Happy Late Night, Sweet Baby,
That was quite a picture this morning! Wow - there was a lot going on in that one, most strikingly The SB sitting on a cliff, lol. I imagine it's a lot more secure than it looks, but still......you won't get me up there, haha. :)
The maximum for me is about three feet from an edge, and I'd prefer at least five, but sometimes I'll get a little closer for my own photographic purposes. But no sitting down with feet dangling!
It just comes down to how comfortable you are with heights, and I am not comfortable with them, although I am a whole lot less nervous then I was when I began hiking. In 2014, when I started, I would always stay on the inside of a trail, close to the mountain and away from a cliff. Now, I am not as tenuous about it. But I still won't go all the way to a cliff edge. You must have no fear of heights. :)
Besides all of that, it's a great photo in many ways. There is so much happening : the ripples on the water below, the sunlight on the treetop, the trees reflected in your sunglasses, and the human aspect of your hand and feet, wearing sneakers. It looks like you could be reclining at home, with your notebook, but instead you're on a cliff. So it's a great photo all around, and nice grey scale range too. I hope you had a good brainstorming session as well as a nice hike, and though you didn't mention the location, I am pretty sure I've seen that park in your pictures before. :)
Tonight's movie at CSUN was Bresson's "Lancelot Du Lac". I've seen it a few times on dvd, but never before on a movie screen, and now I have a whole new appreciation for it. After the screening, I went home and looked it up on IMDB, and I saw that there are wildly varying opinions of this film. Some people, even many who claim to be big Bresson fans, think it's his worst film, or an outright turkey.
I felt like issuing a four word response, applicable to any of those "one star" reviews : "You are an idiot". Which I did not do, of course.
But I wanted to because Bresson's "Lancelot" is an amazing work, one of the most Bressonian of all his films. Everything he's worked on throughout his career is being perfected here, especially the camera framing and editing, the sound design, and most of all the stripping down of story. This is Knights Of The Round Table in real life, with no mythology and little grandeur or romance. If that were all it was, just an anti-Arthurian film, as opposed to all the ultra mythic Hollywood takes on the story, then it would have been as bad as the IMDB critics say. But because it is made with the epitome of Bresson's style of precision filmmaking, perhaps his best technical film, it actually takes the King Arthur story to a whole new level.
At least I think so. I love this movie, this is the fourth time I've seen it, and conversely I also equally love the ultimate Hollywood romanticised version of the tale, "Knights Of The Round Table" from 1953, starring Robert Taylor and Ava Gardner. Bresson himself would have hated this version, but I equally love it with his film. Nothing wrong with Hollywood movies (especially in the old days), and there is certainly nothing wrong with artistic films. Just gimme the best of both worlds.
As far as Robert Bresson goes, I am afraid I will have to go on a mini-tirade here and declare him The Greatest Filmmaker Of All Time. I know I have essentially said the same thing a few times before, but tonight I've gotta make it official. Yeah, I know you've got your Ozu and your Tarkovsky. You've got your Antonioni. Some might say Bergman. I myself might put Satyajit Ray up there, or Orson Welles. David Lynch.
But Bresson created a super-precision cinematic style and a way of telling stories, ultilising non-traditional acting, that has an artistic effect that I think is unsurpassed. Remember how we think of the concept of Art as creating something that cannot be described....
That is the effect Bresson leaves you with, in all of his films. Something beyond description.
He is #1 for me, and all of his films are a Ten.
Lastly, I should mention that I have seen a few of your posts in the last couple days, including the Mannequin Challenge and the recent photos of Steve, including the one of him standing mountaintop in Colorado. He emphasised the motif we have spoken of : "It's good to be back out West". :)
I also saw an Eric Whitacre post yesterday (which I always love) but then it disappeared from the search later on. That is what I mean by FB's algorithm for returning a search of your posts. So maybe on some days you are posting new stuff and FB just doesn't show it. I don't know, but I do know everything is good.
As of Sunday, I will be off all of Thanksgiving week.
That's all for tonight.
I Love You! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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