What was I thinking ten years ago? What’s funny to me is I now have a deconstructed iPhone 4 mounted on the wall on display. This makes me wonder what else I am currently wrong about and what to change.
Young & Dumb
MORE PHOTOGRAPHY PRODUCTIVITY
SIMPLIFY YOUR PHOTO WORKFLOW WITH THESE SUGGESTIONS.
.jpg for daily snapshots, .dng for the keepers. Take it from someone who has been shooting RAW images, these files take up a lot of hard drive space. RAW files are slow to transfer from one location to another. Do yourself a favor and shoot in jpg format whenever possible.
SIMPLIFY YOUR PHOTO WORKFLOW
Apple Photos is a stock app on every Apple device. Photos is a basic processing and organizing application that is great for quick and simple photo edits. Free, and your photos sync to your devices automatically thanks to iCloud. Save the heavy edits and large files for Adobe Lightroom.
GET OUT
I intend to travel more in 2022 with road trips and quick turnaround weekend flights. This is possible now that I am finally content with my camera gear. Want to buy a new camera or lens? Be content with what you have and save the money on experiences like travel instead. Photographers love to capture new experiences and explore new photo opportunities.
TAKE A HIKE
I am a big fan of hiking and photography. The fresh air, the thrill of discovering what is around the corner or over that hill gives us a new perspective. Photo walks around town can be included here. Plus, you want to get increase your daily step count as exercise, right?
PHONETOGRAPHY OR PHOTOGRAPHY?
Take your iPhone or your camera to your next photoshoot. Want to capture the moments with simple snapshots, use the iPhone. Want to capture lasting memories? Take the camera.
UPDATE YOUR OWN WEBSITE
After self-hosting my website for a decade, I decided to simplify and host on WordPress.com. I can publish images or text to my site on the go thanks to Ulysses, Lightroom, and WordPress from my phone or iPad. I am really enjoying this mobile darkroom and publishing setup. Forget social media and stake your own claim to the World Wide Web.
Limitations
My creativity and imagination for starting a novel or short story is stifled now. I can’t write unless I have thought it through and can see the whole story in my mind.
I need to sum up the whole in three paragraphs until I can see the story. Then I can finally turn those paragraphs into an outline or a rough draft.
Microfiction
Long-form writing is becoming a lost art during these days of short attention spans. With all the media content available to us, our time feels limited, so we want to maximize our consumption time. Blogs have been taken over in favor of quick social media posts. Twitter limits a tweet to 140 characters. Tik-Tok and Instagram promote short video clips, etc.
Microfiction is the natural progression of all this. It is considered to be even shorter than the short story genre. Much like a haiku, it forces concise wording to tell a story. There is no set word limit, but the general guideline is 100-101 words to tell your story. The trick is to make it meaningful enough to make an impact, as opposed to having your reader hop on to the next nano story.
How to start: Come up with an idea, create a rough draft, check your work count and revise to fit. Ulysses writing app is brilliant for this.
Where to publish: On your website first, of course. Then, save your work as a PDF and distribute to your interested followers, either for free or fee. Thereafter, use the same social media platforms if you must. There are even publishing houses looking for microfiction authors.
Finally: Microfiction is a tiny sub-genre (see what I did there?) in the writing/reading world. You won’t earn a lot of money from it, but the challenge itself can be very rewarding.
Show Your Work
This is a thought coming from myself, here in the minority: if you are a photographer sharing your images on Instagram or Facebook, stop.
Too often have I wanted to see someone’s work only to be redirected to IG. I can’t see your work. I don’t have an account. If I did have an account, I still wouldn’t be able to see your work because of algorithms and adverts.
My advice is to stop sharecropping on their land and start developing on your own land.
Build your own website, online portfolio and gallery. Share your work and your words with people who actually care.
Aero Denbow
This is my first flight since pre-pandemic times and I couldn’t be happier. Travel, exploring, getting away is all in my nature. Every time I am in an international airport I fight the urge to upgrade my flight to go anywhere else. Next stop: everywhere.
Airports are also the ultimate people-watching venues. The hurry-up-and-waiting people, the professionals in their suits, the vacationing couple, the curious, polite foreigners, etc. Airport terminals are a neutral zone and I want more.
Test
Testing links to cloud storage and downloading from here
Digital Photo Zines
Recently I expressed an interest in creating photo magazines with images and text. I really do believe that it is one aspect of the future of digital photography I don’t want to miss out on.
So I downloaded InDesign from Adobe as a trial and am overwhelmed by the learning curve. I had hoped that since I was familiar with Adobe’s photo software it would help, but not so much actually.
I still want to take a look at Affinity’s Publisher but there is no trial and they will have a Black Friday sale next week so I am holding off on that for now. I’m hoping the learning curve would be easier and more intuitive as I can’t wait to start publishing these things and share my images in a more modern way.
Update: I just discovered an option to download a trial version of Publisher. Can’t wait to explore and play.
Neon Nights v.2
I just posted some more images from the Neon Nights collection on the photography page.
Watch Out
I love my Apple Watch. My Apple Watch, Chronos, can also be annoying.
Apple Watch’s Fitness app encourages me to close three rings; the Move ring, which indicates calories burned while moving. The Exercise ring for your activity, and the Stand ring to encourage you to stand at least twelve times a day, usually at the bottom of the hour. Apple Watch will also prompt you to do these things throughout the day. I also receive notifications to earn badges, such as a Perfect week of activity. And lastly, notifications of other Watch-wearing people I am connected to and all of their daily and weekly goal achievements.
Give me a break. I know what my mind and body need right now, and it isn’t constant notifications. In fact, I just disabled notifications and will enjoy the other benefits of the Watch without the distractions.
Chris Denbow [.com] 