“Over the coming century, the most vital human resource in need of conservation and protection is likely to be our own consciousness and mental space.
Tim Wu
Chris
The Apple Polishing Cloth
It’s a cloth. With an Apple logo on it. It cleans Apple devices. I paid $20 for it. Although I must say, it IS better than your average microfiber polishing cloth. Announced in October of last year, it finally became available.
Intrigue
Something I’ve been wanting to do lately is creating intriguing or compelling photographs. The not-so-obvious images that is designed to make people think. A simple scene that tells a story but leaves the viewer wondering. I have some ideas but not the means of executing them at the moment. Work in progress.
Can’t Get No Satisfaction
Photographers are always unsatisfied. If this wasn’t true, then why would we still venture out to seek something unique or capture something with our own perspective?
No-Go On The Crypto
After recently investing in cryptocurrency, I’ve looked at the markets and the charts and decided to cash out. I invested a few hundred dollars and have a net loss of $4.17. I wanted to see what the hype was about only to find out that it was just that- hype. I was on the fence about keeping some coin in but received email from the broker that profits are low due to [insert geopolitical excuse here.] Well that was what cryptocurrency was alleged to prevent- outside influences. Supply and demand was the rule, now we see it isn’t so. If you don’t get in on the ground floor then chances are, you missed opportunities. But that is what market speculation is. It was a fun experience but I’m out.
I’ve also shuttered my NFT photo collection auctions as there was little traffic or interest. Again with the hype. Unless you have a massive following online ( I don’t anymore,) than you’ll see little interest.
Once again, the promises of something new, better, decentralized and hyped out of proportion are undone by greed, scams and government regulations. It was fun.
The World Is Your Museum
I recently picked up the book titled ”The Art Of Noticing” by Rob Walker and even subscribed to his newsletter for even more updates and examples. The idea being to be aware of your surroundings, to go out, explore and think. Here is one of the recent examples titled ”The World Is Your Museum.”
Things To Do In 2022
Because we are constantly striving to improve all aspects of our life, here are some more areas we could all work on, starting with me.
- Reclaim your time and attention
- The year you finally decide to get fit
- Time to tackle the other “F” word – finances.
- You can do anything, not everything
- Tender-loving self-care (TLC)
- Better sleep and more naps
- Fill up that journal
- More writing
- Return to nature
- A good playlist
- Read, then read some more
- Install the Geocaching app and go explore for treasure
- Redefine success
- This time you are going to do something about it
- Take a hike
- More cooking, less dining out
- Work on the posture, stretch, breathe, save your eyes from the screens
- Delete your social media
- Enjoy a healthy social life
- Cancel most of your subscriptions
Maximum Effort
Airplane Mode – Switch on for limited distractions
Bust A Move – Stand up, walk around at least twice an hour. Get the blood flowing, oxygen in your lungs and clear your head.
No News Is Good News – Blissfully ignorant since 2016.
No Social Media- Blissfully ignorant of the ignorance.
Nutrition- Take out the sugar, fake sugar, bad fats and carbs.
Walk With Intention- Many problems solved with a good walk.
Workouts- Daily. Alternate and change them up to keep it fresh.
Stick With It
This post is a reminder to me and/or anyone else who can glean something from it. I find my interests go through a lot of ebb and flow, and occasionally this can be discouraging. However, I also find myself returning to some of those interests and that is encouraging.
You are an artist
How is it that people, especially photographers, don’t refer to themselves as artists? If you can pick up a pencil, a paintbrush, a camera, a musical instrument, etc. you’re in the club. Get over the imposter syndrome and just create for yourself. If other people enjoy it as well, then bonus. Success, legitimacy and “likes” are for those seeking attention.
Take Risks
There will always be a knowledge gap, challenges, risks, and even fear. Use all of that to take advantage of opportunities to create.
Delete Your Social Media Accounts
Remember those “likes” that I referred to previously? Ditch ’em. Your creativity is not beholden to others scrolling through their feeds.
Gear Doesn’t Matter
Use what you can, master it. Then consider upgrading.
Share Your Knowledge
Pass on what you have learned rather than hoarding it. Knowledge is beneficial for everyone.
Stick With It
I mentioned before that I’ve been shooting for forty years and I still haven’t figured it out. The moment I stop believing that is the moment I’ve lost the point. I want to continue to explore and create, and I have a long way to go.
Stay Curious My Friends
The desire to keep practicing is to keep learning and wanting more. There will always be more. This is the best reason to stick with it and create.
Photography 2022
If I stop to think about it, and I have, I realized that my passion for photography goes back exactly forty years. Damn. It all started when I received a Kodak Disc camera as a gift back in 1982. This thing was so easy to use that a child could do it. Pop the disc in, snap, take to the one-hour photo booth, buy more discs when you are there and then enjoy the prints. Well, then the Minolta disc came along shortly after and wow, my first upgrade. This thing had a handle that you could also prop up to use as a stand and a tiny mirror in the front. So let’s all blame Minolta for the selfie trend starting back in the early eighties. My high school had a photography class complete with dark room and print lab. Loved it until it was time to play football. Thereafter, it’s been a few point and shoot cameras until 2001 when I bought my first digital camera. So yeah, you can say I’ve enjoyed photography for quite a while. So, why stick it out this long?
As much as photography has been a part of my life I still feel like a poser or a wannabe although I’ve been published in books, magazines, websites, sold my work, organized and hosted two photography conferences in two major cities, owned my own business, and participated in two art shows. I do have some laments:
- No prints on the wall
- No photo books on the shelf
- No decent organization to the archives
- What’s the point of all these photos if they are buried in a hard drive?
These will all change this year starting with the Archives. Organized by years, finally, I’ll need to go back in and cull the duplicates and delete the undesired photos. Then, add geotags, face recognition, and keywords for better sorting and search. Then and only then can I begin to think of hanging prints or publishing photo books.
My photography means a lot to me and now it is time to completely enjoy it.
Web 1.0
Social media, those platforms that grew under what we call Web 2.0, is dead to me. There is a reason why blogging, RSS feeds, e-mail, podcasting, and texting has stuck around for so long- they work. We have control. We interact with people we genuinely care about. We take our attention back.
I am thrilled to see like-minded individuals building on their own land in blogville as opposed to sharecropping on Zuck’s territories.
Social Anxiety
There are a lot of people out there who are re-thinking their social media use and I think this is a good idea. It’s taken a long time but the realization that prolonged exposure to these platforms are not good for your mental health.
I got out a few years ago, because of the stupidity of it all. There is nothing of value there unless there are legitimate, supportive conversations. You know, dialogue as opposed to ”Look at me and my best life!” Well even if we wanted to see you at your best life we couldn’t thanks to the manipulation of the data and the way it is presented to you. And you’ll be hard pressed to even see that because of the pervasive, irrelevant advertisements.. No thank you.
So I am glad to read that attitudes are changing and people can slowly start to recover their IQs and have the ability to hold actual conversations in real settings. I’ll touch on this more because I have a lot to say and not enough energy to articulate at the moment.