“Do you ever know what the birds are singing? You don’t. But you listen to them anyway.”
Pablo Picasso
Picasso, when asked what his paintings meant.
Sometimes we create for the sake of creating and seeing what happens. There are times where I go out to shoot & don’t develop the film for months or post-process the digital photos in Lightroom for awhile. I do it just for the experience of creating and exploring.
“Lastly, if there’s anything I can convince you of: you should build a personal site, you should obsess over it, you should meticulously document it, and you should have quite a bit of fun doing so. (It’s worth it.)”
Justin Duke
The difference is almost indistinguishable when comparing portraits from a $900 mobile phone or a $2,500 mirrorless camera. Cameras are losing turf as mobile phones are closing the gap in technology and usability.
The future of goods and services are subscription-based.
The latest BS is that BMW has built-in seat warmers behind an $18 monthly paywall. What a nightmare.
There is something fundamentally wrong with how companies no longer feel they are able to sell products at a sustainable price.
At some point soon, companies will charge subscriptions for the most minimal product or service and still throw ads at us.
Unacceptable.
Forget about SAAS (software as a service), I am more interested in GASAAS (Giving A Shit as a Service.)
I can buy products anywhere, but I require someone to give a shit. Someone who works hard, cares about their customer and provides the most basic service. Caring is as rare as common sense these days.
After amassing about a thousand images of neon, murals and geocaches it is past time that I curate them into a searchable database. This is one of those “shoulda done it sooner” moments but who knew my latest photographic passion would have carried on this long?
I’ve looked around for some inexpensive, do-it-yourself software but I’m coming up with a lot of fluff. For now, I’ve settled on Google My Maps and Google Earth. I hate this.
Every photo taken with a GPS-enabled camera is geo-tagged in their EXIF file. This helps tremendously when my memory fails. GPS coordinates are great when importing/exporting data to the map layer overlays.
My current issue is documenting these locations whilst at the same time snapping more images almost daily to the database. It is a self-inflicted labor of love that only I can appreciate but to me it is worth it.
Each My Map will have a separate genre for neon, one for murals and the other for geocaches.
After those are complete, I will export the .kmz files into Google Earth as a master database wherein all waypoints will be tagged, mapped and displayed.
Google Earth alternative suggestions are welcome. Please!
Live the full life of the mind, exhilarated by new ideas, intoxicated by the Romance of the unusual.
Ernest Hemingway
Live the full life of the mind, exhilarated by new ideas, intoxicated by the Romance of the unusual.
Ernest Hemingway
One of my favorite tools on the iPad is importing my images to the Photos app. The simple act of sorting, organizing these photos like I used to do on a contact sheet of film negatives. Find the keepers and then develop them in the lab afterward.
I’ve had the privilege of handling and owning a lot of personal computing and tech devices over the past couple of decades. My all-time favorite is hands-down the M1 iPad Pro and it’s companion, the Magic Keyboard.
The iPad has so much processing power and battery life that I can batch-process images, stream music and more for hours and it will not give out on me. The fact that it is ultra-portable with 5G data speeds, multiple inputs such as keyboard, mouse and Pencil still has my head shaking in amazement. This one stays with me until it dies.
Speaking about personal websites, I just screened this video about the early web. I can thankfully say my website was NEVER this cheesy but there was a sense of ownership back then. Much more so than we do on today’s social media platforms where there is zero control. The WWW is much worse as a result.
I wish personal websites were just as popular nowadays, the web sure was a fun place to be when they were.
Four years ago today I decided that I wasn’t having fun using Google anything, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram anymore, so I downloaded all my content from those platforms and promptly deleted those accounts. No Google products and no social media. If you’ve DM’d me, then apologies. It was unseen. Send me an email or text instead.
It just so happens that I have a lot to say so I’ve posted here and my micro site instead. My thoughts, my images, my words, no censorship.
These are the benefits of posting to a site I own for over twenty years..
I believe the more people that talk to each other is good and that the 280 character limit on those platforms rewards creativity. Buying and hosting your own website and email address should enable you to have your voice heard- just like it used to be on Web 1.0.
