The Spirit of the wild is enjoyable but is it real?

I went to see the Steve Bloom
“Spirit of the wild” photograph exhibition in St. Stephen’s Green. Thoroughly enjoyed it as the photographs are amazing. Well worth a visit. It’s free and runs until October the 7th. Steve actually gave up a very promising career in the graphics industry, to follow his dream of being a wildlife photographer. The commentary on one of the photographs, details how Steve spent two weeks crouching in a boat to capture the image of a dolphin jumping out of the water. The dolphin jump lasted all of ten seconds.
Two weeks of crouching in a boat, for a 10 second opportunity really demonstrates the old adage of success being 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration.
Originally this blog entry was going to be about Steve as an illustration of the perseverance necessary to succeed.

In doing the research however, I came across a discussion that many of the Bloom photographs are digitally altered. I was disappointed to hear this, as I’d though the photos were “real” but it seems to be normal these days. For example, Dove who ironically sell beauty products have produced a short video which shows how the super model look appearing on advertising billboards all around us is artificially made up. It’s very short, so worth watching by clicking here .
So much of what we see and hear is digitally altered for an ulterior purpose.

But does watching these altered images matter, if it’s the viewers choice? I think it does, because these images are selling values, images and definitions of success. Advertising works by telling us we can increase our sense of self by buying the advertisers product. Kilbourne believes advertising helps define who we are and who we should be, all of which should be absolutely flawless. I think she’s right and it’s not just Americans being affected. Last week’s Sunday Times reported that a perfectly good looking, slim 29 year old girl went to 3 different plastic surgeons of whom 2 recommended plastic surgery.
A major Irish times survey reports that women put personal care(skin/hair) as their 2nd most important priority, so advertising is obviously having an impact on how people view themselves. Click here to see a 6 minute Kilbourne video on this topic.

Recently we’ve had a few clients, who had great understanding of themselves and were very clear about what they wanted to do with their working lives. I wondered why they needed to come to us. Subsequently, I realised it was because they needed reassurance they were doing the right thing, because they were going against the accepted norms.
We have become so bombarded with images of success that we have started distrusting our own thoughts and feelings, our own sense of self, it’s not okay to make mistakes any more.

So how to ensure we’re not being unduly influenced by all these images?
The answer is we probably can’t.

We can however reduce their influence by critically evaluating what we see and read and not always accepting things at face value. (Also a very useful skill in any job)
We can reduce the amount of TV we watch, or the number of glossy magazines we flick through. All these magazines are selling perfect relationships and perfect lifestyles, which they tell us we can have, when in reality there is no such thing.
Getting outdoors to the hills or parks can be useful. Or talking to people with a different perspective on life to yours on a regular basis.

What ever you do, realise we are constantly being bombarded with images trying to sell us something. Taking an independent view does require constant alertness in much the same way that maintaining physical fitness requires regular exercise. So enjoy the photo exhibition, but see if you can spot the digital manipulations. I know I did not.

Note
If you have a keen interest in the area of staying detached from media/consumer society influences you might find Eckhart Tolle’s book, The power of now“” useful.

Other possibly related posts
Are you handcuffed to money?
Accountants take pay cuts
Mikas true to his career.


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