BCLLYN @bcllyn-blog - Tumblr Blog

Paloma, apartment in SoHo, November 2016

Paloma, SoHo, November 2016

Bed-stuy, Brooklyn

I feel like shit and I can't pick myself up

self-portaits, new york city, october 2016

#nyc photographer #nyu photographer #gramercy green #nyc #new york #new york photographer #new york self portrait

on listening

I wonder sometimes, am even suspicious, when people are too attentive in their listening and too careful in their responses, if they’re politely demonstrating interest while censoring themselves from the unkind truths they’re really thinking of. Or worse, if they’re just practiced in the art of aloof affirmation, performing a convincing show of listening when they’re actually tuned into the more engaging theatre of their own minds. There are also the unapologetic ones who do not bother to go through the process of performance - they listen carelessly and, finding no value in the speech, dismiss it easily by seguing into something unrelated. At least it must be better than those who do not seem to have the capacity to listen, whether by choice or by the nature of their being; their responses are generic and thoughtless, limited by the selection of response templates that are socially acceptable.

And then there are the listeners, whose mere presence provokes the kind of eloquent and free speech in a capability I was previously unaware of - and it is in their presence that I’m able to speak with the confidence that my words are landing in the intelligent mind of an interested, even caring, listener and experience the connection I crave so much, mind to mind.

#listening #listener

stole some time and spent it by the lake, falling asleep on the lifeguard’s chair and waking up, perched high, from a nap that bled into the first thing I saw: a quiet, immediate view of the lake, stretched out across the overcast afternoon, lull-like and lovely, lovely

#Bellyn #afternoon #photoset #upstate New York #fall photoset #lazy afternoon