Have you ever wondered what happens when you mix a little bit of ancient wisdom with modern legal technology? You get a book that is not a book; a story told in pictures; an interactive community where you are invited to share a bit of yourself.
Welcome to my latest creation: Zen and the art of photographic story-telling, a story by The crazy Colombian. In this book I tell my story in the tradition of other Zen masters. In the process, I experimented with some emerging technologies such as Creative Commons licenses. I invite you to read the book online. Don’t have time now? Then download it and read it off-line. Don’t like reading on the computer? That’s fine too: Just order the book (available in soft- or hard-cover), and take it with you for your next holiday.
If you like the book, I encourage you to send it to people that you love. Did you feel that I touched a part of your heart while reading it? Then go to the last page of the online book, and share your story with the rest of us.
If you want to know why I am doing this, keep reading. In the remainder of this article I will explain why I chose to tell the story in the style of Zen; and how this book would not have been possible without the assistance of other generous artists who released their works using Creative Commons licenses.
Presenting your story with a bit of Zen
Less is More.
Balance rules.
Elegance is a wonderful master.
Design is king.
Some of these Zen principles inspired me to do things differently. I have spent most of my working life in the corporate world. I have refined my story-telling skills using Powerpoint decks. And it was only recently that I became aware that when you take many of my corporate stories, they share some unfortunate characteristics:
- They have an excessive amount of text
- They will attack your senses with too much detail and leave you confused
- They turn the presenter (usually me) into a well-dressed parrot whose only jobs is to read from the slides
Recently, I learned it doesn’t have to be that way. According to best-selling author Garr Renolds there is a lot we can learn from Zen masters. In Presentation Zen Garr shows by example how elegance, balance,and Zen simplicity can dramatically improve any story; especially those that are to be told in front of an audience.
It was after reading Garr’s book that I started experimenting with his ideas; in this book, I made full use of his many suggestions. The final story is much more interesting because of him.
Photography in the new world order
How do photographers make a living? By restricting access to their creations; retaining all rights to copy and distribute their works; and using scarcity to increase demand for their art. Or at least that is how it used to happen. In the New interconnected world of the Internet, new business models have emerged. Some artists will release their images through stock photography web sites, and get royalties every time a customer purchases their work. Others are joining closed communities where their work is released and the users of those communities pay them via a voting system.
But the most adventurous ones are releasing their work using Creative Commons (CC) licenses. The most restrictive of these licenses allows viewers to ‘share’ the artistic creation with friends for free, as long as they (a) Attribute the creation to its original author, (b) Keep the creation unadulterated, and (c) Derive no commercial gains while sharing it. What this means is that if I see one of these photographs in flickr and get inspired by it, I can download and forward a copy of it to my friends (as long as I tell them who took the photo) and still be acting within the realms of copyright law.
In the new world of CC licenses, there are some authors, musicians and photographers that are much more generous with their creations. In using the least restrictive version of the license, these artists will allow you to share and distribute their works under one condition only: that you give attribution to the original artist. That’s all. Do you prefer to change the saturation of the photo and make it all have a blue tinge? Go ahead. You have a great souvenir business and want to frame and sell the photo at tourist kiosks? As long as you provide attribution to the original photographer, you are allowed to do so.
Why would an artist do this? In some cases, it is because they are amateur libertarian artists. In others, because they are trying to showcase some of their best work and become better known. And in a few instances, because they have something that they believe needs to be shared.
My book was not only composed using photographs released under the most generous CC license; the book itself is released using this very same license type.
Story-telling in the 21st century
Mix these 2 concepts, and you end up with my book. Originally written in English, I have also now translated it into Spanish. Go ahead; visit zenphoto.crazycolombian.com (English) or fotozen.crazycolombian.com (Spanish) and see whether you like it.
