Chris

Physical vs Digital

by

Inspired by the time-tested practice of marginalia, the art of
note-taking inside of books, I wanted to explore note taking in digital
books.

In most apps like Amazon’s Kindle, I can highlight, notate and save until next time I open it up like below:

But there are limits. When you purchase a book it is not owned but
rather it is licensed. You are borrowing it until at some point either
the publisher pulls it or the digital store no longer supports it. They
cannot be transferred, and at some point the digital purchase will be
deleted.

Also, you cannot pass down your digital books or their annotations to the next generation.

I
used to have crates full of books but after moving them around the
country more than a few times, plus the introduction of digital books, I
gave away or sold most of them because of the inconvenience. Now, I am
regretful.

The next time I want a book for a quick read I’ll
purchase a digital license and be done with it or borrow from the
library. For long term books to keep I will be grabbing a physical copy
and look forward to scribbling my notes and commentary.

by

Lightroom Preset Sync!

“Finally!”

– all Adobe Lightroom users

I’ve been able to synchronize my custom film effects from the desktop to my mobile iOS devices so now I can edit my images anywhere.

On my iPhone

On my iPad

This is a fantastic development that’ll come in handy when I am out and about and want to share processed images right away.

by

Fortune Cookie #10

Your eyes will soon be opened to a world of beauty, charm and adventure

by

Idea

Here’s an overview about my thought processes and cycles. Steps ten and eleven is the hard part because…number twelve. Repeat the cycle again and again.

Get an idea

1. See, hear, smell, taste, touch something interesting

2. Obsess about it

Do your research

3. Scour books at home, in the library and the bookstore.

4. Look online

5. Watch videos

6. Take a field trip for research

Record what you find

7. Take notes

8. Take photographs

9. Draw it out

Apply what you learned

10. Make something

11. Show someone. Let them know all that you’ve learned

Something else catches your eye.

12. Go back to step 1

Anti-Social

by

“If you have good experiences with social media, nothing in this book invalidates those experiences. In fact, my hope is that we—meaning both the industry and all of us—will find a way to keep and improve on what we love precisely by being precise about what must be rejected. Deleting your accounts now will improve the chances that you’ll have access to better experiences in the future. Some have compared social media to the tobacco industry, but I will not. The better analogy is paint that contains lead. When it became undeniable that lead was harmful, no one declared that houses should never be painted again. Instead, after pressure and legislation, lead-free paints became the new standard. Smart people simply waited to buy paint until there was a safe version on sale. Similarly, smart people should delete their accounts until nontoxic varieties are available.”

by

VSCO > Instagram

Instagram sucks. I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it. VSCO has a great business model. They make and sell digital products to help enhance your photography and provide a social platform to host too. VSCO desktop presets for Adobe Lightroom and VSCO mobile are great tools to create and share your work.

Compare this to Instagram’s business model: advertising. Fun fact: I have never purchased anything from an online advertisement and I will go out of my way to not buy their products for their intrusive behavior. Also, I don’t want my data sold to anyone I don’t want to business with.

VSCO is minimally designed where the focus is on photography, not how many followers you have or comments and likes. These fake forms of measuring how good your image is can be unhealthy and distracting.

The attention to photography and storytelling beats the Instagram feed of 1 ad to every 4 photos. Instagram has ceased to be relevant and ceased being fun.

VSCO is a creative tool program where it provides the tools to edit your images and share on your feed or even in a journal format. Repost others in a Collection as a mood board of inspiration. Even reach out to others with private messaging.

I’ll still use Instagram for my Shots photo group and that’s all. I want to focus on enjoying photography again and being more creative as a result.

**Update** It is finished

A Non-Expert’s Guide To Writing

by

Three important lessons for people who are inspiring writers and have never done this before:

  • Get a unique story idea.
  • Plot it out.
  • Research and study the hell out of your topic and genre. 

A fourth lesson would be to stop focusing on all of those and just get to writing something. Anything. Please.

It’s Not Relevant

by

Instagram sucks.

It used to be a great way to network with great photographers and friends. It has evolved from a creative community into an abomination of memes, unoriginal work and advertisements.
When Facebook purchased Instagram everyone knew that it would change drastically and not for the better. 

Shortly after, ads were popping up with no regard for anything. Nothing was relevant because Facebook hadn’t yet figured out your likes, dislikes, friends. It still hasn’t figured me out. I am seeing ads for candy, ads for salt. Yes, salt. Ads for a house flipping seminar by some faux celeb on a DIY channel. Ads for paint etc etc. What the hell does salt have to do with photography? This is a photography platform…or it used to be.
IG has added video features, photo/video stories, IGTV for longer video stories. All laced with ads. 

FB and IG both have shitty algorithms that is distracting what we want to see. Their shitty algorithms have also destroyed the order in which we want to see our friend’s photos by assuming they know best. But FB and IG don’t know me at all. They’ve stopped caring and allow any advertiser to show whatever they want, relevant or not and then have access to our data.

How pervasive are these irrelevant advertisements? It averages one ad for every four photos in your feed. Four, maybe five of your colleague’s images and then you get a “sponsored post”.

Think these offered options matter?

Why don’t you want to see this ad?

It’s not relevant

I see it too often

It’s inappropriate

Think again.

Deleting Facebook was easy. I never took it seriously and my friends appreciated me mocking everything that they enjoyed about FB.

Speaking of deleting…I just accidentally erased my whole last paragraph and don’t have the energy to recreate it. Anyway, IG sucks and I am getting real close to pushing that “delete account” button

image

It’s Not Relevant

by

Instagram sucks.

It used to be a great way to network with
great photographers and friends. It has evolved from a creative
community into an abomination of memes, unoriginal work and
advertisements.
When Facebook purchased Instagram everyone knew that it would change
drastically and not for the better.

Shortly after, ads were
popping up with no regard for anything. Nothing was relevant because
Facebook hadn’t yet figured out your likes, dislikes, friends. It still
hasn’t figured me out. I am seeing ads for candy, ads for salt. Yes,
salt. Ads for a house flipping seminar by some faux celeb on a DIY
channel. Ads for paint etc etc. What the hell does salt have to do with
photography? This is a photography platform…or it used to be.
IG has added video features, photo/video stories, IGTV for longer video
stories. All laced with ads.

FB and IG both have shitty
algorithms that is distracting what we want to see. Their shitty
algorithms have also destroyed the order in which we want to see our
friend’s photos by assuming they know best. But FB and IG don’t know me
at all. They’ve stopped caring and allow any advertiser to show whatever
they want, relevant or not and then have access to our data.

How
pervasive are these irrelevant advertisements? It averages one ad for
every four photos in your feed. Four, maybe five of your colleague’s
images and then you get a “sponsored post”.

These are the offered options when telling IG you don’t want to see their ads:

Why don’t you want to see this ad?

It’s not relevant

I see it too often

It’s inappropriate

Deleting Facebook was easy. I never took it
seriously and my friends appreciated me mocking everything that they
enjoyed about FB.

Speaking of deleting…I just accidentally erased
my whole last paragraph and don’t have the energy to recreate it.
Anyway, IG sucks and I am getting real close to pushing that “delete
account” button.

**Update**  It is gone.

A Non-Expert Guide To Writing

by

Three important lessons for people who are inspiring writers and have never done this before:

  • Get a unique story idea.
  • Plot it out.
  • Research and study the hell out of your topic and genre.

A fourth lesson would be to stop focusing on all of those and just get to writing something. Anything. Please.