Smoke and Minds

– first learn to service well, then serve

Born into a family of mother, father, grandmother and aunt as wonderful cooks, mine was a world where men and women alike made magic in their respective kitchens, with an attitude of self-evidence. Unequivocally this background ignited the daily passion and self-evidence approach towards the world of the palate, in which I live today. However, not until I aimed to understand my incessant interest and search for conscientious palate experiences, did I come to realize this.

As I obeyed religious rules the first twenty-five years of my life, it is perhaps also this life’s initiation what allows and gently forces me to go in this direction, intertwined with a keen spirit for a higher intention and an educated approach towards most of what I taste. Daily I embark in concentrated sittings with tobacco, coffee, spirits or foods, merely in an effort to ever increase the level in which I perceive products dissolving in my mouth.

You are warmly welcomed to enjoy the visuals and dwell upon the ideas that periodically become Smoke and Minds, not as an instigation to smoke, but as an inspiration for the mind towards things that awaken our sense and choice of taste, while elevating us ever closer to being.

Yours,

sila blume

– on the topic

Life is propelled by and extended through hunger, as much as it is supported by the activities that subside or consume hunger and by the joy experienced through them. Life becomes liveliness when we learn to please our palate and our mind, and understand that our existence is not merely biology, but predominantly spirit.

Smoke and Minds documents and addresses the pleasure and activities in the mind of the Fine-Smoker.

A Smoke Lounge is much less about a haven for tobacco dependency than it is a realm for minds to gather.

– on these freezing fractions

Frozen fractions of any moment gain and lose from what they actually are in their context of flow. They gain because when we focus on a section or an angle of a moment, that part might obtain a value that is easily overseen in the context of its surrounding and spatial frame. It might – however – also lose on value when its context is much more in the sum than in just some of its parts.

For years and years, I have been driven to freeze moments and fractions of moments. An artist aims not always at creating, but at times to conserve. In 1985 I prepared for my very first trip on my own and for the first time into an unknown destination. Nothing seemed more self-evident to me than the need for a camera able to freeze fractions with quality and accuracy. I did not need to document where I had been. I needed to produce pictures that would express an importance of the moment that becomes important due to it being dissected into a frozen state. A Nikon FE2 was the beginning, not knowing a thing about ‘photography’, only knowing that it would provide me with a fairly reliable instrument to work with.

Nineteen-eighty-five, all the way up to two-thousand-fourteen, and I feel that I am just now noticing the details behind my needing to photograph. During the most part of three decades, I was living an impulse that I suspect was set in me by constantly having seen my father, either with a Super-8 or with a Minolta, as I was growing and he was frequently capturing what his family did.

Realizing the details in that photographic need is driving me to acquire more and more photography instruments, as I continue reading life, perhaps because life is unfolding more and more and in many ways. While perceiving, I am hoping these frames bring gain.

Equipment:

Holga 120WPC / Wide Pinhole Camera / 120/220 Film Format

iPhone 4 / Digital 

Leica IIIC / 35mm Film / Built 1949 (No. 476448)

Leica D-Lux 4 / Digital / Built 2010 (Serial #3633592)

Mamiya 645 AF / Medium Format / Built 1999/2000

Nikon F4 / 35mm Film (# 2313233)

Nikkormat FT / 35mm Film (FT 3231480) / Built 1967

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Photography Sources I gladly recommend –

• The Chronicles of Nikkorman by Roger Macon
• Leica Cameras by Frances Eugenia Schultz and Roger William Hicks
• Antique Cameras by Dan

 

Imprint

The Smoke and Minds blog is maintained with the purpose of sharing thoughts, experiences and taste, based on the culture, history and actuality of tobacco fine-smoking. It is written for every demanding mind and awake palate.

You may quote any of the published articles, passages, statements and pictures, or link other information to it. However, it is required to mention the legal property. Copying and using these works for commercial purposes is prohibited.

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without written permission from this blog’s author/owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Smoke and Minds with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

All written and visual material (unless otherwise specified) is the property of Sila Blume.

Disclaimer

This policy is valid since May 2013.

This blog is a personal blog written, edited and owned by Sila Blume. This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation.

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