Guest Post: I’m going to let you into a little secret…

My secret notebook

…it is this: “I sometimes get others to say what I cannot put so well myself because of the weakness of my language, and sometimes because of the weakness of my intellect.”

Of course, that’s not my quote, it was penned by Michel de Montaigne, who, Wikipedia tells me, was one of the most influential writers of the French renaissance. Bloody show-off.

However, it’s a nicely self-deprecating quote with which to begin a guest blog spot. I reassured Matt that I’d behave myself on his blog and likened being invited here to being asked to look after a friend’s child. It’s a terrific responsibility and you just hope that you can return it safe, clean and free of swear words.

I guess two out of three won’t be too bad.

So, back to Montaigne who understood that we sometimes find that other people have already written down thoughts that echo our own but in much clearer language than we’d be able to conjure up – and with correct punctuation in the right places to boot. And I’ve found this to be true. I frequently read articles and blogs where the author has said something that I completely agree with but in more concise, more evocative language. It can be tremendously reassuring to find that somebody else has already been down the path we are on and there’s a wonderful sense of kinship when we read something that really resonates with us. A kind of eureka moment.

A few years ago I decided to start collecting some of the quotations that struck a chord with me. I was in New Zealand at the time, slowly travelling around South Island in a campervan and with plenty of time to read each day. I found that I was reading lots of things that I wanted to remember so I picked up a rather unglamorous notebook in a newsagents in Christchurch and began copying out sentences from novels, lines from song lyrics and snippets of overheard conversations. Anything that really resonated with me went into the little orange book and it’s here now, in front of me as I type this, my tiny box of gems.

At this point you might be saying to yourself, with some justification, “This is all very well Gavin but what has the content of your notebook got to do with photography?”. To which I’d reply, “Good question”. Indulge me for a moment longer and I’ll explain.

Photography has got nothing to do with camera equipment. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Photography has got nothing to do with apertures, lenses, shutter speeds, tripods, exposure values, composition, pixel counts or starburst filters. Especially starburst filters. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you differently.

Photography is all about heart. Respect, sensitivity, humility, confidence, perseverance and heart. But mostly heart. I’m pretty sure that if you’re a regular reader of Matt’s blog that you will already understand this so I know that I’m preaching to the choir. You will already appreciate that a photographer who takes pains to understand and empathise with their subject from a position of equality will produce images that far outshine those produced by a photographer who arrives with a snazzy camera but a bag-full of bad attitude. It’s the quiet photographers, the considered and contemplative photographers who manage to convey beauty most effectively. Ansel Adams said “There are always two people in every picture: the Photographer and the Viewer“. If that’s true, and I happen to think it is, then your personality is going to come across in your images. Would it be foolish to suggest that quiet, considered and contemplative photographers inevitably produce quiet, considered and contemplative images? I don’t think it would.

What about this notebook then? What’s the connection? Well, it has come to serve as my pocket self-help guide. More by chance than design I’ve accumulated quotations which offer encouragement for when I’m lacking self-belief and which offer guidance for times when I can’t remember what the path looks like, let alone in which direction it might lay. It contains reminders for me that although life has a habit of throwing obstacles in our way, others have been this way before and overcome them. It contains quotations that help strengthen my resolve and reinforce my commitment. It contains pages that define the sort of person, and consequently the sort of photographer, that I aspire to be.

I’m conscious that I’m currently blowing away the facade of English reserve that I’ve worked so hard to establish and replacing it with something much more touchy-feely. How unbecoming. Oh well, the damage is done now so I might as well continue by bringing you a few random quotations from the pages of my notebook. I encourage you to start your own notebook of quotations. Include anything that you find really appealing. However, write down only the things that really strike a chord and which speak to you on a fundamental level. It doesn’t matter if you forget about it for six months, just keep it safe and you will, I promise, return to it in the future and be impressed with how clever you were to write down something many months before which seems so pertinent to your current situation.

On perseverence (and mountain summits):

“The summit is… sublime. It is hard not to start grinning, perhaps laughing, for no particular reason. An innocent laughter that comes from the core of one’s being and expresses a primal delight at being alive to see such beauty. But… it isn’t easy to climb to 3,451 metres above sea level. It requires five hours at least, one must cling to steep paths, negotiate a way around boulders… grow breathless… and crunch through eternal snows.”
Alain de Botton

On a successful attitude to travelling:

“Every place is a goldmine. You only have to give yourself time, sit in a teahouse, watch passers-by, stand in a corner of the market, go for a haircut. You pick up a thread – a word, a meeting, a friend of a friend of someone you have just met – and soon the most insipid, most insignificant place becomes a mirror of the world, a window on life, a theatre of humanity.”
Tiziano Terzani

On pursuing your dream:

“Integrity: includes the value of consistent pursuit of these chosen projects which give purpose and meaning to one’s life.”
Edward Craig

“And as usual when you start doing exactly what you are, whether you’re a writer, whether you’re a catamaran sailor, you pretty much start in for the most demeaning work you’ll ever do in your life.”
Jeff Buckley. Genius musician.

On defining love and commitment:

Josh: “I’m just saying, if you were in an accident I wouldn’t stop for beer.”
Donna: “If you were in an accident I wouldn’t stop for red lights.”
West Wing, Season 2, Episode 18

On photography as a religion:

“If I was going to be something I’d probably be a Buddhist. I’m just a photographer.”
Steve McCurry

On finding your way:

“There are many new roads in Kathmandu. The oldest of which is named New Road.”
Jeff Greenwald – Shopping for Buddhas

On keeping things in perspective:

“When it all comes down to dust, nothing that you or I or anyone else on earth can create is anything more or less than a gasp in the wind: one prayer scattered among billions of others, all equally holy and all eaten at last by the rain and the wind.”
Jeff Greenwald – Shopping for Buddhas

On plain speaking and keeping things uncomplicated:

I was staying in a beach hut in Samoa and met with other travellers for dinner. As a group of strangers, the introductions obviously came first. The following brief but very direct conversation took place at our table between a straight-talking, no-nonsense Australian girl and a rather taken aback French man:

“Hi, my name is Jane”
“Is that Jayne with a Y?”
She paused, looked at him with an expression of horror and replied,
“Of course it f***ing isn’t“.
Jane (without a Y) – Tanu Beach, Samoa

On maintaining one’s priorities as an Englishman:

“A man cannot appreciate truth or beauty unless he has tea in him“.
Anon

And finally, on thoughts of one day returning home:

“Now I dream of the soft touch of women, the songs of birds, the smell of soil crumbling between my fingers, and the brilliant green of plants that I carefully nurture. I am looking for land to buy and I will sow it with deer and wild pigs and birds and cottonwoods and sycamores and build a pond and the ducks will come and fish will rise in the early evening light and take the insects in their jaws. There will be paths through this forest and you and I will lose ourselves in the soft folds and curves of the ground. We will come to the water’s edge and lie on the grass and there will be a small, unobtrusive sign that says:
THIS IS THE REAL WORLD, MUCHACHOS, AND WE ARE ALL IN IT”
Charles Bowden

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Gavin Gough is a travel photographer and writer. He also runs tours and workshops in his adopted home of Bangkok.
Find out more at his web site or blog.