Whole-wheat pita when toasted is warm, nutty and crisp, thoroughly satisfying on a cold, snowy winter night. It recalls warm, sunny lands. The salad is simply dressed with a Trader Joe Orange Muscat Champagne Vinegar, virgin olive oil and a sprinkle of coarse kosher salt. Fresh, sliced pineapple finishes the meal.
This is not the pancit Molo I remember from Prince's Kitchenette or Fatima on Calle Real in Iloilo City but it was good. I used store-bought wonton wrappers and they worked just fine. I processed the filling in my ancient Cuisinart, a mixture of pork, shrimp, garlic and yellow onions and made stock from a whole chicken I boiled with slivers of ginger, Italian parsley and celery stalks. I found out that adding surplus filling that I dropped in half teaspoonfuls into the boiling broth made the resulting soup taste closer to what I remember. Then I added my own emendations: baby bokchoy and a few drops of sesame oil.
Teachers say that in Buddhism once the thought arises to pursue enlightenment the very structure of mind changes. The goal may not be reached until after many lifetimes but the impetus once created never goes away again. So unlike its course in North America and Europe, Buddhism in Asia became inextricably linked with just the ordinary living of life, sometimes fun and exciting, sometimes momentously sad or monotonous, but like the dominant figure in the carpet background that most people no longer sees, the aspiration ticks away indecorously slow but always there. I remember a Tibetan shopkeeper in the village in New York City telling me how the Dharma among his people was as ordinary and unobtrusive as sunshine and rain. It is part of life; it is life. They prepare supper at night, might spend 50 years building up a trade, but in the background is this unspoken goal to seek the Ultimate and become free at last from life's vicissitudes. Unspoken because it is so taken for granted until one day the bud opens and the muddy water drips away as water drips away.
It has been thirty years since I encountered Buddhism not in the land of its birth but in my adopted country. Buddhism was a big part of my going home again, home where I had thought I never belonged. I like the simplicity of its practice, the barebones approach that depend solely on one's effort and utilizing only one's own mind and body. Anything else is excess. A cushion to sit on does help. Rituals inherently human can support the most genuine aspiration for simplicity. They create a feeling of what is sacred, recreate the awesome experience of something beyond words, beyond desire, beyond the very habits of being alive.
I did another portrait shoot with Linda and her family last Monday. I've processed six images from the shoot while still having to redo processing the Banthia images I want to burn on a DVD for the parents to take to Orlando next week. This photo of Linda was taken by my Sony HD camcorder that I had set to record on its own while I took still photos with the Canon 5D. The resolution is much smaller but the effect, as Linda commented when I sent her the photo, was "complimentary to my age." I need to learn to use the sharpening commands in Photoshop to soften the effect of the bright lights I use in studio shoots. A design consultant I saw who has a degree in photography and film from IU Bloomington made a similar comment. She asked me why I was using hard lights. I had gradually started using more hard lights in my shoots, not just for the background but for the foreground. With Linda's shoot I was careful enough to use only the soft box and an umbrella-filtered light for the faces. Before the clients came I took preliminary photos using manual camera controls and was surprised at the stunning clarity but once they got here I threw caution to the air and shot pellmell. The boy was uncontrollable and finally brought the backdrop down. The soft box light kept going out. I should have checked the images on the camera LCD but didn't, an almost fatal mistake. There is so much to learn and to do.
Meanwhile yesterday I went with Arron to Elite Martial Arts where I spoke with the owner who told me he wanted a commercial to draw more people to his center. He wanted a surprisingly artistic video, with a specific look and audio background. He may need additional documentary-style videos to actually show prospective customers what it is he does at the center. I have so far only been using iMovie putting off using FCP again. It's been four years or more since I learned to use FCP in NYC! I'd lamented at the lack of drive in my desire to create commercial photography and videos. I need the structure of deadlines to keep me at the wheel. When structure comes I feel stressed out by all that I need to do to turn out a creditable product. The lesson perhaps is learning to go with the flow, to appreciate the down times as well as the up times and make the most of what I can do and do.
It takes so little to grow a weak flicker into a fire. The wonder of it is how infrequent I do the talk.
My client didn't show up this morning but I was at the computer early so I started messing around. Before I knew it I had learned to use the video camera on the 5th generation iPod Nano. Granted this was not a herculean task but one thing led to another. By 5:30 this afternoon, I had set up a meeting with Arron to see first-hand an MMA fight in Zionsville tomorrow evening and I'd started the confounding mysteries of using Flash. I went to Lifestyle Fitness and for the first time working out there was not as uncomfortable. Again this was no big feat. I simply used the treadmill at 4 mph while watching music videos on an HD monitor 20 feet away but as I was driving home in the dark this evening listening to a performance of Brahms's German Requiem I was feeling the creative juices bubbling inside me, a sensation that had been eluding me since I came home from the trip to Las Vegas with my sisters. The iPod video is on my Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Duende-Arts-Photography-Videos/194848773479?ref=search&sid=740460032.1486545904..1I shot Arron tonight as we talked about putting up a fan website before his match in January 2010.
The portrait shoot with the Banthias was instructive on several levels. I used automatic camera settings all throughout, manipulating white balance and exposure post-shoot in Photoshop. I shot with manual settings with Brandon and lost so many images. Maybe with more practice I'll get better at doing manual-setting photography but maybe I've found the process that works for me in this shoot with the Banthias.
I shoot quickly, only making lighting changes when I really have to e.g. to avoid obvious, undesirable shadows. I should probably learn to be more deliberate with lighting and camera settings but when I have a model or models with me the excitement is hard to resist. I take as many shots as I can. I end up with hundreds of images that becomes a challenge to process from just the sheer number. If I set up the lights and camera settings more carefully, I'll have fewer images to review and process. Will I be missing out on images that I'll like?
