Teach to Learn: The quote in this issue of the starter, is one of the most profound quotes I have encountered. It is by James Clear and I am sure it has been offered by many others in slightly different wordings.
When I first started teaching, I was looking for something to do to make an extra few bucks. At the time, photographer Pat Berrett and I shared a studio. Pat suggested I teach for Continuing Education at University of New Mexico (CE). Pat knew I didn’t have a college degree, but he suggested it didn’t matter because I have been carrying a camera around for more than 50 years. I also had a few years in as a photo magazine publisher, as well.
It was the best thing I ever did because it “forced” me to learn more if I was going to teach. That decision led to many positive turns in my slightly jagged path of life. It gave me inspiration in so many ways.
I also belong to a small photography group and in that group we are regularly tasked with coming up with thoughts and ideas about what inspires us. For me, the answer is pretty clear. I don’t have to think too hard or lose any sleep over it because the answer comes in two formats: teaching and publishing.
Teaching works because I can work with people who are genuinely interested in making better images. In each class I teach there are invariably one or two students who shine. This works and the results are similar whether I work with photography or poetry, which is another class I teach at CE.
For each class I teach I need to develop subjects and lessons that will serve to (hopefully) enable students to think differently about how they make images or write poetry. And that requires research and requires me to stretch myself in an effort to present challenging concepts and patterns of thought to inspire students to continue to grow and evolve.
Publishing works because I have been publishing photography magazines for more than 20 years. In that time, I have viewed and curated more than 700 photographers who have submitted thousands of images for publication consideration. If that didn’t serve to inspire me then I need to pursue another line of work.
In order to teach them I have to teach myself…
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Please pass this along to others of like mind. We do need to spread the positivity around! Know that I will be working hard to make the starter better with each issue. It will come into your inbox at 8am, each Monday morning, free or paid. Comments are always welcomed! Enjoy!
"The person who learns the most in any classroom is the teacher.
If you really want to learn a topic, then "teach" it. Write a book. Teach a class. Build a product. Start a company.
The act of making something will force you to learn more deeply than reading ever will." James Clear
Maya Angelou, Facing Evil: In this second of two programs celebrating the life and work of the late Maya Angelou, Bill Moyers revisits a 1988 documentary in which he and Angelou attended a conference on “Facing Evil,” held in the Hill Country of central Texas. Evil was a topic about which Angelou, the victim of childhood rape and virulent racism, had a lot to say. ©Moyers & Company (For many years Bill Moyers had been one of my favorite journalists, who wrote and spoke the truth. Maya Angelou did the same with unrequited strength and vocal power, whether in the form of poetry or prose. We lost Moyers last year and Angelou in 2014. Fortunately, there are plenty of videos on both of them. This one bring both of them together and I am the better for that. )
Disenchantment, Seth Godin: “Where does hope come from?
It’s probably hard-wired, the result of an evolutionary process. A creature with hope is less likely to give up and more likely to raise offspring, thus passing down an ability to find resilience in the face of change.
Disenchanted has come to mean something different from its original usage.
Today, we’re “disenchanted” when we’ve fallen out of love with a person, product or situation. Marketers seek to create customer delight, and when they fail, customers become disenchanted and fade away.
But that’s not what Max Weber meant when he wrote about Descartes.
Until just recently almost everything that happened was enchanted. Magical spirits kept us alive, kept the sun rising and falling and gave rise to the voice in our head.” ©Seth Godin. (Just like sometimes I need me some Mary Oliver… sometimes I need me some Seth Godin for emotional clarity. For me, he always delivers!)
Shadow & Light Magazine Archives: Cig Harvey, Emerald Drifters: “Emerald Drifters (Monacelli/Phaidon, 2025), explores sensual experience, focusing on the ephemeral nature of light, pigment, and vision. The photographs are lush tableaux of signature subjects–flora, cakes, domestic interiors, and the human figure in the landscape–accompanied by prose vignettes on the science and art of color. Essay by Ocean Vuong. ©image: Cig Harvey
Poetics: Ada Limón, How to Triumph Like a Girl: While on vacation this year, visiting my boys and their families, we ventured into a bookshop in Edmonds, WA. The poetry section wasn’t that large, but it did contain many poets I did not know. Unlike most poetry sections that contain many well-known poets, in this shop the shelves had works from many poets I did not know. Ada Limón was one of them. She was the 24th U.S. Poet Laureate and has won many awards. This poem was in the book of hers I bought, Bright Dead Things, which was a National Book Award finalist. What most intrigued me about her work is that the style is unique and refreshing. Go ahead, look her up! (image: ©Lucas Marquardt
How to Triumph Like a Girl
I like the lady horses best,
how they make it all look easy,
like running 40 miles per hour
is as fun as taking a nap, or grass.
I like their lady horse swagger,
after winning. Ears up, girls, ears up!
But mainly, let’s be honest, I like
that they’re ladies. As if this big
dangerous animal is also a part of me,
that somewhere inside the delicate
skin of my body, there pumps
an 8-pound female horse heart,
giant with power, heavy with blood.
Don’t you want to believe it?
Don’t you want to lift my shirt and see
the huge beating genius machine
that thinks, no, it knows,
it’s going to come in first.
©Ada Limón
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