As social media editor for the Out of Eden Walk project, part of my job is to bring Paul’s photos and videos into the public space, where poetic moments from the trail can be relived by others. My favorite material to share with our followers is his Milestones, particularly the Glances videos: they are fleeting video portraits of place and landscape, like nuggets of visual poetry that evaporate before your eyes.
Watch, for example, this video from Milestone 12, in the Hejaz. Why does it resonate with me? Because here, the wind is something you can see. It fills up the frame. It’s shouting.
Twenty-eight Glances videos are archived here, along with seventeen videos from Paul’s dispatches. Take a look and let us know which videos captivated you by tweeting to @outofedenwalk with the hashtag #digitalcampfire.
Marita Tevzadze and Ana Jegnaradze, two Georgian filmmakers who have recently collaborated with Paul, were so inspired after viewing our collection of Glances videos that they made their own. The results are beautiful vignettes of the Republic of Georgia: mountains flashing through the concrete pillars of a bridge, a child’s knit sweater, vegetation invading an empty house. You can watch them below.
Of course, it’s not necessary to travel to exotic surroundings to produce a compelling portrait of the world around you. Pause for a moment to look and listen even in your own city or town — perhaps the way the light falls through the leaves can tell a story, or the texture of the soil underfoot, or the sound of fingers on a keyboard.
Paul will soon set off on the trail once again, and he will be recording Milestones through the steppes of Central Asia and in the caravan tracks of the Old Silk Road. But one of the core tenets of the Out of Eden Walk project is that it belongs to everyone — the journey is collective. So this week, from Monday, October 5th to Friday, October 9th, I invite you to join us by recording your own versions of the Glances videos. We will highlight short videos produced and posted by you, the loyal Walk followers, on all our social media platforms: Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Here’s how it works:
Take a ten- to twenty-second video of the unique spot on Earth that you occupy, inspired by Paul’s Glances videos. A smartphone works perfectly for this.
We’ll collect the results and publish a selection in a new Lab Talk blog post next week, showing the faces that give a grassroots pulse to this community of walkers — and how diverse are our ideas of home.
Welcome, everyone, to the first Out of Eden Walk community Milestone.
Glimpses of Georgia, from friends of the Walk Marita Tevzadze and Ana Jegnaradze:
Camille Bromley is the Out of Eden Walk project’s social media editor.
