Miles Davis' Performance In Sweden -67

Miles Davis: Stockholm 1967 from Jamie Wightman on Vimeo.

My Favorite Picture

I've been taking pictures for a few months, or over year now, can't remember how long, it's an incredible enjoyment. I work solely with B&W, mostly because I can develop it at home for a penny, at least that's the reasoning when I started, now I don't think I'd go back to color even if I could lavishly afford it.

Most of my pictures, under the bright sun have been quite harsh and contrasty, didn't like any of the very much although sometimes one or two slip through that I really enjoy. This one though, out of sheer luck as usual blew my mind. It is... perfect. The details (and lack thereof) the tones, composition I love it.

I was scanning a developed roll not thinkig or hoping for anything just sort of mindlessly looking and saw this one (and a few others that I took in the same place) that just struck me, YES, I DID IT. PERFECT.

The faschinating process of exposing and developing film, an ongoing saga.

This one, for the sake of bookkeeping so I'll never forget (although I'd never forget it anyways);

Leica Summarit 5cm f1.5 at f2.8 or f4 probably (notorious for being soft, very un-leica like, I love it! But the image is super sharp still, maybe I got a great copy)

Shutter speed probably 1/60 might been 1/30

A treestump under and surounded by trees in a small gravely road, draped in shadows, no direct sunlight.

Rollei Retro 100, EI 50 (I'm 90% sure it's at EI 50)

I developed it in Rodinal, for 60 minutes. First minute 20 slow agitations, then let sit for 59 minutes, stand development in other words..

Scanned with Epson 4990 with it's epson scan software

2400DPI I think

No sharpening, no dust removal, no nothing, just a straight up and down scan.

Now If only I could get this sort of tonality and picture quality in Sunny scenes a.k.a. Sunny-16 conditions.

YEEES!

First World Problems

Ok, back to acting. After an ugly run in with romance around April time, during my first french class (studying french now b the way, fantastic) had a bit of a mental set-back I must admit, but now it's time to drag myself back out from the rut via my collar and do something again. 

Thinking of getting a motorcycle by the way. It hit me as an epiphany, why do people ride around in cars so much unless you have a specific task to haul bunch of people / family or going to carry bunch of items or goods, motorcycle seem brilliant. The freedom, the excitement, right up my alley. Perfect, so yea, going to look int that.

Acting acting... I went and saw Apocalypse Now ON THE CINEMA (wow) the other weekend, was actually blown away. Always thought it was a good movie, nothing spectacular, war drama isn't it. But in that movie theater, no distractions, no internet, no nothing, where my five year old mentality usually makes me flip through webpages within, I kid you not, 5-10 mintues, I was mesmerized by the movie. Before I knew it, sitting in that dark cinema, two hours had passed, and after another blink of an eye, the movie was over. 

Signed up for a page where producers and stuff can look for extras for all sorts of stuff, commercials and films, tv shows what have you, and I got a few calls pretty quickly, feels good man, but didn't accept any of them since I am the wrong man for commercials and stuff. I know what kind of people they are looking for, and I am not the actor they are seeking for.

Life is in a bit of a low right now, depression and procrastination taking it's toll, I'm coming back swinging though. Where can I enjoy acting? Not here... not england, where? Not a major problem though. Everyday is acting, and as it keeps going just by philosophizing about it, I am fully getting in grips with it, just be ordinary, nothing special. 

Enchanté 

Makes you want to sprout wings and fly, no?

One Of My Pictures + Taoist Poem

"I asked the boy beneath the pines.

He said: the Master's gone alone
 herb picking somewhere on the mount,
cloud hidden, whereabouts unknown"

-Chia Tao

Don't cling,

Don't seek.

Wonderful Pictures In My Dream

I had this fantastic dream, that is not worth mentioning at all to anyone. It's more of a reminder to myself. I thought I would like to paint this photo I saw in my dream. I saw three that I remember actually. It was funny. It was about chinese people sort of "moving in" to a new piece of land, kind of like you move in to a new apartment. 

They were hauling massive amounts of Buddhist statues to this new land so I was photographing this procedure. 

One amazing picture I remember was sort of like a large pool. I was standing 20m above it maybe shooting downards at a slight angle (imagine you standing on a jumping platform looking down). 10 guys on each side, with ropes in their hands, was pulling up through the surface of this big pool a big Buddha statue, just as it was breaking through the surface so it was like the ears and stuff was still submerged while the eyes and nose was above (barely) water, and it looked like there were waves in the little swimming pools because around the surface of the statue that was above surface looked like waves on a beach. It looked simply remarkable. And this picture, and the rest was in sort of, sepia, brown-tone, picture rather then black and white. I was like "wow" when I saw these images in my dream only to wake up to a blank roof. Thanks for that.

Another picture was, if you would imagine a long cable-car type thing. High up in the air. I was in that, and infront of me, again, a half a statue of a Buddha. Sort of like chest and up, the rest was broken. Two big cables lowering this statue, with a very slight angle downwards (again, an angle you'd be in a cable-car in a skiing resort). The statue was facing towards me, with cables going right past me over my head (since I was in a cable-car behind or whatever). Beautiful mountain landscape behind with amazing clouds with sun barely coming through. Just beautiful.

Why these images in the dream? Why do things happen as they do in dreams? Very interesting. Just wish I had these gorgeous pictures for real though. 

Random Pickings From "My Philosophy On Acting"

Yeah, I'm writing my philosophy on acting. It's going so and so. I write a bit then I feel like it gets convoluted and I start over again. I thought I'd share one bit of my thoughts though. Most of my philosophy comes from my complete and utter face-palming when I listed to the acting teachers I have met and what they teach. I mean... I am so un-impressed with every single one of them that I get pissed. 

So what I do is I have conversations in my head, like a dialogue back and forth in an imaginative situation, let's the steam out, kind of like therapy. I think they all have a very mechanical, un-human, no soul, way of acting, or teaching or doing acting. It's as if they started philosophizing about acting and when they started to see things as a little bit different then usual, i.e as if they think they can see "behing the scenes" they stopped right there with their philosophy because they think they've "got it". But in fact you must stop there! You have to keep pushing on and thinking and thinking and putting the hours in, in your mind and soul.

A zen-master once said something along the lines of (yes, I am paraphrasing);

"When I started practicing buddhism I used to see mountains as mountains and rivers as rivers. When I got into a more intimate knowledge of zen I started seeing mountains as something OTHER then mountains and rivers something OTHER then rivers..." I feel like this is where all of my so called "teachers" have stopped their journey of the mind thinking "HA! I got it! I am so smart, I should be a teacher, people should listen to me". But nay, keep going, you havent reached the finish line yet, because this monk continued and said "...but once i fully understood what it was all about I once again saw mountains, as just that, mountains. And rivers, just as that, rivers" That is crucial!

T. S. Eliot said, in "Little Gidding";

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time

Journey on, journeymen, from mechanical acting to just being a human being that eats, drinks and sleep. Nothing more, nothing less.

This is but a bit of the conversations in my head.

Hm, made it sounds quite poetic towards the end. Complete works of shakespeare? Maybe I'll do one of me own!

An Haiku

A leaf tumbling on the snow

Spring has arrived.

Henri Cartier-Bresson Talks About Photography.

From this site I found a ten minute soundclip where Henri Cartier-Bresson is talking about photography, very interesting.

Later I found this transcript of it. Reading it is as bit as interesting as listening to Henri's funny accent.

"HCB: To me, photography is a simultaneous recognition in a fraction of a second of a significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of form which gives that event its proper expression. I believe that, for reactive living, the discovery of oneself is made concurrently with the discovery of the world around us, which can mold us, but which can also be affected by us. A balance must be established between these two worlds: the one inside us, and the one outside us. As the result of a constant reciprocal process, both these worlds come to form a single one. And it is this world that we must communicate.

But this takes care only of a content of a picture. For me, content cannot be separated from form. By form, I mean a rigorous geometrical organization of interplay of surfaces, lines and values. It is in this organization alone, that our conceptions and emotions become concrete and communicable. In photography, visual organization can stem only from a developed instinct.

First I would like to say that it is only a rule I established in myself, a certain discipline, but it is not a school, it's not a..it's very personal. And I think that we cannot separate what we have to say from the way we have to say it, how to speak.

Photography is in a way a mental process. We have to know what to, be clear, on what we want to say. Our conceptions, our, what we think of a certain situation, a certain problem. Photography is a way of writing it, of drawing, making sketches of it. And in the form, things are offered to us in daily life. We have to be alert and know when to pick the moment which is significant. Then, it's just intuition. It's instinct. We don't know why, we press at a certain moment. It comes, it is there, it's given. Take it. Everything is there, it is a question of chance, but you have to pick and force chance to come to you. There's a certain will.

The creative part of photography is very short. A painter can elaborate, a writer can, but as it's given, we have to pick that moment, the decisive moment, it is there. Ah! I've seen this, I've been there. I've seen that.

When I started photography in 1930 there were hardly any picture magazines, there was no market. And I was taking pictures (..) things that struck me, interested me. I was keeping a kind of diary. And I still do keep a photography diary. And later, there were magazines, and working for magazines, you have to work for yourself, always for yourself, you express yourself. With magazines, they put you into contact with events important in the world, and you have a possibility of speaking to a very large audience.

Interviewer: Does that in any way affect your attitude toward a story when you're working for a large audience? Or do you still follow your own precepts, it's still the same intuition in a way?

HCB: It is the same intuition. You have to know in which framework you have to tell your story for the magazine, but you must not work for the magazine..you work for yourself, and the story. Communication has to be very (? diarational ? )..

Interviewer: Of course you are communicating. For example, you've made various photographic essays on different countries. When you come into a country do you live there for some time? Do you try to feel the...

HCB: You can't rush in and out. It takes time to understand, to have a feeling of a place. You have a general idea of a country, but when you get there, you realize that your preconceived idea was right or wrong, but you mustn't  push the preconceived idea you had. No, reality speaks, and your impressions. And it's very important, the first impression has to be very fresh - just like when you see the face of somebody for the first time, you have a feeling. Maybe after, you say, oh, I was wrong. Because I didn't take notice of certain things, a certain smile, something, and a country is the same thing.

Interviewer: I wonder if you could possibly give an example. For example, your work on India. Which we in the West have some sort of exotic preconceptions about. Was that changed quite a bit when you first got there, and did that affect your work and your approach to the people?

HCB: It's a thing that comes through your system little by little, it's not sudden. It can be sudden..you have to live there, you have to know people, you have to establish relations, you have to be on the same level with people. You can't come as a judge and uh, you have to get close to people, you have to be warm. You have to like people. You mustn't be cruel, you mustn't be hard, you mustn't be tough, because it bounces back on yourself. You can express all that you feel, you can be shocked, you can be humorous, you can be less tender, all the sentiments you can express.

Interviewer: And that's all there in your attitude, it shows up in what you pick, I suppose. Well, in your approach, do you take many pictures, for example, of one incident or subject, or do you wait perhaps for that..

HCB: It depends, there's no rule, there's no..it depends, it depends. You have to be subtle and supple at the same time. Fit, exactly.

Interviewer: You've been known for never cropping your photos. Do you want to say anything about that?

HCB: About cropping? Uh, I said in that forward, we have to have a feeling for the geometry of the relation of shapes, like in any plastic medium. And I think that you place yourself in time, we're dealing with time, and with space. Just like you pick a right moment in an expression, you pick your right spot, also. I will get closer, or further, there's an emphasis on the subject, and if the relations, the interplay of lines is correct, well, it is there. If it's not correct it's not by cropping in the darkroom and making all sorts of tricks that you improve it. If a picture is mediocre, well it remains mediocre. The thing is done, once for all.  

Interviewer: Well I guess that goes back to your intuition. It has to be there, completely..

HCB: Yes. And for technique, technique is not a thing in the abstract. You can't evade it. The technique has to be something to express what you want to say. You have to master your own technique, to know your tools to say what you have to say. Technique doesn't exist in the (abstract)..you have to know your lenses, but it's not that difficult. You learn it very quickly. It's like a typist mustn't look at his keyboard, and then he types. But then, when he knows how to type he's concerned only with what he has to say, it's the same thing. You mustn't use a light meter, you have to know exactly what, to weigh the light. A cook doesn't take a scale to know how much salt you should put in a cake. The salt you put to give, to enhance the sugar. It's intuition, it's instinctive, and it's the same thing.

Interviewer: I think that applies to all forms of expression, the technique has to be completely assimilated.

HCB: I think so. Yes.

Interviewer: Now, for example as a photographer, you yourself, the basic thing you want to do is communicate, I suppose like any artist in any field.

HCB: Yes, communication has been an important thing. You want to give something, and to know that it is accepted. It's not recognition. Recognition..in a way, success is dangerous. Success can affect us.

Interviewer: In what way, you mean..

HCB: Success is in a way as unjust as lack of success. What is important (becomes the recognition.) You want to give something to know that somebody will accept it. In fact, when you love somebody, somebody will not turn you down, your love is accepted. And this is communication to me. To give something which is..

Interviewer: To give and then be requited.

HCB: Yes. And not recognition.

Interviewer: I wonder if you can talk about some technical aspects of photography.

HCB: We don't need very big equipment. Practically I work all the time with a 50 mm, a very wide open lens, because I never know if I'm going to be in a dark room taking a picture in this moment and outside in full bright sun the next moment. So...

Interviewer: The compactness has become very important..small cameras..

HCB: It is very important. And people don't notice you so much.

Interviewer: In the old days when they had colloidal plates and whatnot..


HCB: I think with the 50 mm you can cover a large number of things. Sometimes, especially for landscape, you need a 90 mm because it cuts all the foreground which is not that interesting. But this you don't decide beforehand...I'm going to work with such a lens..no. It depends on the subject. The subject guides you, it's there. Your frame, you see it, it's a recognition of a certain geometrical order, as well as of the subject.

It's a question sometimes people put. "Which is your favorite picture?" And I must say the important picture is the next one you're going to take. We're not curators of our work. The important is to think about the next subject. Photography is a way of living. To me, my camera is an extension of my eye. I keep it all the time with me. But, everything depends on the way we live, what we like and our attitude toward life. What we are, in fact."

Very interesting. 

Another Picture

I like this one, good play with the shadows on the snow. This is Tri-X 400 in Xtol for the interested Joe. More later!

Got a wild thought of moving to France, can anyone talk me out of it?

Lone Wolf And Cub

I have never read a manga before, but this one is slowly blowing my mind. Wow, wow wow!!!! Bravo.

Robert Capa Movie

This is an open letter for whom it may concern. For people like Sofia
Coppola, Alejandro González Iñárritu etc (I know you guys drop in here
and read sometimes). A movie about Robert Capa, the amazing war
photographer should be written and shot. And I should be in it. Quite
simply. This would be perfect. Come on, the world awaits this. Thank
you.

RADA Summer School Info For Applicants

Alright, I got this email from a guy who asked my about RADA, so I
sent him an email long enough to knock him out, then I thought more
people might want to read up on stuff, that I may or may not have
mentioned, so here it is. Straight up Copy & Paste, what of it?

"Hey Buddy,

Thanks, it's always fun to help and inspire young people haha. Getting
into summer school and shakespeare in action is easy, trust me. Anyone
really can get in as long as it's not full, and as long as it doesn't
say on their website "Course Full!" or whatever, there are places
left. We had a few people who had zero acting experience and got in,
so that's great.

Same thing with Shakespeare In Action, you just write on your
application (that you get from RADA's website) that you are interested
in Shakespeare In Action (there is a box you tick) and they consider
you to get in. I am sure you will almost 100% get in if you tick that
box and say you are interested.

The course itself it's sort of like this. You show up on day one,
almost 70 people are in line to get into through the doors, everyone
goes in one by one and get's handed a paper and all that good stuff,
you know "Welcome To RADA" brilliant. One one of the papers you will
see your name, and the rest of your group (you are going to be divided
into 6 groups) and your teacher's name on top.

Then everyone get's herded into a big theater where you all sit and
listen to your teachers who say "Hi My name is etc" And you follow
your teacher and rest of your group (12-13 people or something) and
talk to your teacher :-)

My teachers name was Bridget Pennet, if you have her, tell her Leon
said Hi, haha.

You will probably do one of two things. Either one play (but a short
version, we did Measure For Measure, 40 minute version) or your group
will do an assortment of different scenes from different plays.

Here is the thing that might make you nuts though, if you get into
Shakespeare In Action, after four weeks, then your summer course is
over, you get a script for a Shakespearian play on the Friday you are
done with your summer course (after 4 weeks) and it's a bunch of pages
and lines and stuff of course that you have to learn and memorize and
all that until NEXT FRIDAY (aka 7 days) there's a challenge for ya :)

That's more or less it I think, the accommodation via RADA where you
live on Charlotte street 99 (right across saatchi saatchi) is tiny and
modest it's alright, close to everything.

Maybe I should post this on my humble blog.

Good luck buddy, 90% of the kids are from USA and Canada, f.y.i :-) Good Luck."

Waste not want not. RADA, good times.

From My First Self-Developed Roll Of Film

This might be my favorite picture from my first roll of film that I developed my self. It was a big surprise when I saw the picture, it came out nothing that I thought it would, let's call it an happy accident. It's kind of like a social situation, the big beautiful white swan versus the little "ugly" black duck. The fact that people might see this and think it's just a photoshop against a black background is a little bit annoying though. The actual negative is like this. A good start, I'll probably put in some more pictures now and again. It's a fantastic hobby, goes perfect with acting.

Some of my friends are talking about going to the Hollywoods for an extended period of time during september, should be fun. I've totaly given up acting and matters of such stuff in Sweden. There is no "joie de vivre" here, it's dull and soul-less for my taste.

My dad is opening up another restaurnt, his second now, and expects me to work there. Me, working 9-5 in a restaurant? I think not. The moon in the sky and the winds against my cheek provides me with enough fortune for a life-time.

Sayonara.

My Life's Dream

Here is the thing I've wanted to do all my life, and it was wrapped up in one of the best documentaries I've seen. Very touching tale, and I am in admiration of both Donald Crowhurst and Bernard Moitessier. It's funny because not long ago my mom gave me some papers I drew when I was maybe 12 and it was something like "I want to take all my friends and family on a boat trip"... I had no idea I had that idea when I was that young.

But going further, when I was maybe 6 my parents gave me a lego set and I had this brilliant idea of using the top lid of the paper package that the set came in to sail out on the sea by sitting on it, glad I didn't do it just then.

It's with a warm heart and moist eyes I link to this documentary, hell, I hope I'll do it soon too, and just like Moitessier I would be seen from maybe never again.

I think I know what Crowhurst experienced towards the end of this documentary, Master Sokei-an Sasaki (1882 - 1945) said this about him gaining Satori;

"One day I wiped out all the notions from my mind. I gave up all desire. I discarted all the words with which I thought and stayed in quietude. I feelt a little queer - as if were being carried into something, or as if I were touching some power unkown to me - and Ztt! I entered. I lost the boudary of my physical body, I had my skin, of course, but I felt I was standing in the center of the cosmos. I spoke, but my words had lost all their meaning. I saw people walk towards me, but all were the same person. All were myself! I had never known this world. I had believed I was created, but now I must change my opinion: I was never created; I was the cosmos; no individual Mr. Sasaki existed.

"

To brighten this miserable place up a little, more serious stuff later.

Celebrating 200th Post The Proper Way - Insight To "Thanks-giving"

Fuck thanksgiving and everyone who celebrates that.

The Genius of Stanislavski

I am still amazed at the genius of Stanislavski. What I wouldn't have
done to study with this god if he was alive around now. I am
continually amazed at what I read when I open up his books and just
like the back of his third book "Creating A Role" says at the back by
a journalist from "The Observer", "A careful reading is worth several
lessons in almost any English acting academy". I beg to differ though.
A careful read of his three books and to a lesser extent "My Life In
Art" (his auto biography) is worth several YEARS in any acting
academy, if the RADA summer school is any glimpse into what you learn
in RADA anyway.

I can't sit and read for too long. For two main reasons. When I read
my mind goes bonkers and all over the place when I read a paragraph. I
immediately take in what I have read and start talking about it in my
own head, so reading becomes a mentally hard-work exercise. And number
two, and more importantly, the books (more specifically, the one I am
reading right now, Creating A Role) is so jammed packed with
quintessential gems of knowledge you can only be amazed and learn so
much that after one hours read I am exhausted and need to step away to
take it all in.

Like I said, a careful read is wroth several years in any english
acting academy.

Creating A Role, P.95. Talking about when an actor works with a play
in his imagination THOROUGHLY and he KNOWS the character like the back
of his hands, like when you live with someone for so long you KNOW how
that person is going to react to this or that, he says;
"When the actor in his creativeness measures up to a remarkable text,
the words of his parts prove the best, the most indispensable, the
easiest form of verbal embodiment with which he can make manifest his
own creative emotions through his inner core."

At the beginning of studying of a part the text on your paper is just
a bunch of words that mean nothing to you. They are as alien to you as
a foreigner whom you don't know exists that breathes and lives on the
other side of the planet. But when you study and study and study, go
through the play with your imagination and your own mind there comes a
point when you, without sounding too cheesy, become the part, and all
of a sudden the text that at the beginning were completely alien, all
of a sudden, in that given circumstance that you find yourself in the
play/role, no other word could fit more perfectly to go from your soul
out through your lips.

Mind = blown.

More of this to come. I've been thinking way too much lately.