Tales by Light

Dearest Mr. Bradley,

 Do you remember when we sat for an entire lunch break and talked about travel photography? I always thought that was funny, considering neither of us is a particularly skilled photographer. But we both love travel so much that we are curious about all fields related to it, hence our lengthy discussion on photography.

 Something that you said during that discussion was very similar to a sentiment I heard in the Netflix Original show Tales by Light. The photographer in the episode was talking about his boyhood desire to dive the wreckage of the a Mitsubishi bi-plane that crashed into Rabaul harbor during World War II. He said, “I just knew that I wanted to dive it for some reason, you get these things in your mind from time to time and you envisage the image you want to create.”

 When I first heard this, it triggered a memory in me, but it took me a while to put the pieces together. I remember that as you and I were wrapping up our conversation, you asked me if I had ever made a bucket list. I told you that I had, and you asked me to show you. After giving it a quick scan and acknowledging the fact that most of my dreams included travel, you asked me how I planned to accomplish those goals. I’m sure I gave you a basic answer about hard work and determination, but you said something that has stuck with me to this day. “Don’t worry so much about accomplishing everything. Just start with one thing - but you have to visualize yourself there, in that place or moment. Then you can work backwards and see what steps you need to take to get there.”

 This idea of visualizing a goal and then working through small steps to accomplish it was very prevalent in Tales by Light. In the first episode, the photographer travels to multiple locations to shoot marine photos, including some action shots of whales. This seems like such a large, unattainable thing, but really it boils down to nothing more than a series of small steps. The photographer researched a location, contacted the people who owned the area where he would like to shoot, and then made necessary travel arrangements to go there. He gathered a team and equipment, and then used his diving skills to reach the underwater location where he could begin shooting.

This idea of achieving big goals by completing small tasks is one that I think more people could benefit from. Starting a new job, making new friends, or checking items off of your bucket list are all intimidating things, but not when we realize that they can be easily accomplished. Tales by Light showed the finished product of the photographer’s hard work, but it also showed some of the less glamorous parts of photography. I appreciated this, because it reminded me that just because you vision yourself achieving something doesn’t mean you’ve achieved it. You have to put in plenty of work, but for things you really want it life, it is worth it. 

Fearless (Episode 1)

Hi, Grandpa. I'm glad to have you know I'm coming home for all of next week for Thanksgiving break. However, speaking of college, one of my classes has me write "posts" for TV show or movies to certain people designated every week. This week, we're to write to an older family member, and you were the first to come to mind. Now, I tried looking for a show that either involved farming, westerns, or baseball, but I couldn't find it. But eventually I found something that might work: Fearless.

Fearless is a documentary about the PBR, the Professional Bull Riding League. Specifically, it focuses on the contestants of the PBR world championship, as well as their backstories and personal lives, as well as the origins of the rodeo, the league, and the rodeo on a national scale, such as the Barretos festival in Brazil. Speaking of Brazil, I've only seen the first episode of the series, and this first episode focuses largely on the Brazilian competitors and their mark on the sport of bull riding. Unfortunately, the only Brazilian bull rider whose name I can remember is Silvano Alves, 3-time championship title holder, who unfortunately suffered a serious injury to his pelvis which seemed to have greatly affected his bull riding skills. However, at the end of episode, when the Barretos festival is on its way and Silvano is about to go for round 2, the episode abruptly ends on a cliffhanger. I may possibly continue watching the series sometime.

The show seems to portray bull riding as something majestic and awe-inspiring (which, frankly, it pretty much is considering they risk their lives in this sport). A lot of the bull riding footage is slowed down and the sound is either turned down or ambient, and even at one point a cracking sound plays alongside the crowd gasping as one bull rider gets stamped on after falling off. And a lot of the bull riders talk about how not only dangerous it is, but also how exhilarating it is, and that fear is the one thing keeping ordinary people from bull riding. It can get pretty emotional and breath-taking.

Overall, I may probably continue watching the series sometime in the future, and I would very much recommend this show to you, although you have to go on Netflix (which I'll probably explain to you at Thanksgiving), and you don't have anything that Netflix can be streamed onto, so I'd most likely have to bring something over to your house that I can play it on, although when exactly I'd do that I'm not sure. Maybe during Thanksgiving break or AT Thanksgiving, maybe winter break, or maybe some other time, but I do want to show it to you. Another thing I need to note is that a lot of the dialogue in this episode is in Portuguese, so you'll probably need subtitles for a majority of it. But other than that, I want to show you this show as soon as possible.

Abstract: The Art of Design (Episode 1)

Having to write a blog post over a show that could teach you something valuable or educational, obviously my first choice was a documentary. However, I didn't have enough time in my schedule to watch a full blown 90-minute documentary film, so I went to "Docu-Series." However, most of the shows in the "Docu-Series" listing wouldn't work for my writing either because the topic would be hard to write much about or I had no interest in the subject matter.. White Rabbit Project was labeled as a "science investigation," which seemed to have a lot of educational value, but it was made by the people behind Mythbusters, and with no offense to Mythbusters crew or fans, Mythbusters to me is like the Transformers movies of science shows. But that's neither here or there. Regardless, I was left with one final choice that I hoped would work out for me. And it did.

Enter Abstract: The Art of Design.

This show is essentially a biographical series which covers the lives, works, and methods of the world's most important artistic designers, covering fields from architecture to graphic design to automotive design, and more. However, I only managed to watch the first episode due to time constraints. The first episode is about the illustrator Christoph Niemann, who made the cover art for a lot of issues of The New Yorker (as well as the Atlantic Monthly and New York Times). The episode follows Christoph around as he explains his work life in both the past and present (such as his classwork under the famous Heinz Edelmann, who is most well-known as the art director for the classic 1968 Beatles animated film, Yellow Submarine, and his ventures to New York to start work at the New Yorker, and back to Berlin to get away from the stress of the city) as well as showcasing the current project he's working on: A cover of The New Yorker which can be viewed in 3D via tablets and smartphones. If that peaked your interest, well then that's only the start.

One of the most interesting (and quite frankly awesome) aspects of this episode is that there are numerous illustrations of Christoph shown throughout, some done in the past and some even done specifically for the show. What makes them great is that a lot of the pictures have some sort of meaning behind them, and the illustrations allude to it in a clever and sometimes even literal way (I would like to give an example, but it's so hard to describe them without looking at them, so I would recommend searching for them online). Some pictures, though not really meaningful, are pretty great solely because he uses an everyday object (in 3D, NOT drawn) as a basis for a picture, and then draws things all around it (for example, he uses a pair of socks tucked into one another as a "head" for a dinosaur, and then draws the green body around it. That may seem simple and not all that interesting, but there's more. He even makes one with a coffee cup while using the coffee as paint). Given the fact that he even explicitly said his work life and personal life don't gel together and that he gets very stressed easily from his job, I have to commend the man for not only doing sparetime illustrations and the 3D VR cover for The New Yorker, but ALSO do illustrations for this one episode of this show. That's amazing.

The show does have its educational value within art, such as Christoph's demonstration of the 'Abstract Scale" with the famous heart shape, but the educational value lies within the merit. Throughout the episode, Christoph says that his free-spirited, relaxed self and his strict, workaholic self battle quite often, and even at the beginning he says that Edelmann was usually very down on his work. That attitude gave him the boost and belief that he currently uses today. He states that people usually belief to not stress yourself on work and take it easy. However, he says that is NOT how to do it, and stressing yourself to get your job done is a lot better in the long run with your job. Now that's something a lot people can learn, given a lot of people also have stressful, tiresome jobs.

Overall, I'll probably give this show further watches, although as said before, the show revolves around numerous artists and not just Christoph. The second episode in the series will focus on Tinker Hatfield, a shoe designer for Nike and even the creator of the famous Air Jordan line of shoes. Although, I have to wonder what will be done in that episode to liven up the presentation, like with the illustrations in this episode. But anyway, I'm going to check the rest of the series out later, and so should you.