Discovery
Expect the unexpected…and you will find it.
infodenbow
It’s Not Relevant
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
Physical vs Digital
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.
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.
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
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
iA Writer
After several free trials, beta tests and tribulations I have chosen iA Writer as my tool to help me create stories I want to tell (not calling myself a writer or author yet).
The software for me had to pass several standards such as:
Cross-platform (Windows, iOS)
Inexpensive
Clean, simple and aesthetically pleasing.
No overwhelming amount of tools that I’ll never use
Mission accomplished.
iA Writer
After several free trials, beta tests and tribulations of desktop writing software I have finally decided on my tool of choice. iA Writer helps me take notes and create the stories I want to tell (not
calling myself a writer or author yet).
The criteria I needed:
- Cross-platform (Windows, iOS)
- Inexpensive
- Clean, simple and aesthetically pleasing
- No overwhelming amount of tools that I’ll never use
Mission accomplished.
on the desktop ^
on the iPad ^
The (Mis) Adventurous Life
I grew up watching great action movies like Star Wars, Die Hard and Indiana Jones. Adventure stories have stood the test of time, why is that? Because they are us.
We identify with these stories because life is adventurous.
Or misadventurous (I just made a new word).
Fight a good fight. Overcome adversity. Get the girl. The difficult part is that these adventures are ongoing. Good and evil, work and play, love and loss. All of these make great adventures and stories because they are us. It is who we are.
8/8 GHR Check-In
Time to evaluate my progress for my Groundhog Resolutions, the 10th
annual attempt at creating life-long habits for myself. I’ve discovered
that right after the end of the year holidays I am not mentally or
physically capable of sticking with resolutions for the upcoming new
year. I need a break so I take the whole month of January off to reflect
and plan and start on 2/2 instead of 1/1.
I’ll check back in on myself on 9/9
Fun-
Get another tattoo: Coming soon
More camping: It’s hot y’all. And the last attempt was off asphalt and sand dunes. Fall cant get here fat enough.
50 Books a year challenge:
Up to 25. Halfway! Time to hit those books because…winter is coming.
Fitness-
Kickboxing: Tae Bo for the win
Yoga: Daily practice early in the morning really helps here
More 5 & 10k obstacle course racing: See above. It’s hot.
Consistent training: Dropping
Planet Fitness in favor of a new gym here called Vasa. More amenities
to keep my body interested in going to begin with.
Consistent nutritional training: Work
in progress. I’ve dropped soda pop and going with water, soda water and/or beer. Less eating out too. Small victories.
Hashing:
Waiting on cooler. Got called out by Tulsa Hash House Harriers
Mismanagement for it too. Will be paying for it when I’m back on trail.
Hiking: Taken
more than a few hikes this year and explored familiar and new trails.
Geocaching: Discovered a couple of quick park and grabs in some interesting places.
Meditation: More and more necessary. My brain is so scattered with everything I want to do. This helps center me.
Creative-
Complete my book: I
discovered some very interesting facts about the Khmer empire recently
that will be crucial to my understanding and telling. Also coming up
with more random ideas for stories. probably short stories all of them
but eh. We’ll see.
Photo essay on a topic I am passionate about: Currently
shooting the Tulsa, After Dark series. Humans of Tulsa (HOT) is on
hold. Haven’t been going out as much. Need to change this soon to keep
the project going.
Video log every month: Fail. Lack of interesting dialogue, forgetfulness.
Leave inspirational notes everywhere: Doing this at home in sneaky places for people to find is fun. Need to go public.
Year in photos album: 2017 is just there, waiting on me. Cannot wait to see what 2018 memories I’ll have at the EOY.
Shoot more film: Buy more film. Ain’t cheap!
Find my muse: Found her. Now how to use her?
DAM: Failing.
This MUST change. A new camera can help me here with different file
formats. I will discipline myself with this fresh start. But the
previous decades of work? Overwhelming.
The (Mis) Adventurous Life
I grew up watching great action movies like Star Wars, Die Hard and
Indiana Jones. Adventure stories have stood the test of time, why is
that? Because they are us.
We identify with these stories because life is adventurous.
Or misadventurous (I just made a new word).
Fight
a good fight. Overcome adversity. Get the girl. The difficult part is
that these adventures are ongoing. Good and evil, work and play, love
and loss. All of these make great adventures and stories because they
are us. It is who we are.
Soda Free
After more than a few weeks (lost track of days) I think I’ve kicked the soda pop habit. I still have cravings, headaches and withdrawals from the cold, sweet concoction but have resisted. I’ve been managing with a lot of water and soda water. So…yay me.
