In an effort to get people to look into each other’s eyes more, and also to appease the mutes, the government has decided to allot each person exactly one hundred and sixty-seven words, per day.
When the phone rings, I put it to my ear without saying hello. In the restaurant I point at chicken noodle soup. I am adjusting well to the new way.
Late at night, I call my long distance lover, proudly say I only used fifty-nine today. I saved the rest for you.
When she doesn’t respond, I know she’s used up all her words, so I slowly whisper I love you thirty-two and a third times. After that, we just sit on the line and listen to each other breathe.
What happens when your mind is awake but your body is not? Can a life held afloat by thoughts still be called a life?
I was recently involved in a short film inspired by the victims of locked-in syndrome. The film was done in collaboration with the folks at Little Red Ants Creative Studio, of which I am a part of.
Katherine McCoy said: “”Graphic design can never rise above its content.” Stefan Segmeister said: ” If I have nothing to say, then the best design won’t help me.” At the Time magazine, Dietmar Liz-Lepiorz asked me point blank what is the difference between sending someone like me to Nepal to document an uprising versus another photographer who can do the same work, assuming that our contacts, knowledge of the ground and photography skills are the same. “It is your point-of-view. We want your point-of-view!” he revealed after I struggled to give a clear answer. Kay Chin, a Singaporean photographer who was an early influence in my photography, always asked me: “What upsets you?”
I think all these messages are finally getting into me. I wonder if I have been too wishy-washy with my conscience. I have a weakness in committing to a point-of-view, always sitting on the fence when debates occur because I try too much to see things from both sides. Has that made my photography wishy-washy as well? I think the only way to put that to test if to find something I really feel about and work on it. And see if this work is profoundly different from what I have been producing so far.
The eight rules to writing short stories, by Kurt Vonnegut:
1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
But great writers tend to break all these rules, maybe except one.
Thanks Pranaya for highlighting this. Some quotes by Kurt Vonnegut here.
As I begin to record what I felt recently in this post, I realise that there is nothing that I want to record anymore. Except that reading Stefan Sagmeister’sThings I have Learned In My Life So Far (I read the print version, not the online version) made me think a lot about my own current situation.
P.S. I never read on the website what others have so far learned in their lives because I want to go through the process on my own accord (and discover my own maxims). I decided to stop at Stefan’s booklets instead.
Of late, I have been working with a few friends of mine on a script, which will eventually end up as an extremely short film of about 2 mins in length. In the process, have come to realise one thing: the shorter the film, the tougher it is to write a script. It doesn’t help that we are trying to do one with a lot of (planned) random cuts, so there are countless problems with scene transitions and logical flow. We are working with the theme “Your Day” for entry into the Nikon Festival. We are pushing the interpretation a little, which might make our film irrelevant to the competition. But winning is not the aim but a bonus. Ultimately, at least for me, it is about pushing my boundaries as a visual story teller. Stay tuned!
Sorry for the lack of updates. I know some of you do check out this space quite regularly. Work has been coming in for the last couple of weeks so it’s a good problem. It is even more important now to make time for personal projects. Since graduating, I have not been shooting much documentary. An invitation to shoot a birthday party made me remember how much I love working in situations where I do not have to pose people (unlike the corporate shoots).
