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.
photos
My Way
I pay a web host for my personal website, my private emails, RSS, and photo services. I pay to support the products I enjoy using and that promise to not collect or sell my information.
If it’s “free” than I don’t want it.
How To Become The Great Urban Photographer
If you loosely apply Lomography’s ten golden rules, you’ll do just fine.
- Take your camera with you everywhere you go.
- Use your camera any time, day, or night.
- Photography is not an interference of your life but a part of it
- Shoot from the hip
- Approach as closely as possible
- Don’t think
- Be fast
- You don’t have to know beforehand what you captured
- Or afterwords either
- Don’t worry about any rules.
Number 10 may be the most important. Don’t listen to others, stay true to yourself and your artistic endeavor. There are plenty of rules that can and should be broken.
To those 10, I’ll remind you of another 10.
- Luck, coincidence emergency and surprise are your friends.
- Experimentation is exciting. Expect the unexpected. Or don’t!
- Embrace the sensory effects of the street. Light, shadow, smells & sounds
- Leave the grind behind. Focus on you and your subjects.
- Street photos look better when printed. I prefer black and white.
- Look again. If something spots your eye, but you pass on it…go back. Your first instinct is usually correct.
- Let loose. Have fun.
- Analog or film photography is making a comeback. Buy a cheap film camera.
- Analog will seldom disappoint because it is unique and challenging.
- Trust your senses over an LCD screen and electric sensors.
Urban, or street photography, combines what I love best. Walking, working with people, courage, risk-worthy opportunities and timing. Now grab your camera and start shooting!
Digital Essentialism
How is your digital life? Feeling overwhelmed by all the clutter in your inbox, hard drive and cloud service? I know I was.
Though I consider myself to be a minimalist essentialist, there does come a time when I get lazy and the discipline slides. Clutter, digital or otherwise, can get distracting over time. Now may be the perfect time to clean up your digital room, so to speak. If not daily, then weekly because a well-organized computer will yield positive results for your state of mind and your workflow productivity.
Here’s how to get started:
Backups
When was the last time you backed up your data? If you can’t remember, then it has been too long. I set a calendar reminder for once a week, then plug in the dedicated external hard drive, flip on Apple’s Time Machine and let it do its thing-creating and preserving a snapshot image of everything on the MacBook’s drive. Before all that, I suggest sorting through your Downloads folder and assign to a proper folder or delete. How are your other folders? Photos, Music, Videos, Documents all need to be sorted. Toss what you have been holding on to for some reason. After all that, then take out the Trash and delete everything in that folder.
Cloud
Just as the computer gets cleaned up, so too your Cloud backups. My Cloud mimics the desktop with everything in place. Run Time Machine again and ensure good backups.
Software
If you have dozens of software programs and apps, it is time to have a think about what you are actually using. If you haven’t used a program in say six months, then uninstall and free up space on your machine. It will thank you for it. Do you really need four calendar apps, two music players, three browsers and who else knows what? Pick the right tool for the job and stick with it. Uninstall the rest.
Desktop
A cluttered desktop can be overwhelming and distract from your focus and productivity. A messy computer desktop is akin to a messy physical desk. Nobody wants to see that. Sort that clutter into their respective folders, empty your Trash can folder and enjoy the serenity.
Web Browser
Now, wait just a damn minute, Chris. This is sacred. If I don’t have multiple tabs open or bookmarked, I run the risk of losing and forgetting them. I might even return to them…someday.
That mentality is an old way of thinking that needs to be corrected. You won’t go back to them. You don’t need it. One of these days, your browser’s memory will slow to a crawl, and you’ll be forced to reboot the thing and potentially lose all those open tabs you’ve been saving.
Inbox and RSS feeds
If you cringe every time you access your email inbox, then you are doing it wrong. Email should be assigned from an inbox to a folder, replied to or deleted. Don’t forget to take the trash out again when done. If the mail is piled up, and you are overwhelmed, most email applications have a search feature.
RSS feed readers are a remarkable resource to stay current on the websites and blogs you enjoy. Shameless plug inserted here- https://chrisdenbow.website/feed But how does your “Unread” count look? Either read the article or save it to the “Read It Later” folder. Everything else can be deleted. The same can be said for podcast episodes!
One Password To Rule Them All
I dislike passwords, and captchas and just about every modern day credential grabber. Who can keep track of them all? I used to and failed. Then I tried a third-party password manager. I only needed one password to log in to that, and every time I needed to sign in elsewhere, that application would pop up and log in for me. That was fun until their data center was hacked and everyone’s passwords were in the open. I currently use Apple’s Password manager.
I’m already signed in to an Apple account, so I don’t have to remember a password there. Any website I visit, the Password app is ready to log me in, or help me create a new username/password. Once credentialed, Passwords will retain the info and be ready to use again. All it requires is my Face ID or Touch ID.
The Takeaway
Our digital usage over multiple devices can overwhelm us, and we open ourselves up to clutter. Who has the time to organize when we just want to scroll a feed or watch a video? I find that currently we need to be more mindful. Digital simplicity, essentialism, and minimalism is more important than before.
Long Live The iPod
The iPod is a discontinued 1(as of May 10, 2022) portable media player designed by Apple in 2001. At 20 years, the iPod brand is the oldest device to be discontinued by Apple. It’s the end of an era, that’s for sure.
I fondly recall my first Sony Walkman that had the ability to not only listen to AM/FM radio, but play 90 minutes of music on cassette tape. We maxed in as many songs as we could on that tape drive, but it was never enough, so we had collections of cassette tapes lying around to keep track of.
And when Steve Jobs promised “thousands of songs in your pocket”, most of us were amazed and just.had.to.have.it. It was portable music freedom. I’ve owned three iPods, the original (sadly lost forever, a 5th generation classic iPod (shown below) and an iPod Touch that closely resembled an iPhone. My toddler daughter quickly assumed ownership of that last one.
After this month’s announcement, I decided to grab as many compact discs as I can find to then load onto my MacBook and transfer my songs to the iPod. It’s a multistep hassle for sure, but they are there. They are mine. I don’t have to pay a monthly subscription for them. I don’t need Wi-Fi or cellular connection to play them. There are no notifications or interruptions when I have those wired earbuds in. I’m amazed at how much I have relied on Bluetooth wireless AirPods and streaming music.
This 5th gen iPod was the first to play video, review photos and still retain the classic, iconic scroll wheel. Podcasts, audiobooks, videos, and photos are all synced to the device when plugged into my computer via iTunes. Can a podcast still be called a podcast without iPods? What do we call them now, “Netcasts?”
This iPod projects me back in time, and I am overwhelmed by the nostalgia. It feels less like a novelty item, but a more pure form of music ownership and enjoyment.
Long live the Apple iPod.
Post Process Photography
Lately I have been attempting to find a more efficient workflow for my photography processing and organization. I have been an Adobe Lightroom user since 2006 to help organize and edit images. A few years ago Adobe switched to a subscription model instead of a one-time purchase. This is disappointing. To save money, I have looked for a solution that can do everything Lightroom can and own it. It hasn’t been easy and I have tried them all. I’ve gone back and forth but somehow I keep coming back to Lightroom so why fight it? Shut up and take my money. A history of the back and forth below:
- 01/01/2018 Lightroom is the best, I’ll never leave.
- 05/01/2018 Why am I paying Adobe every month? I wonder what Capture One will do for me?
- 05/15/2018 C1 trial expiring, do I want to invest $200 for something I am not too happy with?
- 03/24/2019 Converted from Windows to Macbook. Adobe? Pixelmator? Both.
- 02/02/2022 Cancel Adobe, hello again Pixelmator and Apple Photos
- 02/24/2022 Don’t listen to me, I’ve resubscribed to Adobe Lightroom
The whole point of this is to stick with what I know, enjoy the process, appreciate the software solutions offered and pay the monthly fee. This time I went with the 1 TB Lightroom Only plan because I do not use Photoshop. Same cost, less software but more cloud storage. Perfect.