conversations
conversations
What’ s in a conversation? It’ s the beginning of new ideas. A sharing of personal stories.
BY MAE MAÑACAP-JOHNSON A start of meaningful relationships. This Pulse section called Conversations highlights opinions, ideas, visions and personal anecdotes of CEOs and leaders from across industries. Join the conversation. Send your questions and suggestions on leaders you’ d like Pulse to profile.
LOUIS SCHWARTZBERG
More than just an award-winning cinematographer and film producer, Louis Schwartzberg has a love affair with Mother Nature. He lovingly gazes at her from the lens of his digital time-lapse camera and exalts her beauty through his visually dramatic and highly moving films.
During this year’ s Mind, Body & Spirit Session at the 2012 ISPA Conference & Expo, he talked about the need to feed the spirit with nature’ s beauty in order to remind us of a value so often forgotten: gratitude.
PULSE: What drew you to filmmaking? Schwartzberg: I was actually a political science major when I first entered college, but I quickly fell in love with the way film allowed me to view the world. Here’ s this piece of film that’ s sitting in the dark, always ready for light to hit it, completely nonjudgmental of what it’ s going to see, and completely open-minded with no preconceived notions of how it will be revealed, of when it will happen. It just records the information 100 percent objectively. That’ s the ultimate way of perceiving life! And I have the beauty to revisit that moment— a month, a year down the road; I’ m back in that emotional moment. That’ s time travel. That’ s a miracle. And you also get the benefit of seeing how you’ ve changed. How you have evolved. It’ s a beautiful thing.
P: What gave birth to the idea of a film about nature, beauty and gratitude? S: When I started to film nature, I met my greatest teacher. Mother Nature led me down a path of self-discovery to find the universal patterns and rhythms that are part of my soul— to discover beauty and truth.
As the son of two Holocaust survivors who came to America with nothing, I was raised on gratitude. For someone who had known the horrors and deprivation my parents had known, [ gifts like ] sunshine, the most humble of foods, music and a [ new ] day were all things to celebrate and be grateful for.
Their thankful attitude had a profound effect on me. Through their eyes, I learned that the small things, like the wildflower growing from a crack in the sidewalk, and the ordinary things, such as food on the table or a roof over your head, were just as important and as deserving of attention as the big things. They are all good and worthy of celebrating. They are worthy of gratitude. And nature takes full advantage of this feeling.
The beauty we see around us is nature’ s tool for survival. By making us fall in love with nature, we come to protect it. I hope to spread that feeling of guardianship.
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20 PULSE ■ December 2012