Jan

Coffee Culture: Slow Down and Focus

by Joyce McGreevy on January 18, 2016

Cameras on display at the Camera Museum, part of London's coffee culture and a place to slow down and see things differently. (Image © Camera Museum)

Café, what café? Let’s see what develops.
© Camera Museum

To See the World, See Things Differently

There was only one logical conclusion: the café had been stolen by elves.

Sightseeing can mean seeing things differently–only now I couldn’t see the site at all. In search of a rumored gem of café culture, I paced the short stretch of London footpath. On that bitter cold morning in Bloomsbury, outdoor tables and chairs were sensibly tucked away. So I checked the street address again and again. But where the café was supposed to be, I saw only a shop front, its window chockablock with camera gear.

Then again, the café’s name had a photography reference, so it had to be right there. Yet when I glanced inside, there was only a small, softly lit shop. It barely looked big enough to contain its glass counter, across which two elderly men affably debated the merits of tripods.

Obviously, there was no room for a café.

Obviously.

Customers checking out photography gear at the Camera Museum, part of London’s coffee culture and a place to slow down and see things differently. (Image © Camera Museum)

There’s more brewing here than first meets the eye.
© Camera Museum

The Case of the Vanishing Café

Perhaps the café was like Brigadoon, the fictional Scottish village fated to reappear only one day every 100 years. Perhaps it was cousin to the London pub that mysteriously disappears in the madcap detective novel The Victoria Vanishes: A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery, by Christopher Fowler.

Or perhaps I just needed to slow down and focus.

Back I went to the camera shop. This time, instead of tentatively glancing through the door, I walked right in. There were new and vintage cameras, elephantine lenses, flashes, and battery grips arrayed in display cases everywhere. Stacked boxes filled the gaps between shelves and ceiling.

No coffee culture here.

From Scattered Photons to Single Focus

Just as I was about to leave, I looked up and saw a sign that said “Dessert.” (Some details naturally rivet my attention.) As a customer stepped away from the counter, another sign, “Coffee Shop,” was revealed.

Then I looked to the left, around a display case, and down a short hallway half in shadow. There it was, aptly underexposed—the Camera Café. To find it, you had to be fully inside the building. You had to observe your surroundings.

Oh, I see: As a photographer might say, I needed to adjust my focus. First, slow down that snap-happy shutter speed. Then, expand the depth of field and explore the entire scene.

A vintage camera, water glass, and coffee cup, illustrating how savoring the moment can help people see things differently. (Image © pia–ch/iStock)

Take time to focus, and savor a sense of place.
© pia–ch/iStock

That was years ago. Today the café, renamed the Camera Museum, is so heavily signposted that no passerby could miss it. But at the time, as befuddlement turned to “Eureka!” it held a mythic quality.

Call it a Narnia moment, because it felt like finding a world behind the wardrobe.

Ever since, I’ve reveled in witnessing the hidden, which, admittedly, often includes delayed discoveries of the obvious.

The street view of the Camera Museum, a place that invites passersby to slow down, see things differently, and enjoy London’s coffee culture. (Image © Camera Museum)

Once easily missed, this London café draws full focus today.
© Camera Museum

To Look or to See?

Sometimes the most delightful details are hidden in plain sight.

Recently, while waiting my turn in a coffee house in Ann Arbor, Michigan, I decided to take in the details of the setting rather than reflexively stare at my cell phone. That’s when I saw it—the fairy door in the baseboard. It stood just a few inches high, but it had a big place at Sweetwaters Coffee & Tea.

A miniature fairy door set into the baseboard of the Sweetwater Café in Ann Arbor, Michigan, illustrating a beloved element of the coffee culture that invites people to slow down and see things differently. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

Who lives here? Someone tiny and shy!
© Joyce McGreevy

Children’s book author Jonathan B. Wright (who also happens to teach design) created the fairy door, now a beloved element of local coffee culture. The one I spied is just the second of several such doors that mysteriously appeared in Ann Arbor, beginning in 1993.

What about the first fairy door? As coincidence would have it, that one appeared in the Wrights’ own home.

Soon, fairy doors and windows turned up all around town. Locals and visitors began to see the world differently.

Inspired by this stumbled-upon whimsy, I decided to track down other fairy dwellings. My favorite was the fairy house at the Ann Arbor public library.

Fairy houses hidden within books at the public library in Ann Arbor, Michigan, inviting people to see things differently in miniature. (Image © Joyce McGreevy)

These books give new meaning to the phrase “multi-story housing.”
© Joyce McGreevy

When Details Become Doorways

So you might say it was the fairies who led me to yet another serendipity.

The library happened to be hosting a sale of vintage children’s books. There, for the grand sum of two dollars, I discovered a pristine copy of a book I had cherished as a child, The Grandma Moses Storybook for Boys and Girls, published in 1961.

1969 U.S. postage stamp (6 cents) honoring the art of Grandma Moses, illustrating how looking carefully into something as tiny as a stamp can help people see things differently. (Image by Bureau of Engraving and Printing [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

You can even see the world in a postage stamp!

Like many another sentimental object, it had fallen down time’s rabbit hole.

Now here it was. With the slight vanilla scent of each familiar page, a world of memories opened up and invited me back in.

See what happens when you slow down and focus?

Savoring the local coffee culture or simply pausing to see things differently can give you a deeper sense of place. It might take you to a half-hidden café in London or a fairy house in the Midwest. It might even take you all the way back to your happy childhood.

To stay up on what’s new with the fairies of Ann Arbor, visit the Urban Fairies Operations (UFO), a site maintained by Jonathan B. Wright. Find his books and a tour map to the fairy doors here.

Grandma Moses stamp credit: by Bureau of Engraving and Printing [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Joyce McGreevy 24 Comments

Art of Travel/England/USA

Jun

Web-Footed Wanderlust

by Meredith Mullins on June 22, 2015

Single African blackfooted penguin showing his wanderlust iin a penguin parade. (Image © iStock.)

Getting out and about
© iStock

Five Travel Tips from a Penguin Parade

You can learn a lot of things from a jackass.

It’s not often that I get to start a story with a tribute to a jackass.

In this case, I’m talking about the jackass penguin, or African blackfooted penguin. (The unfortunate nickname of “jackass” comes from the honking sound they make, reminiscent of a donkey braying.)

I first learned of these penguins when I saw their penchant for curiosity and wanderlust in a whimsical YouTube video.

Meredith Mullins 6 Comments

Art of Travel/USA

Feb

Landscape Photography with a Deep Sense of Place

by Meredith Mullins on February 23, 2015

Landscape photography (Homeward Bound II) by Roman Loranc showing a slice of California scenery, a road toward Mount Shasta. (Image © Roman Loranc)

Homeward Bound II (Mount Shasta, CA)
© Roman Loranc

Roman Loranc: Rooted in the California Natural World

There is an empty canoe drifting in the Consumnes River in the Central Valley of California. It’s photographer Roman Loranc’s ride. His way of slipping gently into one of the landscapes he loves.

He is facing away from the escaping canoe, knee deep in the river, with his tripod steadied on the river bottom and his 4 x 5 camera trained on the forms just visible in the distant mist. He hasn’t yet noticed that he is stranded.

It doesn’t matter. He is in another world. A world where he is seeing, smelling, hearing, feeling, and tasting the scene he is photographing. He has lost himself in the moment.

Landscape photography (Phantom Canoe) by Roman Loranc showing California scenery including the central valley wetlands and a canoe. (Image © Roman Loranc)

The Phantom Canoe. Roman turned “being stranded” into a work of art
© Roman Loranc

The Essence of Landscape Photography

A good landscape photographer understands composition, quality of light, and the effects of changes in time, weather, and season on the subject.

A great photographer understands all of the above, but also belongs to the scene he or she is capturing—rooted to the place. Connected with all senses.

Roman Loranc is such a photographer. One who understands how to be fully present when capturing a moment on film.

Landscape photography (Oak, Carmel Valley) by Roman Loranc showing a slice of California scenery, an oak tree in Carmel Valley. (Image © Roman Loranc)

Belonging to the place (Oak, Carmel Valley, CA)
© Roman Loranc

Being Part of the Natural World

The canoe episode reveals much about how Roman lives his life.

“I know that I am a part of the natural order of things,” Roman explains. “I know because I feel it when I am quiet and let myself be a human being rather than a human doing. We are all part of the natural world, although we sometimes forget.”

Landscape photography (Skyline Forest) by Roman Loranc showing a slice of California scenery, tall pines with light. (Image © Roman Loranc)

A connection with all senses (Skyline Forest, Monterey, CA)
© Roman Loranc

He describes his time photographing as a process of opening all his senses, not just the visual. “I am present, sensing and feeling, my mind clear, connected to this world, my world.”

He talks of hearing insects buzzing, feeling a cool breeze, smelling the pungency of decaying leaves, tasting the moisture in the air. And because these things are intrinsically woven into his photographs, we feel something too.

Landscape photography (Road to Mauna Kea) by Roman Loranc showing a slice of scenery with a dark road in Hawaii. (Image © Roman Loranc)

His images have a haunting power. Drama and mystery. But, there is also a bit of melancholy, as if the simple beauty of these places is fleeting. Things change . . . and sometimes threaten to disappear forever.

A Photographic Path Across Cultures

Roman’s photographic life began in his childhood in Poland. He received his first camera at age 7 or 8, as he recalls. It broke soon after, but the short time he spent with it was life-changing. The idea of slicing a moment out of time to preserve forever was magic.

At 19, in Russia, he traded a pair of Levi’s for a 35 mm camera and darkroom equipment (a pretty good trade). Mentors and inspirations came his way.

Landscape photography is made by Roman Loranc with view camera. (Image © Bob Reade)

He loved the chemistry (and alchemy) of the darkroom but freely admits that his first prints were horrible. He worked hard to learn despite the lack of materials in communist Poland. These milestones—both serendipitous and fought for—provided an undeniable path to the art of photography.

He left Poland in 1981 in search of freedom, defecting to the United States. Wisconsin at first, and then west. Somehow he knew California would become home.

“I had to leave in order to live, and the U.S. was where I felt I could do that best,” he remembers.

He was rewarded not only with personal freedoms but also with magnificent landforms.

Landscape photography (Santa Lucia Highlands) by Roman Loranc showing a slice of California scenery, mountains and sea. (Image © Roman Loranc)

Respect for the Land

He took to the California Central Valley (and later the Mount Shasta area) like Ansel Adams took to Yosemite and the Westons took to the California central coast.

Like all artists who respect the land, he learned that the better you know it, the more its beauty reveals itself.

Landscape photography (Tule Raft) by Roman Loranc showing a slice of California scenery. (Image © Roman Loranc)

Statuesque trees, minimalist tule, and misty mornings became his life blood. He admits to feeling a bit guilty when people love his photographs. It is nature that is beautiful, he says. “I get rewarded, but I don’t know if I deserve it.”

He shouldn’t be so humble. He is dedicated to his craft; does everything by hand; and, with vigilance to be envied, makes sure every image is consistent with his vision.

Landscape photography (Crucified Landscape) by Roman Loranc showing a slice of California scenery, fields and clouds. (Image © Roman Loranc)

A Technique with Commitment

Although he appreciates technology, having grown up without electricity or running water in the communist era, he is loyal to the traditional approach to photography.

His technique conveys his emotional response to a scene—from his choice of black-and-white film to his dedication to the perfection of prints—photographs where depth and mood are supported by the right palette of tones, the luminescence of the light, and the addition of sepia and selenium tone to provide an additional layer of feeling.

Landscape photography (Krakow, Poland) by Roman Loranc showing scenery in Poland. (Image © Roman Loranc)

Oh, I See: The Common Thread

Most of Roman’s photos celebrate the natural world via landscape photography, but he has also explored manmade forms. He describes the common thread as “moments of enlightenment.”

Mount Shasta at sunrise or a cathedral or synagogue in Eastern Europe can provide the same sense of the “gift of existence.”

“I understand the interplay of life and its dependency on a vital planet,” he says. “I feel a part of it, not apart from it.”

It is this connection that allows us into his world through his images. And we’re glad to be a part of it.

Landscape photography (Valley before the Rain) by Roman Loranc showing a slice of California scenery, a coming thunderstorm. (Image © Roman Loranc)

Roman Loranc’s “Collection of New Work” is at the Photography West Gallery in Carmel, California until March 14, 2015.

Photography West Gallery has also produced two monographs of Loranc’s work—Fractal Dreams and Absolution.

To see more of Roman’s work, visit his website.

Comment on this post, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.