This week almost passed without me having taken any photos. I had some slim pickings, but I think I got a nice one.
Nikhil has often used the word “Grok” especially as relating to “grokking the scene”. It has become more important to grok the scene if you want to capture and express through the photograph what it is the scene says to you.
Even though I thought I had heard the word before, no one lese I know has ever used it as often as he does.
I check it up on Wikipedia and then thought to myself, “that’s where it came from!”, apparently coined by the author Robert Heinlein in his novel “Stranger in a Strange Land”. I love the definition given for it in the novel (keep inmind that it is a Science Fiction novel set on Mars)
Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science—and it means as little to us (because of our Earthling assumptions) as color means to a blind man.
Can we understand a scene so completely that we become as one with it? That is probably something to aim for, to achieve it would be great,
Here’s a photo of Nikhil, Grokking the scene 🙂
Click on the image for a better view in the Gallery, and if you haven’t seen the other entries for the Deck project they’re all over there in the Gallery.
The Michael Lam Collection's Blog 
You had to look up the meaning of “grok”?? Shameful! Your geek credibility will never survive that admission! 🙂
Well, I looked it up to get a more eloquent explanation, rather than the ad-hoc one I would have used 🙂
I remember reading Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land when it came out. Now I’ve re read most of Heinleins novels at least once or twice but it took me over 25 years before I re read this one, I’m not sure its withstood the test of time for me. I never used the word Grok, such a harsh sounding word for being at one with the landscape. Landscapes can of course resonate in one word. The Aire Valley at EastBurn West Yorkshire says ‘Home’ to me The Inland Passage between Prince Rupert BC and Port Hardy the northern most port of Vancouver Islands ‘AWE’ Yellowhead Pass at Jasper Alberta “Magnificence” and all three places pull me in and I am one in and with the landscape.
Nikhil does look to be one with the landscape, having dropped his camera from his eye, his is in and of the landscape. You have captured the light and this “Groking” I wonder if other languages have a word which is the equivalent?
Not sure about other languages, but I’ve grown quite accustomed to the Grokking 🙂