Lately I’ve been frustrated with the lack of shooting opportunities in small town USA. By comparison, larger urban cities are target rich for photo shooters. I’ve spent two hours on two Sundays and walked away with maybe 10 images on the new camera.
Maybe I need to adjust my thinking here and appreciate the creative constraints to just keep shooting for the hell of it.
Because I am never satisfied with the way my online portfolio looks, a new coat of paint has been added. Also added is the new download page where that one person (thanks, mom!) can download and read my photography zines.
We’ve been taught that it is wise to invest in your future, so you should save and retire comfortably. So, you save and invest in hopes of a nice return on your investment. Now that you’ve saved and invested, what happens? Wait and die without living an enjoyable life? I say invest in what makes you happy, as there are no guarantees anymore. The 401k retirement plans can be worth less than what you’ve invested. Social Security is not sustainable either. But we are still taught and encouraged to keep at it anyway. Sounds like a trap for complacent sheep.
So I’ve done all that, but have a ways to go before retiring. Now I am choosing to invest in my life through other means- by doing what makes me happy while I still can.
For me, this is photography. It is a creative passport that allows me to go anywhere, capture anything and after thirty+ years, I am vested heavily.
A lot of my free time and money go to producing, developing, processing and publishing images with little reward except it makes my soul happy.
Now that I have the tools I want to accomplish these things, I will invest more time in working with other photographers and their art. Investing money into experiences, not gear. Investing both time and money into travel experiences, workshops, and anything else that furthers my desires.
It is difficult to create something in a small town, in a land-locked, flyover state, in the winter, during a pandemic. So, I invested in a trip to New Orleans next month to change my perspective. I love NOLA and feel as if I can never explore it enough. The camera comes with of course to capture those experiences. Instead of investing in all the best cameras, lenses etc. etc., I’ll put my money into travel expenses.
Investing in my own website has paid off beautifully for me these past twenty years and I encourage all artists to do so. Stop sharecropping on Zuck’s platforms and develop on your own land.
I recommend Namecheap for buying your own domain name and web hosting. After making the rounds with most of the web hosts myself, these guys are some of the most reliable. Domain name can be as low as $2 a year. Web hosting as little as $20 a year. Congrats, you have your own website, with your own email address for the cost of 3 Starbucks visits. What a great investment in yourself and your work.
Investing in photo experiences gets me out of the house and since I am currently workin from home it is a lifesaver. New experiences for the wandering misadventurer gives me fresh eyes and new perspectives to make new photos.
Investing in my life and my lifestyle is a wise choice for my time and money.
It is financially wise eating at home more than I eat out, but I haven’t been doing that. This needs to change. The money saved on dining in can go towards that next flight instead. Why didn’t I think of that sooner?
More money saved can go towards books, self-educated tools, or even investing in others through cryptocurrency to speculate on photographic works of art (NFTs.) I am slowly seeing opportunities for the blockchain to overtake “social media” photography.
Like most investors, I wish I had the wisdom to have started earlier. I want to take advantage of these new opportunities of investing in myself and earning those rewards.
Reading is one of my all-time favorite things to do. But nowadays, there hasn’t been time allowances made for it, which is odd to me because now there is more to read than ever before.
As we all know, reading has expanded from traditional printed books, magazines, and newspapers. Now we have websites, blog posts, emails, Facebook, Twitter, forums, newsletters, digital books, e-magazines, etc., etc. These types of reading can be an overwhelming reading list that we must feel we have to keep up with.
The list becomes difficult, so my solution is to not try to keep up. My reading lists are self-inflicted, and so I pare it down to a read-it-later system that works for me. In true minimalist fashion, I have scaled down my printed books to the essentials. Now my fiction reading is done with e-books. Thanks to an all-inclusive Apple One subscription, they threw in digital magazines that I will occasionally browse through. The blogs I enjoy keeping up with have been scaled back. I don’t do Facebook, “news” websites, or newspapers, so no loss there.
Even with a scaled down reading list, time for reading is still a challenge: how do you make time to consume what you want and when you want? How do you read without distraction? It’s difficult to read when you come across something you want to explore later, or notifications pop up on your screen from phone calls, texts etc.
Here’s my attempt at finding reading without distraction:Books. Rarely will I read non-fiction. I love a good novel here. Most of them are now consumed through the Libby app, which ties into your local libraries for zero cost. To avoid distractions, my reading device goes into “Airplane Mode.” I’m good for thirty minutes to a couple of hours into another world.
Blogs. I love to read blogs on topics I enjoy and love to see another author’s perspective on it. The list of authors and websites I have carefully curated is filtered into an RSS aggregator called FeedBin. I don’t visit these blogs and websites, no, they come to me through Feedbin. No advertising, everything is in reader mode. Meaning, the format is stripped down to white text on a grey background for distraction-free reading. I can save the article for later reference or clear the posts out and wait for the next ones to be delivered as soon as they are published. Genius.
Browsing. If you browse through the internet, you could open multiple tabs and maybe re-visit them later, but let’s be honest- you won’t. There are a lot of “Read-It-Later” services out there like Instapaper, Pocket, etc. to help out. Find an article on the web you want to keep for later? Hit the browser’s send button and deposit it there for later reading. Make the web work for you. Personally, I prefer the one-time purchase of a “R-I-L” service called GoodLinks. That is where all my articles to follow up on. Again, on my own time.
Email. This is a tool for critical notifications only. I do subscribe to newsletters, the next step of blog authors getting their articles out there. Not me. All newsletters are delivered through Feedbin. I like my email inbox for important things and keep my address locked down tight.
Social Media. Twitter, is it for me. I have found so much benefit there than any other social media outlet. I have met so many like-minded individuals there and, as a result, in the real world too. I sprung for the third-party app called TweetBot that eliminates advertising and limit my time there to maybe 2 times a week for 5 minutes. After that, I’m good.
Recommended Apps that I use for my reading workflow:
Winter, pandemic, small town, supervising forty people 24×7 remotely from home is taking a toll on the creativity.
Thinking of exploring other creative outlets besides photography such as video, sketching, and maybe dust off that ukulele as well.
Finally I have minted my first NFT (non-fungible token) titled Neon Nights at Buck Atoms Cosmic Curios on Route 66. Hopefully it will generate enough interest where someone, a curator, will purchase it with the cryptocurrency known as Ethereum.
I don’t have lofty expectations, but it would be fantastic to see it sold the first time out. After that, it’s time to generate some more images of interest and keep this going.
Every year I will create a Christmas playlist and it seems almost every year the same songs end up on it. Well, they are called classics for a reason, aren’t they?
Click here to enjoy the festivities and Merry Christmas.
I am proud to finally offer digital downloads for the first time ever. You’ll find a dedicated space for my digital photo zines and wallpapers. These files are free to download, enjoy and hopefully share.
Let me know what you think.
It’s difficult to realize historic moments when you might be in the middle of one but I believe we are witnessing a modern renaissance with art, technology, media, and minimalism.
It’s that time of year when publishers, artists and generally most in the media like to focus on the “Best Of” for that calendar year. So, I thought it would be a good time to roll out the first ever Denbow Awards.
Cloud Cuckoo Land
Project Hail Mary
The Plot
Strange Beasts of China
Obsidian
Feedbin
Geocache
Hipstamatic
Asphalt 8
Alto’s Odyssey
Both games are from Apple Arcade and, for me, the only games I really play. If it wasn’t a part of the Apple One subscription, I wouldn’t play them, but they are both excellent ways to enjoy some downtime.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife is the only movie I have seen in theaters this year. A nice continuity from the original actors’ story line and to the next generation.
Matrix: Resurrections- I haven’t seen this yet, but I am eagerly anticipating this, so we’ll call that a win.
WandaVision- Disney Plus
Foundation- Apple TV
iPad Pro M1 2021
I tried to break the Apple Music algorithms by listening to different genres. You can click here for the Audio Denbow radio station and Apple has set up their annual review of most played songs for me on Replay 2021.
My podcast listening has been limited, but I’ll note my two favorites here anyway. Smartless and Camp Monsters.
“SmartLess” with Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, & Will Arnett is a podcast that connects and unites people from all walks of life to learn about shared experiences through thoughtful dialogue and organic hilarity. A nice surprise: in each episode of SmartLess, one of the hosts reveals his mystery guest to the other two. What ensues is a genuinely improvised and authentic conversation filled with laughter and newfound knowledge to feed the SmartLess mind.”
“These are the stories of impossible encounters with impossible creatures in the wildest corners of North America. We’ll travel the country, sit around campfires and talk about that thing that ran across the trail in the middle of the night, just beyond the beam of your flashlight. Come closer to the fire. Let’s hear the next legend.”
My Updated iPad-Only Photography Workflow, as nominated by all of the views, comments and shares. Thank you!
And that’s it! The first annual Denbow Awards show has come to a close. It’s been a good year for entertainment and technology, and I cannot wait to see what is in store for 2022.
