November 9, 2025 • 27 mins
abstraction helps us grasp the real thing.
it’s been a minute. the last time I released an episode was in May- right in the midst of the loss and grief that swallowed me for a while.
this is not a grand re-entrance, just a stumbling ramble back into this unending conversation of what it means to see in real time.
In this episode I talk about the moment I finally opened my nostalgia now photographic journaling ritual again after the longest hiatus I ever took from it. Through it I rediscover how the blur and abstraction, instead of taking me away from reality, actually pull me closer to it.
every photograph doesn't have to be about what’s gone, it gets to be a correspondence with what’s still here.
I share what it’s been like to feel creative again after loss and to find the side doors back into presence when the front one feels jammed.
this is me re-entering into this space- blurry eyed and awake.
subscribe on substack for the visual version of this episode.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
I am Bianca, Liam, Mora, and this has helped me see.
I started this podcast because I kept realizing how much of life I was moving through without actually seeing it.
Like really seeing it, even though I was paying attention to all of it as a photographic artist, a mother, a hoarder of memories I am committed to seeing.
I have been since I was a kid, but I could never quite shake this weird, slippery feeling that the photograph is not the point, even though we're taught to worship them as proof, but proof of what? In the midst of deep grief, I looked to my photos for comfort in the way I was trained to, and realized that it was never about the photographs.
(00:40):
It was about the impulse to take them.
They weren't souvenirs from life gone.
They were living, breathing, embodiments of the moments I was most alive.
They weren't frozen time.
They were the melting of boundaries between time and space, feeling and vision the most here I ever am.
(01:02):
They weren't remembrance.
They were revelation.
A way to be in conversation with the past, but in the now only ever.
Now, this podcast isn't lessons or best practices.
I'm not interested in telling you how to take better or more meaningful photographs.
I'm here to show you how every picture you've already taken is a world of realization in and of itself to show you how your cell phone photos are more important than the ones you paid the professional for.
(01:33):
How you are answering your life's biggest questions in every picture you unconsciously take.
This is part reflection, part confession, moments from my own life where seeing becomes a way of understanding and where I work that out in real time.
Our photographic practice is our deeply personal conversation with truth, how we see what shapes that seeing and how it keeps changing as we do.
(02:02):
It's not really about photography.
It's about philosophy of attention.
It's about letting how we see the world show us who we are.
If you're someone who's yearning to see what's right in front of you before it disappears, you're in the right place.
Let's dive in. 24 00:02:22,902.24489796 --> 00:02:24,552.24489796 Hello, hello and welcome. 25 00:02:24,948.9308948 --> 00:02:26,688.9308948 To another episode of, help Me See. 26 00:02:27,318.9308948 --> 00:02:27,408.9308948 Whew. 27 00:02:28,128.9308948 --> 00:02:31,368.9308948 It has been a long time. 28 00:02:31,968.9308948 --> 00:02:39,588.9308948 Uh, I actually had a look and see when last time I record an episode was, and I released one on May 6th. 29 00:02:40,548.9308948 --> 00:02:43,608.9308948 Um, this year has been hard. 30 00:02:45,468.9308948 --> 00:02:52,158.9308948 I had a pregnancy loss and, uh, grief and overwhelm and. 31 00:02:52,728.9308948 --> 00:03:06,198.9308948 Disorientation just took me out and it's just taken some time to feel again. 32 00:03:07,368.9308948 --> 00:03:14,543.9308948 No, not feel again, but feel life, life force again in the way that. 33 00:03:16,158.9308948 --> 00:03:19,968.9308948 Feels authentic and wanting to share in this way. 34 00:03:20,598.9308948 --> 00:03:26,58.9308948 I apologize if you hear elephants stomping around upstairs. 35 00:03:26,658.9308948 --> 00:03:28,398.9308948 Um, but that's my life. 36 00:03:28,548.9308948 --> 00:03:33,408.9308948 That's my kids running around being really bad at playing hide and go seek. 37 00:03:33,708.9308948 --> 00:03:36,138.9308948 There's, I don't sidebar. 38 00:03:38,508.9308948 --> 00:03:48,348.9308948 This summer we got them a slip and slide and they were just so naturally bad at it, and I don't remember that being a thing when we were kids. 39 00:03:48,348.9308948 --> 00:03:50,663.9308948 I don't know, maybe it's, I dunno. 40 00:03:51,108.9308948 --> 00:03:52,578.9308948 Maybe that's just me getting old. 41 00:03:52,703.9308948 --> 00:03:52,823.9308948 I. 42 00:03:53,523.9308948 --> 00:03:58,53.9308948 But even with hide and go seek, like they just are such bad hiders. 43 00:04:00,513.9308948 --> 00:04:07,473.9308948 Like they'll, they'll be in the same room in the corner and say, I'm ready, and I'm upstairs, and like I open my eyes. 44 00:04:07,473.9308948 --> 00:04:08,613.9308948 I'm like, you're right in front of me. 45 00:04:09,93.9308948 --> 00:04:09,333.9308948 Okay. 46 00:04:09,513.9308948 --> 00:04:09,873.9308948 Anyway. 47 00:04:09,933.9308948 --> 00:04:20,78.9308948 Um, so I don't really think that there's a point in trying to catch you up on mm-hmm. 48 00:04:21,288.9308948 --> 00:04:28,278.9308948 Um, much, it feels too overwhelming to do that, and I think thinking about it in that way has stopped me from recording this sooner. 49 00:04:28,818.9308948 --> 00:04:38,388.9308948 I, I guess I just wanna roll back into our conversation here by sharing that. 50 00:04:38,808.9308948 --> 00:04:44,988.9308948 Um, I created a new nostalgia now template, which if you're new here, Nossal Janelle is. 51 00:04:45,738.9308948 --> 00:04:53,748.9308948 Traditionally a monthly photographic journaling, um, ritual really, and. 52 00:04:55,833.9308948 --> 00:05:07,203.9308948 It's the thing that had for years kept me tethered to an in sync with like, the flow of my life and feeling really connected to myself and what was going on. 53 00:05:07,533.9308948 --> 00:05:17,343.9308948 And, um, you know, I, I really feel that the things that we know help us the most become the things that we retreat from in the times where we need it most. 54 00:05:17,823.9308948 --> 00:05:21,663.9308948 And I had gone a really good amount of time. 55 00:05:23,463.9308948 --> 00:05:25,323.9308948 Without doing this journaling. 56 00:05:25,413.9308948 --> 00:05:30,93.9308948 And it was the, actually the first really long stint not doing it since I started. 57 00:05:30,93.9308948 --> 00:05:44,673.9308948 And that was like, what, three years ago or so? Um, and so the first time actually I was voice noting with a dear, a dear friend, like. 58 00:05:45,618.9308948 --> 00:06:00,918.9308948 Client slash actually more so dear friend who I love so much, and she ever so lovingly was like, Hmm, sounds like you should probably do it. 59 00:06:01,533.9308948 --> 00:06:03,393.9308948 Nostalgia now template. 60 00:06:04,23.9308948 --> 00:06:06,873.9308948 Even if you do one that's old, just redo it. 61 00:06:07,233.9308948 --> 00:06:08,463.9308948 Oh my gosh, she's right. 62 00:06:08,643.9308948 --> 00:06:14,553.9308948 And even then it took me weeks, no, probably months longer to, um, to actually do it. 63 00:06:14,553.9308948 --> 00:06:27,753.9308948 And then I did it in a cafe, um, before a therapy appointment and just had this like full body goosebump, like coming back to life, like, oh yes, of course. 64 00:06:28,503.9308948 --> 00:06:29,703.9308948 Uh, and it felt really good. 65 00:06:30,738.9308948 --> 00:06:34,248.9308948 And, um, yeah, so I'm gonna share both. 66 00:06:34,308.9308948 --> 00:06:40,608.9308948 So that original one that I didn't get to share because I was more so focused on like reintegrating and feeling into that. 67 00:06:40,938.9308948 --> 00:06:43,248.9308948 Um, and now I created another one today. 68 00:06:43,248.9308948 --> 00:06:45,828.9308948 So I'll be sharing both, uh, on my substack. 69 00:06:46,38.9308948 --> 00:06:52,124.14712896 If you are not subscribed to Substack, um, you can do so, uh, either as a free or paid subscriber. 70 00:06:52,794.14712896 --> 00:06:58,229.14712896 that's kind of the home base for, you know, visual versions of podcast episodes that I create. 71 00:06:58,329.14712896 --> 00:06:58,549.14712896 Um. 72 00:06:59,739.14712896 --> 00:07:10,809.14712896 Uh, picture portals, which is kind of like free writing slash poetry paired with photographs and, um, this photographic guided photographic journaling practice ritual. 73 00:07:10,809.14712896 --> 00:07:12,809.14712896 So, you can find that there. 74 00:07:12,869.14712896 --> 00:07:18,329.14712896 But I'm just gonna share a little bit about my experience with this month's template. 75 00:07:21,63.75739779 --> 00:07:27,693.75739779 I'm just gonna read just a little blurp of journaling that I did from one of the templates. 76 00:07:28,823.75739779 --> 00:07:34,223.75739779 When I was looking and reflecting on the images that came to me and that I used on the template. 77 00:07:34,643.75739779 --> 00:07:37,403.75739779 The sentence abstraction helps us grasp. 78 00:07:37,463.75739779 --> 00:07:39,803.75739779 The real thing we were seeing came to me. 79 00:07:40,313.75739779 --> 00:07:50,63.75739779 Um, I noticed that in the images I was looking at that I chose for this particular template, they were all either super blurry or. 80 00:07:51,128.75739779 --> 00:08:02,708.75739779 Like a indirect image of something, like a silhouette or something that I had, taken and then completely repurposed, for a post, months afterwards. 81 00:08:03,188.75739779 --> 00:08:11,18.75739779 And witnessing the fluidity of that and witnessing, how specifically when I'm looking. 82 00:08:11,618.75739779 --> 00:08:26,438.75739779 I'm taking a picture, sometimes I will purposely blur 'cause it feels like I'm seeing more of what I'm seeing when it's blurred in the same way that like if you taste something really delicious, you'll instinctively like close your eyes to taste it more. 83 00:08:26,888.75739779 --> 00:08:39,323.75739779 Um, that's kind of the sense that I gravitate to when I'm dealing with stepping into photographic consciousness and photographic consciousness is I. 84 00:08:39,867.27707077 --> 00:08:49,122.27707077 Basically a fancy term for being awake through the lens of picturing life. 85 00:08:51,612.27707077 --> 00:08:56,742.27707077 And through that lens being brought closer to it, it's just, it's so crazy. 86 00:08:56,742.27707077 --> 00:09:05,442.27707077 I, I sometimes when I'm talking, I get in my head and I feel like, oh my gosh, you're making it so much worse and more confusing the more you speak. 87 00:09:05,442.27707077 --> 00:09:13,332.27707077 But I can't, I can't help it because it's just so interesting how this abstraction and the barrier that can be the camera. 88 00:09:13,777.27707077 --> 00:09:20,557.27707077 Is the thing that pulls us closer to the real thing that we're responding to when we're looking at these photographs. 89 00:09:20,857.27707077 --> 00:09:24,97.27707077 Um, but I'll, I'll pause from that. 90 00:09:24,97.27707077 --> 00:09:37,342.27707077 Right now I'm also, I guess I went from this huge famine of just being zoned out and. 91 00:09:38,907.27707077 --> 00:09:45,597.27707077 Paralyzed from creating, even though I was still taking pictures, but paralyzed and creating in this way to now. 92 00:09:46,347.27707077 --> 00:09:47,157.27707077 Um, I don't know. 93 00:09:47,157.27707077 --> 00:09:48,567.27707077 The floodgates feel open. 94 00:09:48,747.27707077 --> 00:10:05,127.27707077 I, um, I felt really breathless with sadness when the due date, uh, came and went thinking about what would have been, or what could have been, and, um. 95 00:10:07,947.27707077 --> 00:10:17,962.27707077 I just feel very compelled to use, um, sorry. 96 00:10:24,537.27707077 --> 00:10:33,927.27707077 I feel really compelled to birth something, so I am. 97 00:10:33,927.27707077 --> 00:10:34,77.27707077 Um. 98 00:10:35,772.27707077 --> 00:10:43,472.27707077 Birthing these templates again, and I am, uh, working on, basically, a rebirth of my original course. 99 00:10:43,472.27707077 --> 00:10:48,982.27707077 Manifest Your Memories, which is all about redefining your, photographic practice. 100 00:10:49,102.27707077 --> 00:10:53,632.27707077 And it's the same idea, but it's deepening into. 101 00:10:54,217.27707077 --> 00:11:04,437.16505826 What the philosophy of what that really meant, which was diving into photographic consciousness, and that is ob obviously coloring. 102 00:11:04,587.16505826 --> 00:11:10,977.16505826 What I'm seeing as I look back on the pictures I've taken each month and and doing this practice again. 103 00:11:15,477.16505826 --> 00:11:19,367.33855527 I also wrote, seeing them all together in this way makes me proud of what I see. 104 00:11:19,799.58213535 --> 00:11:28,559.58213535 It reminds me that the gnawing feeling that creeps up on me, whispering that I'm not doing enough, whispering that I'm not seeing the point of my life or that I'm missing something. 105 00:11:28,559.58213535 --> 00:11:29,849.58213535 Devastatingly important. 106 00:11:30,479.58213535 --> 00:11:31,499.58213535 It is wrong. 107 00:11:31,829.58213535 --> 00:11:33,624.58213535 Every unconscious act of taking. 108 00:11:34,664.58213535 --> 00:11:51,284.58213535 A picture is a split second of becoming conscious to my life, and in this ritual of reflection, I anchor in the trust of my present moment and the trust in myself to see it and to hold it gently with tingling hands and gloriously blurry eyes. 109 00:11:54,359.58213535 --> 00:12:06,239.58213535 Um, abstraction can seem like a barrier to specificity, but it can also be a way in, it can be the side door we need to take when the front door is locked and tangled with thought. 110 00:12:06,899.58213535 --> 00:12:13,259.58213535 Sometimes when I wake up to something that is important, a feeling and insight, a revelation, I lean in. 111 00:12:13,559.58213535 --> 00:12:14,489.58213535 I try harder. 112 00:12:14,489.58213535 --> 00:12:16,409.58213535 I clench my fist to keep it. 113 00:12:17,189.58213535 --> 00:12:22,19.58213535 But what if I relax and sit back? I don't need to see sharper or try harder. 114 00:12:22,499.58213535 --> 00:12:26,129.58213535 If I allow my gaze to gently unfocus, I can see beyond. 115 00:12:27,359.58213535 --> 00:12:34,619.58213535 If my body melts instead of clinches, I can be beyond the gripping and into the living. 116 00:12:39,269.58213535 --> 00:12:43,109.58213535 So what this looks like in real life. 117 00:12:43,889.58213535 --> 00:12:53,759.58213535 I envision is when I notice that gripping, when I notice that furrow brow, which is why I have this, these fucking 11 lines in my forehead, my constant resting, worried face. 118 00:12:54,599.58213535 --> 00:13:11,519.58213535 What if I just remembered to breathe and to like, melt, melt my muscles, melt my face, melt my posture, bring my shoulders down from my ears, and just be with whatever it is, however it is. 119 00:13:13,224.58213535 --> 00:13:32,804.58213535 What if I close my eyes to see even more? What if I ask myself, where's the side door here when I'm trying too hard? And what does softer look like? So these are all just free writing insights that came from. 120 00:13:33,854.58213535 --> 00:13:42,464.58213535 Looking at the photographs I took of my last month, like literally scrolling through them and picking a few based on the prompts that I have in this template. 121 00:13:42,914.58213535 --> 00:13:44,294.58213535 And then just free writing. 122 00:13:45,948.80346843 --> 00:13:49,914.6234961 I really can't overemphasize how. 123 00:13:51,464.05315576 --> 00:14:12,4.05315576 Looking at the photos you've already taken in a way that feels like correspondence instead of lamenting instead of. 124 00:14:13,519.05315576 --> 00:14:22,519.05315576 Oh, it's gone instead of through this lens of grief. 125 00:14:22,519.05315576 --> 00:14:39,589.05315576 Not that there's anything wrong with grief, but through this lens of what do you have to say to me? I took this picture in a largely unconscious like autopilot way. 126 00:14:40,489.05315576 --> 00:14:44,749.05315576 Through all of the beliefs and thoughts and experiences of my life. 127 00:14:44,749.05315576 --> 00:14:46,309.05315576 I saw this and I pressed a button. 128 00:14:49,939.05315576 --> 00:15:02,449.05315576 What is this picture saying to me? What if this picture was a stranger? Can I look at it with the new eyes that I have right now? Can I instead of. 129 00:15:05,164.05315576 --> 00:15:17,554.05315576 Being a passive reflection or a prompt to me further shaming myself and thinking I should have been more present at the time, or whatever it is. 130 00:15:17,554.05315576 --> 00:15:23,824.05315576 When the things that we can do, when we look at old photographs or critique how we look, or some other dumb shit like that. 131 00:15:24,904.05315576 --> 00:15:25,444.05315576 What if we. 132 00:15:28,798.09393721 --> 00:15:36,240.38418664 Neutralize and witness what if we feel through that raw. 133 00:15:37,725.38418664 --> 00:15:54,721.69257667 Connection of what it feels like to see now and let the experience be a conversation, a back and forth. 134 00:15:57,16.40726275 --> 00:16:09,346.40726275 One of the pictures that I used, um, was a picture when I was in my bedroom, and my partner and my sons and my dog were in the backyard playing football. 135 00:16:12,946.40726275 --> 00:16:17,236.40726275 And I said I was trying to freeze time, but instead I was warmed to life. 136 00:16:18,436.40726275 --> 00:16:26,326.40726275 I was trying to recharge, get space from the noise and the needs, and I looked out my window and swelled with love for the scene. 137 00:16:26,776.40726275 --> 00:16:30,556.40726275 This is now, now, now, but I saw the memory. 138 00:16:31,306.40726275 --> 00:16:39,646.40726275 I felt the ping of my future self seeing this as if for the first time my sons have scruffy beards and families of their own. 139 00:16:40,276.4072628 --> 00:16:41,806.4072628 I focused on the screen. 140 00:16:42,346.4072628 --> 00:16:43,876.4072628 To blur them more. 141 00:16:44,386.4072628 --> 00:16:45,736.4072628 They look like a painting. 142 00:16:45,976.4072628 --> 00:16:49,246.4072628 I felt like I was painting them with love with my eyes. 143 00:16:58,618.9802903 --> 00:16:59,788.9802903 In another picture. 144 00:17:01,582.8804698 --> 00:17:04,827.8804698 I have a super closeup I took of my son's hair. 145 00:17:07,707.8804698 --> 00:17:13,167.8804698 It was a crop in from a larger frame where he was s smelling flowers. 146 00:17:13,557.8804698 --> 00:17:18,27.8804698 It was a super abstract crop of just blurry hair. 147 00:17:19,647.8804698 --> 00:17:26,547.8804698 When I get that close, it becomes blurry and abstract, which makes it more difficult to see clearly, which then makes it easier to see. 148 00:17:26,547.8804698 --> 00:17:27,267.8804698 Clearly. 149 00:17:27,567.8804698 --> 00:17:32,607.8804698 The blur of his hair brought forth the sensation of how I breathe in his hair. 150 00:17:33,897.8804698 --> 00:17:40,77.8804698 He was breathing in a flower in the full image, but this blurry picture of his hair helps me breathe more. 151 00:17:47,181.8098521 --> 00:17:49,761.8098521 I don't know if it's mind numbingly boring to hear. 152 00:17:50,836.8098521 --> 00:17:55,246.8098521 My reflections on the, my personal nostalgia now template. 153 00:17:55,276.8098521 --> 00:18:03,76.8098521 Um, I'm like reading this and all of a sudden I'm like, is this like when someone's telling you about their dream and you're like, oh my God, kill me. 154 00:18:04,781.8098521 --> 00:18:10,906.8098521 What part of, but part of me is like, well, depends on the person. 155 00:18:10,936.8098521 --> 00:18:16,696.8098521 Sometimes I'm interested in the dream regardless. 156 00:18:17,56.8098521 --> 00:18:17,716.8098521 Um. 157 00:18:19,981.8098521 --> 00:18:40,591.8098521 Yeah, it just felt right to share a little bit of where I'm at, to kinda get back in the flow of meeting you here in the space that feels, that feels very familiar and new at the same time. 158 00:18:42,141.8316983 --> 00:18:43,276.8316983 In the previous month. 159 00:18:43,671.8316983 --> 00:18:46,191.8316983 Nostalgia now that I'll also share separately. 160 00:18:46,731.8316983 --> 00:18:53,371.8316983 Something that I uncovered, which I've actually been recognizing as I move through, therapy. 161 00:18:53,371.8316983 --> 00:19:07,491.8316983 I've started with, a therapist that specializes in internal family systems and recognizing the different parts of us, and I've realized how uncomfortable I am with fragmentation. 162 00:19:09,126.8316983 --> 00:19:10,176.8316983 And how I feel. 163 00:19:10,206.8316983 --> 00:19:16,236.8316983 I always want everything I love and care about, and that's important to me. 164 00:19:16,386.8316983 --> 00:19:18,276.8316983 I wanna, I wanna see it at all times. 165 00:19:18,336.8316983 --> 00:19:26,316.8316983 It's like, if, if everything was a piece of paper I'd be surrounded by, it's pretty much what happens to me in my office fucking wreck. 166 00:19:27,131.8316983 --> 00:19:28,596.8316983 It's like I don't wanna put it away. 167 00:19:28,626.8316983 --> 00:19:31,326.8316983 'cause if I don't see it, I might forget it. 168 00:19:31,326.8316983 --> 00:19:36,936.8316983 And of course that's like probably my A DHD, um, certainly a DHD. 169 00:19:38,181.8316983 --> 00:19:58,356.8316983 Tendencies, but I, I have noticed that in trying to grasp this feeling of wholeness, I. 170 00:20:00,514.7287614 --> 00:20:18,454.7287614 I have looked past the whole of me and have overemphasized only a few specific parts that are the most familiar, the parts that I feel most beholden to and enmeshed with from my whole life, and. 171 00:20:20,855.4623521 --> 00:20:33,755.4623521 In the seeing that in the not trying to fix that in the, I will look, I will look towards you. 172 00:20:33,875.4623521 --> 00:20:37,295.4623521 I will not squint my eyes and look away in the looking at it. 173 00:20:40,55.4623521 --> 00:21:00,875.4623521 The softening heart and not what the fuck is wrong with me, that I'm still in this place, that I still feel like this and that everything begins to melt into like the innocence of this little girl that. 174 00:21:06,395.4623521 --> 00:21:30,275.4623521 Sees everything with such love and for a really long time, such fear and, um, the putting together different parts like the fragmentation, the fragmented photographs that are seemingly disparate into one template and seeing them all together. 175 00:21:33,810.4623521 --> 00:21:42,635.4623521 It begins a way to visualize, huh? They can all coexist. 176 00:21:42,815.4623521 --> 00:21:44,435.4623521 They're all a constellation. 177 00:21:44,675.4623521 --> 00:21:51,995.4623521 They're all in me and I can swap out a gajillion photos in each one. 178 00:21:51,995.4623521 --> 00:21:52,895.4623521 It never has to. 179 00:21:52,895.4623521 --> 00:21:58,55.4623521 As much as I love anyone photo, it's never the most important part. 180 00:21:58,715.4623521 --> 00:22:27,455.4623521 It is the whole that happens like through their interconnectedness that creates the experience of life and when we can get used to this feeling of fluidity, when we can release this over control of, I must make it look like this or I must reinforce. 181 00:22:28,955.4623521 --> 00:22:40,513.9765609 The identity that I'm used to, we can expand and open our eyes to so much more possibility and so much more of our lives. 182 00:22:41,533.9765609 --> 00:22:44,53.9765609 So yeah, the, uh, the grid that I. 183 00:22:44,55.7888491 --> 00:22:46,944.9055921 That I created for the September template. 184 00:22:48,204.9055921 --> 00:22:51,784.9055921 Touched on different parts, three different parts of me. 185 00:22:54,4.9055921 --> 00:23:04,504.9055921 And what do those conceptually look like and what do pictures of giving it, what it needs look like? Like if this is the part. 186 00:23:05,449.9055921 --> 00:23:25,310.2953252 What's a picture of what it would look like to give it what it needs? Some of the journaling that came out during this, this one was the intensity I feel doesn't have to be taken away or surrendered to softening, allowing lightness, allowing the nuance of gray creates the bridge to allow it to be held and touched. 187 00:23:26,705.2953252 --> 00:23:31,475.2953252 I think for so long I wasn't allowing black and white to touch. 188 00:23:34,835.2953252 --> 00:23:37,445.2953252 Lightness allows me to move with it. 189 00:23:38,549.2216742 --> 00:23:40,984.2216742 In the template, one of the most important pictures I took was this. 190 00:23:42,209.2216742 --> 00:23:43,769.2216742 Basically like a light burst. 191 00:23:43,869.2216742 --> 00:23:46,659.2216742 And I wrote the, I didn't know what I was doing when I took the picture. 192 00:23:46,719.2216742 --> 00:23:53,319.2216742 I still can't really even see what exactly it was, but I remember when I took it that it felt right to take it and. 193 00:23:53,904.2216742 --> 00:23:56,574.2216742 I didn't know if it would come out or not, but it didn't matter. 194 00:23:56,844.2216742 --> 00:23:59,964.2216742 And now it becomes the image that affirms everything. 195 00:24:00,144.2216742 --> 00:24:02,64.2216742 I didn't know I already knew. 196 00:24:02,124.2216742 --> 00:24:04,614.2216742 It became a metaphor for everything right now. 197 00:24:05,438.5710056 --> 00:24:13,388.5710056 So the invitation here is the idea that you feel this impulse to take a picture and I go look up. 198 00:24:14,288.5710056 --> 00:24:16,88.5710056 And for a split second, I think. 199 00:24:16,988.5710056 --> 00:24:19,658.5710056 This is probably not going to turn out. 200 00:24:21,788.5710056 --> 00:24:36,488.5710056 So I jumped from impulse of like, oh, I, uh, like, mm, and then after the mm was, oh, picture, like I want to picture very, very close after the impulse. 201 00:24:37,778.5710056 --> 00:24:39,188.5710056 And then I look up and then. 202 00:24:40,313.5710056 --> 00:24:47,573.5710056 The programming me, the conditioning, the the per, the one, the self that knows how to do this and how this works. 203 00:24:47,783.5710056 --> 00:24:53,33.5710056 I'm using a lot of air quotes, um, said, oh, that probably is not gonna come out. 204 00:24:53,123.5710056 --> 00:24:53,933.5710056 That's not gonna come out. 205 00:24:53,933.5710056 --> 00:24:54,653.5710056 It's too far. 206 00:24:54,653.5710056 --> 00:24:55,528.5710056 Da da da da da. 207 00:24:55,703.5710056 --> 00:24:58,728.5710056 Like, whatever I knew and then I did it. 208 00:25:04,733.5710056 --> 00:25:09,413.5710056 I pressed the button anyway because it didn't fucking matter if the picture came out well or not. 209 00:25:10,838.5710056 --> 00:25:16,688.5710056 It's this like physiological honoring of, huh? Experience. 210 00:25:17,78.5710056 --> 00:25:18,398.5710056 Huh? Here it is. 211 00:25:18,728.5710056 --> 00:25:20,18.5710056 I'm touched by something. 212 00:25:20,48.5710056 --> 00:25:20,258.5710056 Ugh. 213 00:25:20,588.5710056 --> 00:25:23,648.5710056 And then we get to see what happens. 214 00:25:23,948.5710056 --> 00:25:36,8.5710056 And the picture is the byproduct of life erupting from you meeting life and whether or not that byproduct is. 215 00:25:36,743.5710056 --> 00:25:44,183.5710056 What you expected or not expected, or something you like or don't like, or what, whatever that is, that's an a whole nother conversation. 216 00:25:45,503.5710056 --> 00:25:57,473.5710056 So now this picture that quote unquote didn't come out very well, quote, quote, quote unquote, my bunny fingers are like freaking out right now. 217 00:25:58,43.5710056 --> 00:26:02,333.5710056 Um, it becomes a symbol. 218 00:26:05,588.5710056 --> 00:26:22,991.8797032 It becomes a, oh, I honored my impulse and I took this photo, and now it's this abstract burst of light out of darkness, and I love it. 219 00:26:25,316.8797032 --> 00:26:29,226.2378497 Okay, well, I'm gonna stop here. 220 00:26:30,726.2378497 --> 00:26:32,136.2378497 I'm happy to be back with you. 221 00:26:32,716.2378497 --> 00:26:41,827.8001971 If you want to join the conversation, be sure to subscribe on Substack because you'll be getting visual versions of. 222 00:26:42,41.3420672 --> 00:26:45,171.3420672 Podcast episodes, whenever they come out through that. 223 00:26:45,851.3420672 --> 00:26:54,998.5487933 You'll hear when I'm done with my new project on photographic consciousness, and just be there for the journey and all my ramblings. 224 00:26:55,414.4467033 --> 00:26:59,14.4467033 Thank you for being here, and I will see you next time.
I am Bianca, Liam, Mora, and this has helped me see.
I started this podcast because I kept realizing how much of life I was moving through without actually seeing it.
Like really seeing it, even though I was paying attention to all of it as a photographic artist, a mother, a hoarder of memories I am committed to seeing.
I have been since I was a kid, but I could never quite shake this weird, slippery feeling that the photograph is not the point, even though we're taught to worship them as proof, but proof of what? In the midst of deep grief, I looked to my photos for comfort in the way I was trained to, and realized that it was never about the photographs.
(00:40):
It was about the impulse to take them.
They weren't souvenirs from life gone.
They were living, breathing, embodiments of the moments I was most alive.
They weren't frozen time.
They were the melting of boundaries between time and space, feeling and vision the most here I ever am.
(01:02):
They weren't remembrance.
They were revelation.
A way to be in conversation with the past, but in the now only ever.
Now, this podcast isn't lessons or best practices.
I'm not interested in telling you how to take better or more meaningful photographs.
I'm here to show you how every picture you've already taken is a world of realization in and of itself to show you how your cell phone photos are more important than the ones you paid the professional for.
(01:33):
How you are answering your life's biggest questions in every picture you unconsciously take.
This is part reflection, part confession, moments from my own life where seeing becomes a way of understanding and where I work that out in real time.
Our photographic practice is our deeply personal conversation with truth, how we see what shapes that seeing and how it keeps changing as we do.
(02:02):
It's not really about photography.
It's about philosophy of attention.
It's about letting how we see the world show us who we are.
If you're someone who's yearning to see what's right in front of you before it disappears, you're in the right place.
Let's dive in. 24 00:02:22,902.24489796 --> 00:02:24,552.24489796 Hello, hello and welcome. 25 00:02:24,948.9308948 --> 00:02:26,688.9308948 To another episode of, help Me See. 26 00:02:27,318.9308948 --> 00:02:27,408.9308948 Whew. 27 00:02:28,128.9308948 --> 00:02:31,368.9308948 It has been a long time. 28 00:02:31,968.9308948 --> 00:02:39,588.9308948 Uh, I actually had a look and see when last time I record an episode was, and I released one on May 6th. 29 00:02:40,548.9308948 --> 00:02:43,608.9308948 Um, this year has been hard. 30 00:02:45,468.9308948 --> 00:02:52,158.9308948 I had a pregnancy loss and, uh, grief and overwhelm and. 31 00:02:52,728.9308948 --> 00:03:06,198.9308948 Disorientation just took me out and it's just taken some time to feel again. 32 00:03:07,368.9308948 --> 00:03:14,543.9308948 No, not feel again, but feel life, life force again in the way that. 33 00:03:16,158.9308948 --> 00:03:19,968.9308948 Feels authentic and wanting to share in this way. 34 00:03:20,598.9308948 --> 00:03:26,58.9308948 I apologize if you hear elephants stomping around upstairs. 35 00:03:26,658.9308948 --> 00:03:28,398.9308948 Um, but that's my life. 36 00:03:28,548.9308948 --> 00:03:33,408.9308948 That's my kids running around being really bad at playing hide and go seek. 37 00:03:33,708.9308948 --> 00:03:36,138.9308948 There's, I don't sidebar. 38 00:03:38,508.9308948 --> 00:03:48,348.9308948 This summer we got them a slip and slide and they were just so naturally bad at it, and I don't remember that being a thing when we were kids. 39 00:03:48,348.9308948 --> 00:03:50,663.9308948 I don't know, maybe it's, I dunno. 40 00:03:51,108.9308948 --> 00:03:52,578.9308948 Maybe that's just me getting old. 41 00:03:52,703.9308948 --> 00:03:52,823.9308948 I. 42 00:03:53,523.9308948 --> 00:03:58,53.9308948 But even with hide and go seek, like they just are such bad hiders. 43 00:04:00,513.9308948 --> 00:04:07,473.9308948 Like they'll, they'll be in the same room in the corner and say, I'm ready, and I'm upstairs, and like I open my eyes. 44 00:04:07,473.9308948 --> 00:04:08,613.9308948 I'm like, you're right in front of me. 45 00:04:09,93.9308948 --> 00:04:09,333.9308948 Okay. 46 00:04:09,513.9308948 --> 00:04:09,873.9308948 Anyway. 47 00:04:09,933.9308948 --> 00:04:20,78.9308948 Um, so I don't really think that there's a point in trying to catch you up on mm-hmm. 48 00:04:21,288.9308948 --> 00:04:28,278.9308948 Um, much, it feels too overwhelming to do that, and I think thinking about it in that way has stopped me from recording this sooner. 49 00:04:28,818.9308948 --> 00:04:38,388.9308948 I, I guess I just wanna roll back into our conversation here by sharing that. 50 00:04:38,808.9308948 --> 00:04:44,988.9308948 Um, I created a new nostalgia now template, which if you're new here, Nossal Janelle is. 51 00:04:45,738.9308948 --> 00:04:53,748.9308948 Traditionally a monthly photographic journaling, um, ritual really, and. 52 00:04:55,833.9308948 --> 00:05:07,203.9308948 It's the thing that had for years kept me tethered to an in sync with like, the flow of my life and feeling really connected to myself and what was going on. 53 00:05:07,533.9308948 --> 00:05:17,343.9308948 And, um, you know, I, I really feel that the things that we know help us the most become the things that we retreat from in the times where we need it most. 54 00:05:17,823.9308948 --> 00:05:21,663.9308948 And I had gone a really good amount of time. 55 00:05:23,463.9308948 --> 00:05:25,323.9308948 Without doing this journaling. 56 00:05:25,413.9308948 --> 00:05:30,93.9308948 And it was the, actually the first really long stint not doing it since I started. 57 00:05:30,93.9308948 --> 00:05:44,673.9308948 And that was like, what, three years ago or so? Um, and so the first time actually I was voice noting with a dear, a dear friend, like. 58 00:05:45,618.9308948 --> 00:06:00,918.9308948 Client slash actually more so dear friend who I love so much, and she ever so lovingly was like, Hmm, sounds like you should probably do it. 59 00:06:01,533.9308948 --> 00:06:03,393.9308948 Nostalgia now template. 60 00:06:04,23.9308948 --> 00:06:06,873.9308948 Even if you do one that's old, just redo it. 61 00:06:07,233.9308948 --> 00:06:08,463.9308948 Oh my gosh, she's right. 62 00:06:08,643.9308948 --> 00:06:14,553.9308948 And even then it took me weeks, no, probably months longer to, um, to actually do it. 63 00:06:14,553.9308948 --> 00:06:27,753.9308948 And then I did it in a cafe, um, before a therapy appointment and just had this like full body goosebump, like coming back to life, like, oh yes, of course. 64 00:06:28,503.9308948 --> 00:06:29,703.9308948 Uh, and it felt really good. 65 00:06:30,738.9308948 --> 00:06:34,248.9308948 And, um, yeah, so I'm gonna share both. 66 00:06:34,308.9308948 --> 00:06:40,608.9308948 So that original one that I didn't get to share because I was more so focused on like reintegrating and feeling into that. 67 00:06:40,938.9308948 --> 00:06:43,248.9308948 Um, and now I created another one today. 68 00:06:43,248.9308948 --> 00:06:45,828.9308948 So I'll be sharing both, uh, on my substack. 69 00:06:46,38.9308948 --> 00:06:52,124.14712896 If you are not subscribed to Substack, um, you can do so, uh, either as a free or paid subscriber. 70 00:06:52,794.14712896 --> 00:06:58,229.14712896 that's kind of the home base for, you know, visual versions of podcast episodes that I create. 71 00:06:58,329.14712896 --> 00:06:58,549.14712896 Um. 72 00:06:59,739.14712896 --> 00:07:10,809.14712896 Uh, picture portals, which is kind of like free writing slash poetry paired with photographs and, um, this photographic guided photographic journaling practice ritual. 73 00:07:10,809.14712896 --> 00:07:12,809.14712896 So, you can find that there. 74 00:07:12,869.14712896 --> 00:07:18,329.14712896 But I'm just gonna share a little bit about my experience with this month's template. 75 00:07:21,63.75739779 --> 00:07:27,693.75739779 I'm just gonna read just a little blurp of journaling that I did from one of the templates. 76 00:07:28,823.75739779 --> 00:07:34,223.75739779 When I was looking and reflecting on the images that came to me and that I used on the template. 77 00:07:34,643.75739779 --> 00:07:37,403.75739779 The sentence abstraction helps us grasp. 78 00:07:37,463.75739779 --> 00:07:39,803.75739779 The real thing we were seeing came to me. 79 00:07:40,313.75739779 --> 00:07:50,63.75739779 Um, I noticed that in the images I was looking at that I chose for this particular template, they were all either super blurry or. 80 00:07:51,128.75739779 --> 00:08:02,708.75739779 Like a indirect image of something, like a silhouette or something that I had, taken and then completely repurposed, for a post, months afterwards. 81 00:08:03,188.75739779 --> 00:08:11,18.75739779 And witnessing the fluidity of that and witnessing, how specifically when I'm looking. 82 00:08:11,618.75739779 --> 00:08:26,438.75739779 I'm taking a picture, sometimes I will purposely blur 'cause it feels like I'm seeing more of what I'm seeing when it's blurred in the same way that like if you taste something really delicious, you'll instinctively like close your eyes to taste it more. 83 00:08:26,888.75739779 --> 00:08:39,323.75739779 Um, that's kind of the sense that I gravitate to when I'm dealing with stepping into photographic consciousness and photographic consciousness is I. 84 00:08:39,867.27707077 --> 00:08:49,122.27707077 Basically a fancy term for being awake through the lens of picturing life. 85 00:08:51,612.27707077 --> 00:08:56,742.27707077 And through that lens being brought closer to it, it's just, it's so crazy. 86 00:08:56,742.27707077 --> 00:09:05,442.27707077 I, I sometimes when I'm talking, I get in my head and I feel like, oh my gosh, you're making it so much worse and more confusing the more you speak. 87 00:09:05,442.27707077 --> 00:09:13,332.27707077 But I can't, I can't help it because it's just so interesting how this abstraction and the barrier that can be the camera. 88 00:09:13,777.27707077 --> 00:09:20,557.27707077 Is the thing that pulls us closer to the real thing that we're responding to when we're looking at these photographs. 89 00:09:20,857.27707077 --> 00:09:24,97.27707077 Um, but I'll, I'll pause from that. 90 00:09:24,97.27707077 --> 00:09:37,342.27707077 Right now I'm also, I guess I went from this huge famine of just being zoned out and. 91 00:09:38,907.27707077 --> 00:09:45,597.27707077 Paralyzed from creating, even though I was still taking pictures, but paralyzed and creating in this way to now. 92 00:09:46,347.27707077 --> 00:09:47,157.27707077 Um, I don't know. 93 00:09:47,157.27707077 --> 00:09:48,567.27707077 The floodgates feel open. 94 00:09:48,747.27707077 --> 00:10:05,127.27707077 I, um, I felt really breathless with sadness when the due date, uh, came and went thinking about what would have been, or what could have been, and, um. 95 00:10:07,947.27707077 --> 00:10:17,962.27707077 I just feel very compelled to use, um, sorry. 96 00:10:24,537.27707077 --> 00:10:33,927.27707077 I feel really compelled to birth something, so I am. 97 00:10:33,927.27707077 --> 00:10:34,77.27707077 Um. 98 00:10:35,772.27707077 --> 00:10:43,472.27707077 Birthing these templates again, and I am, uh, working on, basically, a rebirth of my original course. 99 00:10:43,472.27707077 --> 00:10:48,982.27707077 Manifest Your Memories, which is all about redefining your, photographic practice. 100 00:10:49,102.27707077 --> 00:10:53,632.27707077 And it's the same idea, but it's deepening into. 101 00:10:54,217.27707077 --> 00:11:04,437.16505826 What the philosophy of what that really meant, which was diving into photographic consciousness, and that is ob obviously coloring. 102 00:11:04,587.16505826 --> 00:11:10,977.16505826 What I'm seeing as I look back on the pictures I've taken each month and and doing this practice again. 103 00:11:15,477.16505826 --> 00:11:19,367.33855527 I also wrote, seeing them all together in this way makes me proud of what I see. 104 00:11:19,799.58213535 --> 00:11:28,559.58213535 It reminds me that the gnawing feeling that creeps up on me, whispering that I'm not doing enough, whispering that I'm not seeing the point of my life or that I'm missing something. 105 00:11:28,559.58213535 --> 00:11:29,849.58213535 Devastatingly important. 106 00:11:30,479.58213535 --> 00:11:31,499.58213535 It is wrong. 107 00:11:31,829.58213535 --> 00:11:33,624.58213535 Every unconscious act of taking. 108 00:11:34,664.58213535 --> 00:11:51,284.58213535 A picture is a split second of becoming conscious to my life, and in this ritual of reflection, I anchor in the trust of my present moment and the trust in myself to see it and to hold it gently with tingling hands and gloriously blurry eyes. 109 00:11:54,359.58213535 --> 00:12:06,239.58213535 Um, abstraction can seem like a barrier to specificity, but it can also be a way in, it can be the side door we need to take when the front door is locked and tangled with thought. 110 00:12:06,899.58213535 --> 00:12:13,259.58213535 Sometimes when I wake up to something that is important, a feeling and insight, a revelation, I lean in. 111 00:12:13,559.58213535 --> 00:12:14,489.58213535 I try harder. 112 00:12:14,489.58213535 --> 00:12:16,409.58213535 I clench my fist to keep it. 113 00:12:17,189.58213535 --> 00:12:22,19.58213535 But what if I relax and sit back? I don't need to see sharper or try harder. 114 00:12:22,499.58213535 --> 00:12:26,129.58213535 If I allow my gaze to gently unfocus, I can see beyond. 115 00:12:27,359.58213535 --> 00:12:34,619.58213535 If my body melts instead of clinches, I can be beyond the gripping and into the living. 116 00:12:39,269.58213535 --> 00:12:43,109.58213535 So what this looks like in real life. 117 00:12:43,889.58213535 --> 00:12:53,759.58213535 I envision is when I notice that gripping, when I notice that furrow brow, which is why I have this, these fucking 11 lines in my forehead, my constant resting, worried face. 118 00:12:54,599.58213535 --> 00:13:11,519.58213535 What if I just remembered to breathe and to like, melt, melt my muscles, melt my face, melt my posture, bring my shoulders down from my ears, and just be with whatever it is, however it is. 119 00:13:13,224.58213535 --> 00:13:32,804.58213535 What if I close my eyes to see even more? What if I ask myself, where's the side door here when I'm trying too hard? And what does softer look like? So these are all just free writing insights that came from. 120 00:13:33,854.58213535 --> 00:13:42,464.58213535 Looking at the photographs I took of my last month, like literally scrolling through them and picking a few based on the prompts that I have in this template. 121 00:13:42,914.58213535 --> 00:13:44,294.58213535 And then just free writing. 122 00:13:45,948.80346843 --> 00:13:49,914.6234961 I really can't overemphasize how. 123 00:13:51,464.05315576 --> 00:14:12,4.05315576 Looking at the photos you've already taken in a way that feels like correspondence instead of lamenting instead of. 124 00:14:13,519.05315576 --> 00:14:22,519.05315576 Oh, it's gone instead of through this lens of grief. 125 00:14:22,519.05315576 --> 00:14:39,589.05315576 Not that there's anything wrong with grief, but through this lens of what do you have to say to me? I took this picture in a largely unconscious like autopilot way. 126 00:14:40,489.05315576 --> 00:14:44,749.05315576 Through all of the beliefs and thoughts and experiences of my life. 127 00:14:44,749.05315576 --> 00:14:46,309.05315576 I saw this and I pressed a button. 128 00:14:49,939.05315576 --> 00:15:02,449.05315576 What is this picture saying to me? What if this picture was a stranger? Can I look at it with the new eyes that I have right now? Can I instead of. 129 00:15:05,164.05315576 --> 00:15:17,554.05315576 Being a passive reflection or a prompt to me further shaming myself and thinking I should have been more present at the time, or whatever it is. 130 00:15:17,554.05315576 --> 00:15:23,824.05315576 When the things that we can do, when we look at old photographs or critique how we look, or some other dumb shit like that. 131 00:15:24,904.05315576 --> 00:15:25,444.05315576 What if we. 132 00:15:28,798.09393721 --> 00:15:36,240.38418664 Neutralize and witness what if we feel through that raw. 133 00:15:37,725.38418664 --> 00:15:54,721.69257667 Connection of what it feels like to see now and let the experience be a conversation, a back and forth. 134 00:15:57,16.40726275 --> 00:16:09,346.40726275 One of the pictures that I used, um, was a picture when I was in my bedroom, and my partner and my sons and my dog were in the backyard playing football. 135 00:16:12,946.40726275 --> 00:16:17,236.40726275 And I said I was trying to freeze time, but instead I was warmed to life. 136 00:16:18,436.40726275 --> 00:16:26,326.40726275 I was trying to recharge, get space from the noise and the needs, and I looked out my window and swelled with love for the scene. 137 00:16:26,776.40726275 --> 00:16:30,556.40726275 This is now, now, now, but I saw the memory. 138 00:16:31,306.40726275 --> 00:16:39,646.40726275 I felt the ping of my future self seeing this as if for the first time my sons have scruffy beards and families of their own. 139 00:16:40,276.4072628 --> 00:16:41,806.4072628 I focused on the screen. 140 00:16:42,346.4072628 --> 00:16:43,876.4072628 To blur them more. 141 00:16:44,386.4072628 --> 00:16:45,736.4072628 They look like a painting. 142 00:16:45,976.4072628 --> 00:16:49,246.4072628 I felt like I was painting them with love with my eyes. 143 00:16:58,618.9802903 --> 00:16:59,788.9802903 In another picture. 144 00:17:01,582.8804698 --> 00:17:04,827.8804698 I have a super closeup I took of my son's hair. 145 00:17:07,707.8804698 --> 00:17:13,167.8804698 It was a crop in from a larger frame where he was s smelling flowers. 146 00:17:13,557.8804698 --> 00:17:18,27.8804698 It was a super abstract crop of just blurry hair. 147 00:17:19,647.8804698 --> 00:17:26,547.8804698 When I get that close, it becomes blurry and abstract, which makes it more difficult to see clearly, which then makes it easier to see. 148 00:17:26,547.8804698 --> 00:17:27,267.8804698 Clearly. 149 00:17:27,567.8804698 --> 00:17:32,607.8804698 The blur of his hair brought forth the sensation of how I breathe in his hair. 150 00:17:33,897.8804698 --> 00:17:40,77.8804698 He was breathing in a flower in the full image, but this blurry picture of his hair helps me breathe more. 151 00:17:47,181.8098521 --> 00:17:49,761.8098521 I don't know if it's mind numbingly boring to hear. 152 00:17:50,836.8098521 --> 00:17:55,246.8098521 My reflections on the, my personal nostalgia now template. 153 00:17:55,276.8098521 --> 00:18:03,76.8098521 Um, I'm like reading this and all of a sudden I'm like, is this like when someone's telling you about their dream and you're like, oh my God, kill me. 154 00:18:04,781.8098521 --> 00:18:10,906.8098521 What part of, but part of me is like, well, depends on the person. 155 00:18:10,936.8098521 --> 00:18:16,696.8098521 Sometimes I'm interested in the dream regardless. 156 00:18:17,56.8098521 --> 00:18:17,716.8098521 Um. 157 00:18:19,981.8098521 --> 00:18:40,591.8098521 Yeah, it just felt right to share a little bit of where I'm at, to kinda get back in the flow of meeting you here in the space that feels, that feels very familiar and new at the same time. 158 00:18:42,141.8316983 --> 00:18:43,276.8316983 In the previous month. 159 00:18:43,671.8316983 --> 00:18:46,191.8316983 Nostalgia now that I'll also share separately. 160 00:18:46,731.8316983 --> 00:18:53,371.8316983 Something that I uncovered, which I've actually been recognizing as I move through, therapy. 161 00:18:53,371.8316983 --> 00:19:07,491.8316983 I've started with, a therapist that specializes in internal family systems and recognizing the different parts of us, and I've realized how uncomfortable I am with fragmentation. 162 00:19:09,126.8316983 --> 00:19:10,176.8316983 And how I feel. 163 00:19:10,206.8316983 --> 00:19:16,236.8316983 I always want everything I love and care about, and that's important to me. 164 00:19:16,386.8316983 --> 00:19:18,276.8316983 I wanna, I wanna see it at all times. 165 00:19:18,336.8316983 --> 00:19:26,316.8316983 It's like, if, if everything was a piece of paper I'd be surrounded by, it's pretty much what happens to me in my office fucking wreck. 166 00:19:27,131.8316983 --> 00:19:28,596.8316983 It's like I don't wanna put it away. 167 00:19:28,626.8316983 --> 00:19:31,326.8316983 'cause if I don't see it, I might forget it. 168 00:19:31,326.8316983 --> 00:19:36,936.8316983 And of course that's like probably my A DHD, um, certainly a DHD. 169 00:19:38,181.8316983 --> 00:19:58,356.8316983 Tendencies, but I, I have noticed that in trying to grasp this feeling of wholeness, I. 170 00:20:00,514.7287614 --> 00:20:18,454.7287614 I have looked past the whole of me and have overemphasized only a few specific parts that are the most familiar, the parts that I feel most beholden to and enmeshed with from my whole life, and. 171 00:20:20,855.4623521 --> 00:20:33,755.4623521 In the seeing that in the not trying to fix that in the, I will look, I will look towards you. 172 00:20:33,875.4623521 --> 00:20:37,295.4623521 I will not squint my eyes and look away in the looking at it. 173 00:20:40,55.4623521 --> 00:21:00,875.4623521 The softening heart and not what the fuck is wrong with me, that I'm still in this place, that I still feel like this and that everything begins to melt into like the innocence of this little girl that. 174 00:21:06,395.4623521 --> 00:21:30,275.4623521 Sees everything with such love and for a really long time, such fear and, um, the putting together different parts like the fragmentation, the fragmented photographs that are seemingly disparate into one template and seeing them all together. 175 00:21:33,810.4623521 --> 00:21:42,635.4623521 It begins a way to visualize, huh? They can all coexist. 176 00:21:42,815.4623521 --> 00:21:44,435.4623521 They're all a constellation. 177 00:21:44,675.4623521 --> 00:21:51,995.4623521 They're all in me and I can swap out a gajillion photos in each one. 178 00:21:51,995.4623521 --> 00:21:52,895.4623521 It never has to. 179 00:21:52,895.4623521 --> 00:21:58,55.4623521 As much as I love anyone photo, it's never the most important part. 180 00:21:58,715.4623521 --> 00:22:27,455.4623521 It is the whole that happens like through their interconnectedness that creates the experience of life and when we can get used to this feeling of fluidity, when we can release this over control of, I must make it look like this or I must reinforce. 181 00:22:28,955.4623521 --> 00:22:40,513.9765609 The identity that I'm used to, we can expand and open our eyes to so much more possibility and so much more of our lives. 182 00:22:41,533.9765609 --> 00:22:44,53.9765609 So yeah, the, uh, the grid that I. 183 00:22:44,55.7888491 --> 00:22:46,944.9055921 That I created for the September template. 184 00:22:48,204.9055921 --> 00:22:51,784.9055921 Touched on different parts, three different parts of me. 185 00:22:54,4.9055921 --> 00:23:04,504.9055921 And what do those conceptually look like and what do pictures of giving it, what it needs look like? Like if this is the part. 186 00:23:05,449.9055921 --> 00:23:25,310.2953252 What's a picture of what it would look like to give it what it needs? Some of the journaling that came out during this, this one was the intensity I feel doesn't have to be taken away or surrendered to softening, allowing lightness, allowing the nuance of gray creates the bridge to allow it to be held and touched. 187 00:23:26,705.2953252 --> 00:23:31,475.2953252 I think for so long I wasn't allowing black and white to touch. 188 00:23:34,835.2953252 --> 00:23:37,445.2953252 Lightness allows me to move with it. 189 00:23:38,549.2216742 --> 00:23:40,984.2216742 In the template, one of the most important pictures I took was this. 190 00:23:42,209.2216742 --> 00:23:43,769.2216742 Basically like a light burst. 191 00:23:43,869.2216742 --> 00:23:46,659.2216742 And I wrote the, I didn't know what I was doing when I took the picture. 192 00:23:46,719.2216742 --> 00:23:53,319.2216742 I still can't really even see what exactly it was, but I remember when I took it that it felt right to take it and. 193 00:23:53,904.2216742 --> 00:23:56,574.2216742 I didn't know if it would come out or not, but it didn't matter. 194 00:23:56,844.2216742 --> 00:23:59,964.2216742 And now it becomes the image that affirms everything. 195 00:24:00,144.2216742 --> 00:24:02,64.2216742 I didn't know I already knew. 196 00:24:02,124.2216742 --> 00:24:04,614.2216742 It became a metaphor for everything right now. 197 00:24:05,438.5710056 --> 00:24:13,388.5710056 So the invitation here is the idea that you feel this impulse to take a picture and I go look up. 198 00:24:14,288.5710056 --> 00:24:16,88.5710056 And for a split second, I think. 199 00:24:16,988.5710056 --> 00:24:19,658.5710056 This is probably not going to turn out. 200 00:24:21,788.5710056 --> 00:24:36,488.5710056 So I jumped from impulse of like, oh, I, uh, like, mm, and then after the mm was, oh, picture, like I want to picture very, very close after the impulse. 201 00:24:37,778.5710056 --> 00:24:39,188.5710056 And then I look up and then. 202 00:24:40,313.5710056 --> 00:24:47,573.5710056 The programming me, the conditioning, the the per, the one, the self that knows how to do this and how this works. 203 00:24:47,783.5710056 --> 00:24:53,33.5710056 I'm using a lot of air quotes, um, said, oh, that probably is not gonna come out. 204 00:24:53,123.5710056 --> 00:24:53,933.5710056 That's not gonna come out. 205 00:24:53,933.5710056 --> 00:24:54,653.5710056 It's too far. 206 00:24:54,653.5710056 --> 00:24:55,528.5710056 Da da da da da. 207 00:24:55,703.5710056 --> 00:24:58,728.5710056 Like, whatever I knew and then I did it. 208 00:25:04,733.5710056 --> 00:25:09,413.5710056 I pressed the button anyway because it didn't fucking matter if the picture came out well or not. 209 00:25:10,838.5710056 --> 00:25:16,688.5710056 It's this like physiological honoring of, huh? Experience. 210 00:25:17,78.5710056 --> 00:25:18,398.5710056 Huh? Here it is. 211 00:25:18,728.5710056 --> 00:25:20,18.5710056 I'm touched by something. 212 00:25:20,48.5710056 --> 00:25:20,258.5710056 Ugh. 213 00:25:20,588.5710056 --> 00:25:23,648.5710056 And then we get to see what happens. 214 00:25:23,948.5710056 --> 00:25:36,8.5710056 And the picture is the byproduct of life erupting from you meeting life and whether or not that byproduct is. 215 00:25:36,743.5710056 --> 00:25:44,183.5710056 What you expected or not expected, or something you like or don't like, or what, whatever that is, that's an a whole nother conversation. 216 00:25:45,503.5710056 --> 00:25:57,473.5710056 So now this picture that quote unquote didn't come out very well, quote, quote, quote unquote, my bunny fingers are like freaking out right now. 217 00:25:58,43.5710056 --> 00:26:02,333.5710056 Um, it becomes a symbol. 218 00:26:05,588.5710056 --> 00:26:22,991.8797032 It becomes a, oh, I honored my impulse and I took this photo, and now it's this abstract burst of light out of darkness, and I love it. 219 00:26:25,316.8797032 --> 00:26:29,226.2378497 Okay, well, I'm gonna stop here. 220 00:26:30,726.2378497 --> 00:26:32,136.2378497 I'm happy to be back with you. 221 00:26:32,716.2378497 --> 00:26:41,827.8001971 If you want to join the conversation, be sure to subscribe on Substack because you'll be getting visual versions of. 222 00:26:42,41.3420672 --> 00:26:45,171.3420672 Podcast episodes, whenever they come out through that. 223 00:26:45,851.3420672 --> 00:26:54,998.5487933 You'll hear when I'm done with my new project on photographic consciousness, and just be there for the journey and all my ramblings. 224 00:26:55,414.4467033 --> 00:26:59,14.4467033 Thank you for being here, and I will see you next time.
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