Most of us need fewer friends and more intellectual sparring partners. Friends can be easy to come by.
Intellectual sparring partners are harder to find. They will call you on your BS, question your assumptions, and push you to think bigger.
Find your intellectual sparring partner and hold on to them.
Thanks to A Gentleman’s Take to have me on their show as a return guest. Always a pleasure, gents. If you missed my first episode, you can find it here.
As a follow up to my post last year on the state of my digital subscriptions, it’s time to review and re-think what I am paying for. I am always looking for the best software for my workflow so I am constantly tweaking. Now, a lot of this is me wanting to test the new, shiny toys out there. Some of it is the developers changing something or raising prices. Either way, it’s time to review.
Apple One- Apple bundles six software services into one monthly price. Most of these services are used heavily while the others are meh, but saves money. Another benefit: I can share this subscription to 5 family members or friends. I have one spot left hint, hint.
Adobe Lightroom – So essential to my photography workflow that I just can’t quit it even after several cancellations. A week later I resubscribe. Nothing can replace it for me just yet. I wish I could just use Apple Photos and be done with it but then Adobe includes website hosting for my portfolios. Smart move, Adobe.
VSCO- Visual Supply Company for social photography networking. They also have amazing film emulations. The write-up is here.
Flickr- The grandaddy of photo hosts. This is where I send my processed images to stay in the cloud since 2005. The social aspect is still one of the best communities after all this time.
Feedbin- Why go to a website to catch up on news when you can have it come to you? One of the best RSS feed readers out there.
Day One – A long-time user of this brilliant journaling app. I canceled this last year, but then renewed it out of a desire to digitally journal instead of pen and paper.
Formula 1- Annual subscription to view 24 races from around the world. Worth it.
MLS Season Pass- free subscription to major league soccer courtesy of T-Mobile & Apple.
MLB Season Pass- free subscription to major league baseball courtesy of T-Mobile & Apple.
Netflix- free subscription courtesy of T-Mobile.
Ghost- After 15 years of self-hosting my website with WordPress, I decided to host with the Ghost. So far so good but how the hell does the comment/feedback section work? I miss out on members posting because of a lack of notifications.
WordPress- If you change your focus from personal blogging to business website hosting, well, expect me to change and look elsewhere.
Disney+ – Now that I’m all caught up on the Star Wars Mandalorian series, it’ll be a long time before Disney cranks out anything new.
Mylio- A brilliant photo archive organizational tool but once everything was organized, was it worth $10 monthly? Nope.
Readwise- I love the premise of this software. It can sync everything you highlight on your Amazon Kindle or a web article. It will also sync your notes. But, I wasn’t using it enough to justify the $10/mo price and went back to using GoodLinks instead.
I want to be mindful of the money going out the door and receiving value for it so I think a periodic evaluation is worth it. Not to mention I like to look back on those previous posts throughout the years to see what sticks and “what was I thinking?” Take this example of software I no longer use from 2012: https://cdcomarchives.wordpress.com/2012/12/29/top-10-android-apps/
I was cleaning out some boxes in my storage area and came across a Polaroid camera and an unopened 2-pack box of Polaroid instant film. Better use it before I toss it and so I did another photo walk today. Only used 1 box so only 8 more frames after that and I am done with Polaroid. $17 or $2 each for shitty-quality is a deal breaker for me. I’ll stick to my Fuji instant square film for better results. Anyway, I’ve updated the instant film album on my photo website if you want to take a look at these and more.
Woke up this morning for a photo walk around SoBo before the heat kicked in and grabbed 36 exposures. Felt good to get out and shoot something for myself. It’s been too long. Now I am waiting on the prints to be developed. Click the link below if you are interested in seeing the film roll.
Happy 5/5 day! It is May 5, 2023- time to start the fourth chapter for the new year’s resolutions. In the past 10 years or so, I have attempted a variation of resolution themes in an attempt to hold myself accountable, and all of them have had limited success. The first few attempts were centered around my resolutions and a monthly check-in by way of accountability. For ten years I would focus on what I called Groundhog Day Resolutions. The kickoff would always start on February 2nd or 2/2. This was a little over a month after the western calendar of New Year’s Day on January 1st.This year I want to do a variation of a monthly accountability check-in. I mentioned the “Groundhog Day Resolutions” and its limited success. While I believe the theory behind those initiatives were sound, the practice was not. So it’s time to have a re-think about the process.
In 2023, I am writing a book on it. This year I am thinking of each month of this year as its own chapter in a book. I’ll do a chapter review on the same date that corresponds with the month.
Example: The book will start on February 2 (2/2) and will go on until March 3rd or 3/3. On 3/3 I will conduct a review of the previous month, and so on and so forth. With the chapter review, I’ll throw in some chapter highlights (in blue) of the previous month in hope that by the end of the year (11/11), I’ll have written a book I can be proud of.
Here is a quick list of things I want to do for the new year:
Aprendiendo muchas más frases en español este mes! My goal of properly learning Spanish kicked off on December 28, according to DuoLingo, my language app. The lessons are sporadic and when I have the time or desire to, say maybe twice a week.
I am loving these yoga sessions about every other morning.
Non-existent. I have had zero time to photograph anything meaningful due to the day job. Sure, I still take daily pics during “snappy hour” when prompted but nothing to proudly display or print. Photo organization has mostly not even been on my mind.
Slowly removing some stuff out of my life but not enough. I will have to get mean to get lean.
Priority one with results. I started taking BP medicine to help recuce the tension. Too soon to tell if it is having any effect but I am hoping. Less, salt. Less sugar. Less eating out. Increase my cardio with more walking, yoga. All of this should help me lower my weight and eventually those readings will come down.
In the past few years, I maxed out at 217.4 pounds. That isn’t great for a 5’7″ frame. When starting this initiative last month (2/2), I was down to 204.4. Currently (3/3) I am down to 193. So glad to see some results and hope the remaining 12 pounds will not be too difficult. My goals is to get down to 185 pounds. 175 is better, but let’s be realistic. The issue here is nutrition. The job has me out in the field for 8-10 hours daily and the temptation to eat out is strong. But the job is also a physical one so I should take advantage of all that lifting and walking.
It’s time to get to writing a new chapter. See you on June 6th (6/6) for a review of Chapter 5.
The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of ditching all but one of my cameras and just use the camera built in to my iPhone.
Why?
An iPhone can untether the photographer because you have a full stack setup of a camera, a digital darkroom to process images and a publishing studio in your pocket.
You can point and shoot with your iPhone to make images, use Apple Photos to edit or a third-party app like VSCO or Snapseed to process them and then publish the keepers to your website or social media.
If an iPhone has the same quality imaging as a standard digital camera what can be so bad about that? More screen time on your phone and more distractions can be bad. You’ll experience neither of these when using a dedicated camera.
If most of your images are uploaded to social media or just stored on your phone or in a cloud you don’t need another camera. An iPhone is perfect for this. You aren’t printing your photos and almost 50% of your images aren’t seen again until a few years later and you say “Oh yeah…I remember that” then you delete it.
When the time comes for a family portrait and you want to print archival-quality images, then you can dust off your DSLR camera.
Most of us don’t need better image quality or the largest sensor we need photo shoot ideas, imagination and creativity to make our images stand out.
I love shooting film photography because every frame costs money and I need to take my time to enjoy the process as opposed to shooting thousands of digital shots and hope for the best. I try to find the best of both worlds by creating my own film emulations. For the past ten years I’ve developed my own film aethestic to try and duplicate my favorite film stock (see below.)
The issue with digital photos is that almost all of them will die in the darkness of your hard drive. They won’t die alone because there are thousands of images that will never see the light of day again.
All of that to say this: I think I’ve found my photo mojo again with a new project. I am going to blend the film and digital concept starting this weekend. I will go out for a photo walk with the iPhone and limit myself to only 36 shots, the same as a roll of 35mm film. I will then develop them in my digital darkroom using only one film stock aethestic and finally, pick my favorites and have them printed on archive paper. I’m looking forward to the hybrid process and now the weekend cannot come soon enough.
Oh, and I can’t wait to buy the iPhone 14 Pro Max later this year so I can use my iPhone 13 Pro Max as a camera only and not worry about dropping my new phone when shooting.
I toggle on/off the urge to use Adobe Lightoom as a catalog library and photo editor for the past 16 years. I paid one price for it back in 2007 and then they went to a subscription-based plan a couple of years back. I moaned, groaned but eventualy relented and shelled out for it every year.
For now, I am going all-in with VSCO (Visual Supply Company,) as a photo host and photo social network. VSCO is an anti-Instagram alternative with zero advertising, and zero BS that comes with social media. It is designed for creators and always has been.
Instead of a subscription-based Adobe Photoshop, I’ve been enjoying Pixelmator Pro. Then there is Darkroom and Snapseed and… those are some powerful tools for my mobile photography film lab.
Chances are in a few months that I’ll toggle Adobe back “on” but for now, I’ll be saving money and am done with them.
In lieu of having enough time to go out and photograph something (anything!), I’ve been generating synthographs. Synthography is a method of generating digital media synthetically using machine learning. This is distinct from other graphic creation and editing methods in that synthography uses artifical intelligence text-to-image modeling to generate synthetic media. By using prompt engineering, text descriptions as input to creating a desired image. In simple terminology- type what you want to see and your artificially intelligent tools will create the image. Neat.
My new portfolio website, ART::ificial, (https://synthography.website) is a companion to the Photo Denbow website.
I am continually creating new media and will post them there as often as I can.
In addition to creating synthographs, I will also be curating them into a mood board or inspiration board.
All this for no other reason than it was just for the hell of it.
One of the biggest mistakes readers make is assuming that all books should be read from the first page to the last page in an unbroken sequence. For non-fiction books, learning is non-linear. Non-fiction books are for thinking, not reading, and context is king. Break out the highlighter and pen to take notes in the marginalia. Argue with the author. Fiction should be read linearly while non-fiction benefits from non-linear reading. Finally, it’s important to engage with ideas messily and unpredictably, rather than assuming you need to have a rigid note-taking workflow.
The new all-in-one website/mood board I built dedicated to my generative AI art creation and curation.
Once upon a time, there was a camera in my hand every weekend off to explore and shoot. The camera was my passport and I went everywhere with it, including dangerous places I wasn’t “supposed” to go. I’ve noticed in the past year, however, that I just can’t be bothered. This bothers me. There is always something to shoot and yet, around here, I’ve seen it all and captured it. The last time I was excited about photography was on a return trip to New Orleans last year with the new Sony A7 mirrorless camera. But once again, it was ho-hum. The city wasn’t exciting as it used to be. The camera was just another camera.
For the past 365 days, I’ve tried shooting with only the Hipstamatic every day during “Snappy Hour”– that last hour before sunset with the golden rich colors. Yeah, it was a project but looking back now to me it was…boring.
Popular camera magazines have turned their printers off. A major photography website has shut down after 25 years. Most photographers are tired of watching or reading the same format hyped by journalists regarding the.next.big.thing. When you read/watch reviews of cameras you always hear about megapixels, shutter speeds, battery life, blah, blah, but not what sort of images are produced. No soul, just technology. There is more to photography than a large sensor or post-production digital editing.
I miss the hours spent with the film camera process of loading the film, advancing the next exposure, creating negatives, selecting the best images out of only 36 exposures and then running the images through the chemical fixer. Ahh those darkroom chemical smells!
Hold on…just spilled some pipe tobacco on the MacBook. Okay, where was I? I miss portrait photography in the way I want to make it. No wait, that’s for another post. Ahh yes, the wrap-up:
How do I get my mojo back? Do I go back to analog film photography and spend hundreds of dollars on film and film development? There is something to be said about the analog results- they have soul. Or do I sell most of my digital cameras and focus on just the one? Those brilliant but souless photos are more cost effective.
With the proper tools, anyone can make brilliant photos on the iPhone, but the computational photography takes a lot of the soul out of it too.
I am tired of the documentational photographs I’ve been shooting lately. I want to get back to making art. Maybe only then I can get my photo mojo back(?)
When you buy a new vinyl record nowadays, it comes with a code to download the MP3 digital version too. Why can’t we get a free e-book version when you buy a paper book?
Anyone wishing to explore artificial intelligence first needs to study philosophy.
Eastern works such as Tau, western works such as the meditations of Marcus Aurelius, the Bible, and other modern day thinkers.
To understand and explore artificial intelligence, we have to explore the implications or consequences for this understanding and knowledge of ethics, consciousness, epistemology, intelligent problem-solving and most importantly, free will.
While taking a couple of Stanford online courses on quantum theory, quantum computing and quantum mechanics, I was overwhelmed by the theories and possibilities. Quickly, those theories will become reality. An intelligent, conscious being driven by qubits and binary coding will exist. What would it’s role be? Will it have a place among us? Will it have the same rights and freedoms that we do?
Something to think about because we can.
Happy 4/4 day! It is April 4, 2023- time to start the second chapter for the new year’s resolutions. In the past 10 years or so, I have attempted a variation of resolution themes in an attempt to hold myself accountable, and all of them have had limited success. The first few attempts were centered around my resolutions and a monthly check-in by way of accountability. For ten years I would focus on what I called Groundhog Day Resolutions. The kickoff would always start on February 2nd or 2/2. This was a little over a month after the western calendar of New Year’s Day on January 1st.This year I want to do a variation of a monthly accountability check-in. I mentioned the “Groundhog Day Resolutions” and its limited success. While I believe the theory behind those initiatives were sound, the practice was not. So it’s time to have a re-think about the process.
In 2023, I am writing a book on it. This year I am thinking of each month of this year as its own chapter in a book. I’ll do a chapter review on the same date that corresponds with the month.
Example: The book will start on February 2 (2/2) and will go on until March 3rd or 3/3. On 3/3 I will conduct a review of the previous month, and so on and so forth. With the chapter review, I’ll throw in some chapter highlights (in blue) of the previous month in hope that by the end of the year (11/11), I’ll have written a book I can be proud of.
Here is a quick list of things I want to do for the new year:
No es un buen mes para aprender espanol. My goal of properly learning Spanish kicked off on December 28, according to DuoLingo, my language app. After doing lessons 65 days in a row I burned out. The lessons are sporadic and when I have the time or desire to, say maybe twice a week.
Fail. Not one yoga session all month so I have to get disciplined here.
Non-existent. I have had zero time to photograph anything meaningful due to the day job. Sure, I still take daily pics during “snappy hour” when prompted but nothing to proudly display or print. Photo organization has mostly not even been on my mind.
How have I been adding stuff and not removing it? Yes, the purchases were work essentials but nothing has gone out the door either.
Priority one with results. I started taking BP medicine to help recuce the tension. Too soon to tell if it is having any effect but I am hoping. Less, salt. Less sugar. Less eating out. Increase my cardio with more walking, yoga. All of this should help me lower my weight and eventually those readings will come down.
In the past few years, I maxed out at 217.4 pounds. That isn’t great for a 5’7″ frame. When starting this initiative last month (2/2), I was down to 204.4. Currently (3/3) I am down to 193. So glad to see some results and hope the remaining 12 pounds will not be too difficult. My goals is to get down to 185 pounds. 175 is better, but let’s be realistic. The issue here is nutrition. The job has me out in the field for 8-10 hours daily and the temptation to eat out is strong. But the job is also a physical one so I should take advantage of all that lifting and walking.
It’s time to get to writing a new chapter. See you on May 5th (5/5) for a review of Chapter 4.
