Headspace Overload!

Over the past few months my friend Richard has been experimenting with his new camera, filming the wildlife he encounters on the walks and rides near his home in MITCHAM, suburban Melbourne.

This image will give you an idea of some of the lovely creatures which can be found in his neighbourhood.

 

Silvereye

Many emails have passed between us over the past few months concerning new cameras, editing platforms, upscaling , all the pros and cons. Richard bought his new camera kit specifically to follow and develop his photographic and filming interests. I've been buying things like Topaz Photo Enhance AI, dabbling with Photoshop, and every new item either of us purchases requires us to come to terms with new procedures, a steep learning curve.

One of Richard's objectives was to own a camera which would give super results for filming wildlife. His suburb is a nature wonderland rich in birdlife from the tiniest creatures like the Silvereye and Pardalote up to Magpies, Rosellas, Lorikeets etc., maybe even Eagles. As yet Richard has not sent me any pics of a Wedge Tailed Eagle patrolling his locale.

 Grey Fantail  (fanning)

Rainbow Lorikeet

Here's a link to the Yarran Dheran Nature Reserve

where Richard finds these lovely creatures

https://goo.gl/maps/UBuXynHpg1Di2JS1A

Richard has formed a connection with other birdwatchers in his local area and he described an exchange he had with a chap named Neil in which the word "arty" came up. That led to a long discussion between us concerning the many putdowns reserved for works which people do not like or understand and which they want to disparage as much as they can, so terms like "arty farty" and "pretentious" are frequently employed. My take on this argument is that there is no art without some sort of pretension, great art often aspires to the sublime, therefore such art remains open to the ridicule of people who think it is too arty or precious. They seem to prefer everything to be just practical, plain or ordinary except when it comes to their desire for exotic clothes, sleek cars, expensive hairstyles or in the case of our AFL sporting heroes, elaborate tattoos covering vast areas of their natural skin.

Over the years Richard and I have shared busy interactions on so many topics of common interest, probably a bit more than he can handle. Being retired I have heaps of spare time while others may not! I’ve always thought Richard to be indefatigable but it seems that recently I've sent him too many emails and posts.

 

Peter, here it is. Unedited… I don’t mind if you correct anything which doesn’t read well. Pretty close to stream-of-consciousness from me, it’s prob a bit long and rambly. Anyway, I'll hand it over as is to do as you wish.

I’ve been having some problems getting around to many things you sent recently because I just don't have enough time. I guess the simplest way to summarise all this is to say, I’m busy and some of these works just don’t fit in my headspace.

That’s the guts of it.

First I have calls on my time from my family and work, and these take up a considerable amount of my daily activities. This includes trivial things as well as serious sharing of literature and films. Saturday evenings are reserved for viewing films both modern and classical as a family event. All are avid readers and we give the local library a lot of business.

Then I have my own internet activities which are mainly reserved for evenings and into the the night, among which is a constant flow from the Armchair Traveller including postings and emails which cover every subject under the sun, and even beyond!

So when you send me something from some strange person I barely know and will probably never meet, meaning no disrespect for his work at all, I might feel "Why do I want to take this on?" There's more than enough going on in my head and I just can't keep loading up.

As I think I mentioned in my brain dump, I guess I’m mostly drawn to the things with which I have most connection. Which is why I WILL consider some of the things you send me… eventually!

OKAY, so that email was from a few weeks back! It’s clear that Richard has many things which fill up his life and like many of us he’s inundated with items seeking to drag his attention.

Headspace overload!

Then Richard sent me a few more pics and flicks from his outings with his new camera:

Grey Fantail, Mullum Mullum Valley

 

(Wonderings of a novice urban twitcher)

As you can see from that clip on a few moments from the Grey Fantail's athletic feeding habit, Richard selected a camera with long lenses and a lovely slow-motion capability, otherwise he would struggle to capture anything useful about the activity of this speedy tiny creature.

But there are also many other species in Richard's suburban locale:

Superb Fairy Wren

Common Bronzewing

Despite all the activities Richard had listed above we've had numerous discussions about film directors like Godard, his films "Vivre Sa Vie" and "Breathless" which were mentioned in a recent blog on this site. Richard was tossing up between these two films and finally decided to share "Breathless" with his family for their Saturday evening movie of the week. That screening provided many interesting responses:

- “ah now I know why I hate the French so much” (haha - yes, the main bloke was VERY unlikeable to this mostly female audience)

- “I got through it knowing it was ‘educational’ (in terms of film art history and culture)

- “the French are just obsessed by sex!”

- “I thought it was predictable and so overdone… until I remembered that it was           from 1960 and that all of these techniques were probably unheard of back then,       so that was good”

Then Richard sent me the following email over the weekend:

 

In the past week with a few ‘downtime’ hours to spare, I rediscovered this list I’d earmarked from who knows where or when. What a delight! From the creative quirks of stop-motion tribute docos, to the surprise-twists of a Russian mother-and-son narrative (which made me fall-in-love with down-the-barrel filming again… now considering my own mirror-box rig to achieve the effect!), I’d suggest that at least half of these will spark some some interest amongst any weary Armchair Traveller and friends.

https://www.monsterchildren.com/12-documentary-shorts-everyone-should-watch/

One that really hit a chord with me was this short, “A View from the Window”. And here’s why.

I’ve avoided docos for years. They’ve all become too depressing, many too clever for their own good at simply articulating the problems of the world, in fact, in this list, ’American Psychosis’ fits this mould perfectly. I have enough to deal with in life, I have enough ideas and opinions to cram into one tiny mind, and more than enough devastation to deal with in the media-torrent of bad news. I don’t want or need more. But this! THIS piece takes me back to what I first loved about docos — even as a child in primary school watching a fairly inconsequential observational doco called ‘A City Awakens’ – this possibility of cracking open a window into another world I hadn’t previously considered. Simple, understated, quietly observed, a crack of light out of my own headspace to somewhere I hadn’t thought before, a crack of light in a tortured world.

A local Melbourne poet I love wrote about the rebellion of finding beauty in a world falling to pieces (pic attached). Very much how I feel. In fact this is what inspires me in any creative work I do. And it’s what I most enjoyed about this short, this view, this window into another world. Kudo Chris Filippone.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Ch6Tz2IJddg/

Enjoy the list.

RL