idealawg

Photography as activism: If you want to change something, get out your camera

I don't like the word "activism." The people whom I admire most because they are facilitating change in this world would not identify themselves with the label activist, nor likely be pleased if someone else named them with that description. But this post is not about my reaction to and reflection on the word.

And in one instance it communicated a message well.

Today I saw Photography as Activism and the book's title immediately conveyed its topic and purpose. In fact, after doing some online research and concluding that the book is not cause-y or strident, I put in a request for it at Interlibrary Loan. Through reading the book, I am planning to learn how photography since its birth has been instrumental in social change.

Visual communication can be persuasive and convincing, often commanding thought and feeling followed by action. Sometimes the visual can communicate what words simply cannot. (I have written about the pictograph path, the use of visual communication here.) Photos are one method of visual communication, one with potentially strong and palpable influence.

Photography can be used in many ways to communicate. (For extreme and moving examples, read "Covering Atrocity in Image" from University of Pennsylvania.) Is there a change you want to make? In yourself? In a relationship? In an institution, business, system? One method is to use photography in combination with the system Robert Fritz explains in his Path of Least Resistance. He works with the creative tension between what is true now and what you want in the future. He says:

Stress and money: Maybe NUTS are the problem instead of the dough

We know that severe poverty and extreme wealth can cause stress, just as can middling amounts of money. And that many people are resilient regardless of the numbers in their asset column. What's the difference among people?

One piece of the puzzle is provided in an article on stress and wealth from the magazine of Centre for Studies on Human Stress. Using the acronym NUTS, the authors talk about four factors that can lead to stress: Novelty, Unpredictability, Threat to the ego or self, and Sense of loss of control. (NUTS was not created by the article's authors but is oft-used in the field of stress and its prevention.)

Another piece of the puzzle is found in a list of factors derived from a landmark study on resilience. 15 factors that seemed to contribute to resilience in a group of at-risk children were:

What's extreme listening? And how does it promote mindful conflict resolution?

Although this excerpt from Doing Something Different is about therapy, it has some good advice for mediators, too. I like the idea of extreme listening: listening like a person possessed.

I also like the title of the book, because I often feel we as mediators need to do something different. Some of the ingrained patterns of how we resolve conflict have become stale, flat, and hardened, like nut bread past its prime.

Vicky Bliss lists three considerations related to extreme listening:

Abandoning preconceived values and notions about the client and the outcomes of therapy

Having a true belief that each client knows what he or she wants to do differently, will know when he or she is moving in the right direction, and has at least some of the skills needed to achieve the desired change. If you doubt these, resign.

And one main consideration once engaged in therapy:

Listen like a person possessed.

And what's this possessed listening? Bliss writes:

Lessons from a poet for lawyers, photographers, anyone seeking increased attention ability

Below is a passage from Samuel Johnson's Rasselas. The speaker is talking about his decision to be a poet and the changes that entailed. I post it here because he is talking about sharpening both his diffuse and focused attention, a skill and habit that would benefit any lawyer, photographer, or person seeking increased mindfulness.

Being now resolved to be a poet, I saw every thing with a new purpose; my sphere of attention was suddenly magnified: no kind of knowledge was to be overlooked. I ranged mountains and deserts for images and resemblances, and pictured upon my mind every tree of the forest and flower of the valley. I observed with equal care the crags of the rock and the pinnacles of the palace. Sometimes I wandered along the mazes of the rivulet, and sometimes watched the changes of the summer clouds. To a poet nothing can be useless. Whatever is beautiful, and whatever is dreadful, must be familiar to his imagination: he must be conversant with all that is awfully vast or elegantly little. The plants of the garden, the animals of the wood, the minerals of the earth, and meteors of the sky, must all concur to store his mind with inexhaustible variety: for every idea is useful for the inforcement or decoration of moral or religious truth; and he, who knows most, will have most power of diversifying his scenes, and of gratifying his reader with remote allusions and unexpected instruction.

All the appearances of nature I was therefore careful to study, and every country which I have surveyed has contributed something to my poetical powers.

Image note: Composite I created of several photos.

What makes that object so important to your client? How about you? Have any trinkets with tales?

Many of us have encountered situations in which people seem to hold odd objects in high esteem. This unusual (to me) valuing of tangibles sometimes occurred when I was practicing law. For example, the parties and lawyers would reach the end of long negotiations and the sticking point would be some seemingly insignificant item. The parties' attachment was so frustrating and puzzling that the lawyers scratched their heads.

Since then, I have learned much more about objects and their meanings.

Although there are many, many resources to help us understand the meaning we attribute to objects and why those meanings are so very individual and and idiosyncratic, I will just recommend a couple. Let's start with a chapter titled "Objects Carry Essences" in The Seven Laws of Magical Thinking. The author Matthew Huttson describes a number of studies that indicate that:

• Even young children feel the power of unique objects, particularly attachment objects (those used to soothe)
• Kids, like adults, will prefer objects if they have been used or owned by famous people
• Objects such as clothing or hairbrushes when owned or used by a friend are considered neutral but are rated as unpleasant when owned by an enemy or "unsavory character"
• Dirt from particular places can be sold for, e.g, good luck charms, plantings, and burials
• People draw the germs belonging to their friends to look friendlier than those of their enemies

Why? Huttson has a guess. Towards the end of the chapter, he writes:

[Paul Rozin] owns several of his mother's paintings and lots of old books, including some owned by the late ... psychologist Solomon Asch. "It gives me a good feeling," he told me. "A sense of their presence." Belief in the law of contagion ("once in contact, always in contact") makes the physical world glow with meaning and connects us to other people and to history.

What about the story connected with an object? Can it increase the value, even of an object that is completely new to you? Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker had a hypothesis:

Flexible definition of meditation can include writing and photography

Photo I took of people heading for Rolling Thunder

I have long believed that mindfulness does not just flow exclusively from meditation. Many activities from fly fishing to client counseling to motorcycling to mediating, done in an attentive way, can increase one's state and trait of mindfulness. Therefore I was happy to see this exchange in an interview with Natalie Goldberg (Huffington Post).

Q. Your definition of meditation is more flexible than most. Besides sitting and walking meditation, you recommend writing, too. What's the difference between keeping a journal and writing meditation?

A. There's no difference to me. Whether you're keeping a journal or writing as a meditation, it's the same thing. What's important is you're having a relationship with your mind. We live in discursive thinking, and what we want to do is drop below to first thoughts, which is wild mind and true energy.

Photography too can be a portal for that kind of relationship with your mind. Click to read past posts here on photography and mindfulness.

Time to award yourself a Certificate of Competence? 7 questions to help you remember who you are as a mediator or lawyer (or teacher or ...)

Seven questions asked of a person in order to create a Certificate of Competence are worth answering to provoke some thought, gratitude, and wisdom. Although I doubt if I will print off an actual certificate, I still found the questions beneficial.

The idea was developed by John Wheeler and he generously provides the directions, questions, and a certificate template at his Web site. The seven questions include:

• When I do my work, I take my inspiration from the following people:
• When I do my work, the people I deal with are likely to appreciate that I have the following qualities and abilities:
• If I am under pressure at work and can only remember one quality or ability it should be this:

Click to see all the questions and the certificate template. The steps for constructing it are here, and the roots of the process are described here.

I learned of the Certificate in the book Doing Something Different to which Wheeler contributed. The questions can be used for any of your roles in life, and for other professions in addition to mediator, lawyer, or teacher.