Existential Punk

A Hint Of Bergamot

My great friend, Thomas, aka Headphonaught, has invited me to join the photography blog he started the first of the year. i am really excited as i need a creative outlet and this will give me motivation! i will be carrying my little point and shoot with everywhere now! Keep checking back to see the great creativity going on over there! i have addes it on the side under 'COOL MEDIA SITES'. Thanks, Thomas! YOU RAWK!

It's called a hint of bergamot, which he describes below:

"I've started something new... and I am looking for folk to participate.

a hint of bergamot is a photoblog where I will post one pic per day... well that's the intention anyway... and I am looking for folk who would be willing to post their pics (one per day).

I'm not looking for amazing pieces of art [although that's kind of "in the eye of the beholder" and subjective anyway]... I want the blog to be a visually inspiring space... where we share our insights into the specialness of the ordinary. So if your photo is from your phone (even iPhone pics are allowed) or from your fancypants dSLR... it doesn't matter... its about the moment."

Here's my first photo posted today!

 

Photography Dictionary

HT Andrew Sullivan for this very cool site for photographers!

Life Before Death

HT to my good friend, Pete Rollins, for this captivating and haunting photo exhibit.

Here is what the exhibit is about:

"This sombre series of portraits taken of people before and after they had died is a challenging and poignant study. The work by German photographer Walter Schels and his partner Beate Lakotta, who recorded interviews with the subjects in their final days, reveals much about dying - and living. Life Before Death is at the Wellcome Collection from April 9-May 18"

Once you have read the excerpt on the right hand side of the photo click on the picture. The exhibit can be viewed here.

i found it sad, for many of them were still young. The photos left me feeling scared about my own mortality in light of my own health issues. Also of late, i have been wondering about the seemingly randomness events of life. Where is GOD and is GOD impotent? As noted above, many of the people in this exhibit were mid-life when they expired, so where is this ALL POWERFUL BEING at in the lives of these creatures? Why didn't this BEING intervene with prevention or healing. Sometimes i question the very existence of a Divine Being. i know all the pat answers: "We live in a fallen world. We have free will. GOD'S ways are higher. GOD has a bigger plan/purpose. Yada, yada, yada ...and so forth." These answers just don't cut it for me anymore. Maybe during my fundamentalist Christian interlude they may have assuaged my questions somewhat, as certainty in GOD, the Bible and all other things related to Christianity were to be adhered to lest we go to hell. i think CERTAINTY worship took the place of GOD Worship and FEAR was the motivation rather than LOVE. Yet, it was this interlude that kept me from fully embracing my questions and doubts. i do believe in a Divine Being/GOD but i do appreciate the times i am allowed to question, doubt, and wrestle with anxiety, as all this causes me to grow rather than remain stagnant. The little pat Christian answers of my fundamentalist interlude are now just a cacophony of religious babble and death for my soul. The easy answers smell of rotted flesh.