare in Italy, the originator of the pizza dish.

We settled on a basic Pizza Margherita, hoping that the high price would be justified by an excellent taste compared with what we were used to in Australia.

Disappointingly it wasn't. It was the most basic pizza I'd ever ordered. It was not only double the price of a similar style of pizza in Australia in a similar standard of restaurant, but half as delicious.

Of course, we could have made it more delicious by ordering additional toppings, but that would have made the pizza 3x the Australian price. My point is not that italy is not capable of cooking delcious pizzas, but that most things (and services) in Italy seemed outrageously expensive compared with the equivalent product in my home country, in 2005.

There were exceptions of course. The exception that sticks in my mind was the price of Italian wine. It was just as good value over there as Australian wine is over here. I particularly liked the idea that a glass of wine was available at any time of the day, in any cafe, including small cafeterias at the railway station.

I just hope that, as a result of this current economic crisis, Italy will become a more affordable place to visit. I was rather disappointed that the Cellini sculpture of Perseus holding the head of Medusa, situated near the Piazza della Signoria in Florence, was undergoing restoration whilst I was there. I'd like to return to do a better job without the intrusive background.

Here's one of the two shots I took of that statue. As you can see, Hopeless! Ruined! 

[Rob C]

Italy. If you can really include Sardinia in that definition, you'd think your pizza wasn't so bad. We were staying in Porto Cervo doing a calendar and rather than eat in the hotel, we opted to sample the fare available around the marina. We ended up using, mostly, the Clipper Bar/Restaurant (some might say aptly named) which gave the best value for the expenses money I had available to run the shoot. One evening, hoping to cut our national debt a little, we opted to drive out into the sticks for something slightly less expensive. Yeah, right: we finished up in a small country restaurant where, on checking the bill and questioning a small item that was charged at the UK equivalent of five quid (in '83!), it turned out to be a tiny saucer of olives...

Here, in Mallorca, you can have a complete menu del dia for around €8 - €10 which provides a choice of three starters, three main courses, and usually a wide selection of sweet; wine and water are also usually included in the price but not coffee. The same fare on a Sunday will set you back around €15 in the same joint. You tell me.

I suspect that's partly the problem: prices get based on what the market will bear rather than on what things cost and the profit margin required to stay in business. In other words, these little restaurants adopt exactly the same pricing techniques as so many of us photographers: they guess.

Rob C