Of Emotions Colours and the Seasons

The sun rises, the sun sets, we wake, we sleep, we work we rest, we entertain, we get entertained. These are the daily chores in our everyday lives...and we live in different worlds with different experiences, but one thing remains...we are human and we have emotions which differ and change throughout our daily lives.

We are all different from each other in much the way that we are similar. We all experience the same set of emotions, and since we live different lives these emotions come in different ways at different times and in different intensities. We have all learnt to understand our emotions and the emotions of others, and we have all learnt to manage them. It has been said that one of the biggest developments of mankind is understanding this thing called emotion, and through this understanding we have been able to develop relationships, maintain them, and end them. Some say the most important thing in life is to understand and manage the relationships we have with other people, be it our parents, peers, or acquaintances, business partners etc. This is how we have learnt to live with each other and how we have learnt to manipulate the daily activities of our lives and what we have set out to do. The fundamental aspect of all this is, Emotion: sadness, anger, fear, happiness, excitement, nonchalance....the list is goes on and on. These emotions guide our thoughts, and consequently our actions or vice versa and through action we are able to achieve many of that which has led to where we are as mankind today. 

So lets simplify this and move inwards so as to put this into context of  how this relates to colour and the seasons. We are living in an increasingly fast paced world and there is a great deal of expectation that we put into our daily lives, and this plays havoc with our emotions which change countless times a day as we go through our daily activities and this may leave one rather exhausted both physically and mentally or otherwise. Any person that wants to cope in this fast paced world we live in would realise that the most important aspect of our being is to keep things in order both inwardly (in our minds) and outwardly (in our physical being). As we attempt to do this we deal with a lot of our emotions by putting them in their right place and right mind. We expose ourselves to pleasures and pain; and we seek justification for each time we do this. This pleasure will come from satisfying our desires, through any of our senses together or individually - sight, smell, taste, touch (feel), hearing. These all tie back to thought of the mind, which is in direct connection with our emotions. 

We satisfy our desires by indulging ourselves in that which gives us pleasure,  both knowingly and unknowingly. When we knowingly indulge in that which gives us pleasure, we are stimulating one or more of the senses either in isolation or in unison, but we can never really address them all, and that always leads to temporary or incomplete fulfillment of our emotions, of which the feeling ceases once the stimulus is removed. We then have to question as to whether there can ever be complete fulfillment of our emotions, and what of this unknowing  fulfillment of our desires..?

I will explore unknowing fulfillment....

....you know it is sometimes said that happiness comes from enjoying life's simple pleasures. I have often wondered about the simple pleasures that were being referred to. I have often observed this, and also come to my own about this, and it seems it is enjoying the best of what nature has to offer. Some often have fulfillment from just taking a walk in nature and completely immersing myself in the moment taking in the colours. Walking along a crystal clear stream, listening to the water trickle along the rocks, hearing the birds sing, seeing the explosion of colours as the sun pierces through the clouds and trees, the fresh air, the hills, the sway of trees, and removing all of life's complexities that have been created by man, removing the ego from the self and actually realising there is more to life that all the superficial satisfaction thats put before us. 

The beauty of all this is that I can never really get bored of all these stimuli, they keep fascinating me as nature has a way of keeping itself interesting. It changes throughout all the year, as it cycles through all the seasons and sheds its skin of the old and brings about renewal. This always tends to bring about a renewal in our emotions aswell, and most of us do not even realise this...it is involuntary. I  would like to use spring as an example because of the explosion of colours as nature restarts its engines for yet another cycle of life. Nature and man celebrates spring in different parts of the world, through different religions, festivites, rituals and cultural acknowledgements. Each season has its own story its own joys and its own sorrows, the harshest of which is winter, which represents struggle and survival for all life on earth. The colours of nature seem to tone down during this period as the plants lose their leaves and the leaves lose their colour. It has been investigated and it has been proven that colour has an effect on the way we feel, it is a stimulus that has a strong correlation with our emotions.

What is colour anyway..? We see colours as light bounces off objects, and light is a wave with different wavelengths and each wavelength represents a different colour; this is what has given rise to what scientists call the light spectrum - a representation of light of all different wavelengths giving different colours. A physicist who has studied this at depth will tell you that different waves with different wavelengths carries with it different energy levels. Our eyes are the receptors for colour and there is a limit to the wavelength of colours we can see. It is often on the two extreme ends of the colour spectrum infrared light and ultraviolet light, but all that is in between we can percieve. This got me thinking that, all the different energies of the different colours gives us a particular type of energy as we see it - it is all transfer of energy.

Colours on the low end of the spectrum such as reds tend to represent strong emotional responses, such as fear, anxiety, anger, love etc/ red is a colour with the longest wavelength and has the least energy, as we move up the spectrum to orange we tend to see a representation of warmth, happiness, hope etc.Colours in the middle of the spectrum such as greens  represent a calm, serenity and nature and as we move up to the high energy colours such as blues and violets represent good energy, spirituality and upliftment. Thats just the general jist of it, and it is a lot more complex than I have put it out here.

We often share the best of natures colours, scents and tastes with our fellow human beings , from giving the gift of flowers to our loved ones, to sharing a drink, a fruit, a walk in the park....the list goes on. We are all trying to capture that piece of  natures brilliance -the brilliance which has given us (man) that simple pleasure which has evoked emotions that bring us inner calm and peace because THAT is what has given us complete fulfillment. There is nothing wrong with allowing ourselves to stop once in a while and enjoy life's simple pleasures and completely immerse ourselves in the best of what nature has to offer.

As the first rains pour on the parched earth, new life beckon, new opportunities arise and it shall be all over again.

 I am reminded of a quote while reading a book from a philosopher:
"...And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy. It is not a mouth  thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth. But rather a heart inflamed and a soul enchanted. It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear, But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears. It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw, But rather a garden for ever in bloom and a flock of angels  for ever in flight."
-Kahlil Gibran ( from the book "The Prophet" ISBN: 978-0-86852-048-3)

Cheers

kMoe

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#inthought -Time

The concept of time was invented purely as a measurement of progression -at least that's what I think.
Anyways, the reasons for my assertion is that time as dimensionless as it is seems to have a finite dimension. I will not try to get into the deep metaphysics of this one, as I myself am gettin confused, so really if we are both confused then what is the point.

Anyways my discussion about time is to mainly emphasise its point as an organisational tool. Mankind has seen himself grow more and more sophisticated as the concept of time became more a part of their activity, and eventually their person, and finally their own existence.

Time keeping is something that has been around for thousands of years from as early as 2000 b.c. and during this time different methods of measuring time changed from water clocks to candle clocks to insence clocks right up to sunclocks, and they were mostly communal time measurement rather than personalised use. The earliest western clock use was by the christian monks who made some of the 1st mechanical clocks in medieval times, as they were used to manage time between work schedules and prayer time. Innovation on mechanical clocks was continually carried out and this saw the 1st personal watch being used in the 15th/16th century.

The people that were using watches were prestigious members of society and they were businessmen, and they were efficient with their time as they could get more done during the day.

So my thought is, if this was the case then, is it still the same today? Well it seems to be! Simply because our world has been moving towards doing things in the shortest amount of 'time'. So clearly there is something to be learnt here..."Time is of the essence". Ever heard that before?

In the modern world time is so much a part of our lives, like most things, it has become a constant. We don't pay attention to it cause we expect it to be there. I say we should appreciate time, respect
 And recognise that its there, we have so many tools at our disposal, technology that makes it seem like we can even warp time. Take the planning ability smart phones give you, imagine how effortless daily organisers and planners make doing seem so easy. They show you how u have the time to do any number of things within any given period.

So when you say "I just don't have the time". Do you really not?

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Birds of Botswana - Weavers (Ploceidae)

The spring of 2011 opened my eyes up to a lot of natures wonders and the hive of activity that takes place during this wonderful season. This could perhaps be the cause of my long absence from the African continent which I personally think is a continent that is full of life and feels alive. I have been observing the seasons and its changes on people and nature in my experiences when I was in different parts of the world, such as the dense jungles of Malaysia and the vast expansive forests and deserts of Australia, but nothing seems as wonderful as seeing nature in its full life in the continent of Africa.

One thing that particularly caught my eye was bird life and how it interacts with its natural environment which it seems is constantly evolving and adapting to changes in the environment brought about by modern day human existence. One of the birds that i have been following is the male African weaver, which comes from the Ploceidae family that is broken into 17 genera, with about 116 species all different in much the way that they are alike. Weaver birds are also known as weaver finches and this name comes from the intricate nature of their well built nests that seem as if they were built by a creature with tools and opposable thumbs. These birds can be found in most of Southern Africa and India.

The weaver is a very quick bird and very hard to photograph, so you can imagine the challenge one would have when using a point and shoot camera to capture such a bird in action live in nature. I  was fortunate during this spring to have the chance to capture some half decent shots of  a male lesser masked weaver (Ploceus intermedus) just as I was setting up my camera for a photoshoot in the backyard of a residence in Gaborone-West, Botswana.

This bird was building a nest and there is something particularly interesting about the manner in which it does it. Weavers are known to build their nests in colonies and usually a tree that has got the nests of the weavers will usually have more than one ranging between four and ten on mostly acacia trees. The nest building exercise is also known to be part of its mating behavior as it uses the nest to attract a female mating partner, the male bird is know to build several nests from which the potential mate selects one (usually the first one) which she will complete and make it their nesting home.

Birds build nests for protection from weather elements, predation and they also provide a shelter where the young will be raised and taken care of. I see many people that enjoy cutting down trees and tree branches for no apparent reason other than their own, and this puts pressure on the birds to relocate a new habitat. Usually this causes disruption to mating patterns of the birds and may lead to dwindling population numbers. Conserve  trees to help protect our beautiful creatures.

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#inthought -Observation

ok, I think this blog may be going in the direction past my intentions...but hey its a blog, and I'll just let it go the direction that feels right. As with most things that we do, we act and react to situations based on collective information that we receive from observation.

Observation is something that occurs all the time, we do it intentionally or unintentionally, and its something that we do from the moment we are born. It is through life's experiences that we are shaped by our observations, and eventually those collective observations become part of us. Take for example, learning how to speak. A baby is born without the ability of speech, yet through hundreds and hundreds of days of human interaction and observation a baby learns to speak, and they will speak like whom they have been observing -their observation has become part of them.


Is what we observe the true representation of what we see? or is it based on what we want to see. Are we impervious to occurances that occur right infront of our eyes but independent of our vision? Again my 2 cents...we see something becuase we want to see it, that is, we become part of what we observed in the past to the point where our observation of the present can never be independent of ourselves. What we have here is then conflict caused by these observation: assumptions, social beleifs and conformity are what causes this conflict.

This may sound neither here nor there, but if you carefully read the statements and think about them, you might see this in a different light. To put this into context, I'll put forth an example that can occur and probably does a lot of the time.
When someone presents their view in a discussion, they will most certainly almost always refer to a past event in order to validate their observation as one that is "more" true. They would utter the words "In my experience.." or "back in my day...". The problem with that according to me is that it past observations of a similar subject in the present will give the same perception, but how accurate is it? (given the fast changing and dynamic world that we live in). What has merely happened is that the observer has limited their subject of current observation to the past and therefore will give rise to conflict.

which is probably why adults and teens seem to never get along in some societies (intergenerational gap). Is it probably due to adults' observation that is not independent from self that fails to account for the variables present today. Past events can have similar attributes to present events of the same nature, but they are no way the same, and therefore assuming that acting or reacting in the same way and expecting similar results is truely foolish...but its something we see happen everyday of our lives. What im trying to say here is that close minded observation (that is not free from self) creates conflict by not not observing something in its entirety and is what certainly leads to misintepretation. 

 this is in no way trying to suggest that we shouldnt learn from the past. Then again im not suggesting anything!!

So how would one avoid this conflict? Would it be to separate observation from the self..? and how would one go about that.? perhaps its not possible, or perhaps its what it is to be human, then again, I would say that open mindedness would be one of the ways to avoid conflict. To truely separate emotion from observation, and just as we can never really completely separate emotion from observation, we can never be truely be free from conflict.

but we can go some way in opening our minds to the world around us. What you see is what you get, but if you want to see more, you will get more.

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Charity Photoshoot Against Human Trafficking - Shoot 2

It started off on a cloudy and frosty Saturday morning, we met just on the south Edge of Gabrone city. I was certainly surprised at the number of people that were going to work on this. Feeling very unsure on whether we would have a successful shoot as we made our way to the  rail track that would make the setting for the shoot; I got acquainted with the designers and other photographers, most were friends I hadn't seen in a while and others I just met but the overall energy and friendly atmosphere among us was enough to brighten up every day.

Equipment talk now out of the way, we quickly got got planning, while the designers and make up artists dressed and worked on the models; the photographers got scouting the location to get the best of the scenery. I went around looking for unique and interesting scenes that would make for interesting shots. The great thing was that we worked well together and even got to share and create some great ideas for the scenes.

As soon as we started we got snapping and things flowed so organically and seamlessly as if we had practiced for it prior. By midday we had a small lunch provided by the shoot organisers as we casually had a chat to which we decided to have the last couple of shots and call it a day. It was a great success, and ill share some of the images that I managed to capture, but first a bit about the photoshoot.

About the shoot: 

ART FOR A CAUSE-HUMAN TRAFFICKING AWARENESS PROJECT COORDINATED BY DESERTARTZ

DesertArtz is a collective of visual artists who collaborate to achieve specific common goals. Artists who constitute DesertArts include a range of photographers, videographers, clothing and accessories designers, sculptors, painters, printmakers, make-up artists, leather crafters, potters, models and any kind of imaginable handymen and women. A remarkable passion for art and humanity has inspired this group of well versed artists to work hand in hand in the name of charity to raise awareness against human trafficking activities in Botswana and the rest of the world.

With its youthful population, economic disparities, porous borders, lack of opportunities for young people and flawed birth registration systems, Botswana has inevitably become an origin, destination and transit for the trafficking of persons. Women and children are most commonly trafficked without their consent for forced labor and sexual exploitation. Victims from Botswana and neighbouring countries are trafficked throughout Southern Africa with Botswana as the transit route mainly via the ‘Maputo Road’.

Botswana also has common cases of internal trafficking of vulnerable men, women and children. Children orphaned by different circumstances are usually not registered and they never officially acquire a formal nationality which is why they become targets who are easily moved around Botswana and other countries. In a time frame of countless generations children, refugees and internally displaced people in Botswana have been trafficked and subjected to manual labour. Children from poor rural communities are usually sent to work for wealthy families as domestic workers and cattle herders while they have most of their basic human rights violated. It has also come to our attention that Albinos are violently trafficked and killed for ritual purposes across Africa. 

Although human trafficking is world wide dismay, DesertArtz intends to primarily raise an intense awareness in Botswana then secondarily in Africa and the rest of the world. With our versatile talents, DesertArtz aspires to use art as a medium of raising this awareness by compiling previous fashion photo shoots and respective artworks to host an exhibition that would mark the inception of this endeavour. It is also our intention to send our video documentary to CNN –Project Freedom.

Artists currently involved in this project include;

DESIGNERS;

Tshegofatso Sino Ragontse- bead accessories D’vine Designs

Buhle- accessories Tswanalyric

Boitshoko Kebakile- accessories House of Divinity

Naiko- clothing Naiko

Maungo J Seabenyane- handpainted tshirts and bead accessories  ‘ outoftheblu’

Tsholofelo Madiabaso- clothing

Julia- bags label Valerie Clemence

Dondo Segola- bags

Tafadzwa- wireworks

Chandida Nlebesi- Shoes xix couture

Kepi Mngomezulu of Smarteez

PHOTOGRAPHERS;

Tsaone Majela- videography Green Hole Productions

Kopano Machailo- photography kMoe Foto

Kabo Olesitse- photography

Batho Matlhake-photography

Motheo Keitumetse

STYLISTS;

Dodo Bikane Zinc Boutique

Chandida Nlebesi

MAKE-UP ARTISTS

Fatima

Sino

MODELS

Kagiso Kablay

Christina

Eunice

Sino Ragontse

Nkamo

Thandie

Sadie

Khwame Acheampong

Diawyn

Katlo

Kgosi

Bonni

Here is my top ten shots I managed to capture (in no particular order)....

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#inthought -Life.

Im going to start off with sharing my view of life and what I think of it. It may in no way be fact or truth, only because the truth is really relative. But that's a discussion for another time. We go through this world and this life and during this time we constantly question ourselves and life. We ask questions that may or may not have an answer, and sometimes they dont need an answer.


 "What is the meaning of life?"
This is a question that im pretty sure most of you have asked yourselves or someone during general conversation. I cannot clearly recall the time someone asked me this question but what I remember is I didnt care much for the answer. Its been many years since and someone put out  it got me thinking... To me the answer starts off with examining not the mordern world that we have created, but the basic elements of life right up to ourselves. It may take many years or even a lifetime for you to get the answer, or it may take a second.
The answer could be as simple as "we are all animals and life probably shouldn't have meaning" but then we are humans we observe and question and we have the power to create.  we have the power to manipulate, anything from steel to people. So therefore the answer to the question changes...because we have all this power should life then have a meaning for us? Some religions beleive we are one with the environment and nature. Others beleive we are above animals but in no way their gods.

Should we then conquer this world or do we have the responsibility to protect and preserve it. If one has the power do the inherently have the resposibility? they certainly do...they should have responsibility for their power.

ill share a couple of photos that I snapped up...

taken in early spring, shows how human expansion can harm animal habitats

life comes in many forms and sizes, observe with a purpose and realise none is there to destroy

just because we have the power to destroy and build doesnt mean we have power over life

"There are many people who will give you the purpose of life; they will tell you what the sacred books say. Clever people will go on inventing what the purpose of life is. The political group will have one purpose, the religious group will have another purpose, and so on and on. So, what is the purpose of life when you yourself are confused? When I am confused, I ask you this question, "What is the purpose of life?" because I hope that through this confusion, I shall find an answer. How can I find a true answer when I am confused? Do you understand?"


- Jiddu Krishnamurti, 'The Book of Life' 

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The Journey

A first post of many.

Welcome to my blog. This is where I will share my view of the world and its colours through a wonderful technique of illustration called photograpy. Its amazing how one sees a colour and immediately it changes how you feel.

taken in spring '08. Location: Montefiore Hill, Adelaide, Australia. 

 I often missed the feeling I had when I saw a particular colour, so I got about with my camera capturing the millions of colours that come and go and some locked in time with what seems like forever. Through the seasons all the colours of winter different from summer, cooler than Autumn, but never as explosive and lustrous as spring. Spring is a time when nature gets to show off, from the birds to animals to insects and not forgeting the flowers that attract them. Its a time of begining, and what better time than to start this blog. 

On this blog you will get to see most of the colour and sometimes absence of colour and will share my view and opinion of the time inspired by the photo(s), covering a range of subject matters. I like to think a lot, and this will also be a way to share my thinking at the time....I will be sharing whats in my head through my lens.

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