time (a somewhat prosaic short essay)

Time is a thing of wonder, beauty even. We are traveling down its one way street, sometimes oblivious, sometimes we feel it’s passage deeply. And yet, after all these years, all this time, we still don’t take it at face value. We mope about the past and worry ourselves sick over the future, not realizing that time spent doing this is time we can use to repair mistakes we made in the past or prepare for the future. Until someone invents time travel, we can’t fix the burnt bridges of the past, and we have to cross the bridges of the future when we get to them. We have to live in the now, the split second of time we have at our disposal.

little tip

If you are set on buying something (specifically photo equipment), it is a good idea not to any more research on that topic. If you do, you might find a better product out of your budget, or a niggling flaw that shouldn’t concern you but does.

random thoughts: public speaking

I really hate talking in front of people. I usually have figured out perfectly what to say, but it always ends up sounding awkward. I guess it’s the feeling of everyone’s eyes on me. It jumbles my brain. Blogging is a completely different matter entirely. I have basically as much time as I want to compose an article, and when I’m writing it, all I’m doing is typing on a keyboard. The ‘listening’ comes afterward, so no one knows if I have to think for a minute, whereas if I was talking, pausing for more than ten seconds is horrible.

I feel less open typing on a keyboard, though it’s probably the fact that no one sees it; if someone was looking over my shoulder as I was typing it, it would be almost the same. I think it boils down to the fact that when you talk to people, you’re talking to people you don’t have that much time to gather your thoughts. When you type on a keyboard, you’re typing on a keyboard, and you can take as much time as you want.

on being a photographer

I had a thought today. Yes, we all have thoughts every day, but this was a particular thought. And it was this: with all the multitudes of photographers, good or not, on the various photo sites: Flickr, Instagram, 500px, etc., how does one get noticed? Even if all the bad shots were weeded away, and only the really good ones left, there would still be millions of photos to weed through. It’s somewhat depressing for someone just starting out, like me. There are so many already out there, who’s going to notice a few more? This leads to a question: who (or what) are you taking pictures for? (Edit 2/7/14: I just realized now that this applies to blogging,too) Because if it’s for others, if you measure a pictures success by how many likes or comments it attracts, good luck, there’s just to many for any one photo to register as anything but a blip. But for those that take photos for themselves, not for money or popularity, for those people, this is the golden age of photography, and it will (probably) only get better from here.

moments of brilliance (a slippery slope)

Hmm. How do I start this? I always have trouble starting; I don’t want to sound impersonal or distant, but I also want to sound realistic. Anyway, back to the subject (disregarding the fact that I haven’t gotten to yet).

You feel all great when you have a moment of brilliance, but then you see others’, and you probably don’t feel all that special anymore. And then, compared to your m. of b., everything else you’ve done seems ordinary. And you start expecting better stuff from yourself, but if you have too many, everyone else starts expecting them, too. But hopefully, through the raising of expectations, come across the moments more often, thereby raising the quality of the whole, and so on and so forth, forever…

It can be stressful though, if everyone is expecting more from you than your willing to give, and your m. of b.’s don’t come as often as you’d like them to. (Wow this is taking a depressing turn!) then what do you do? It helps to look at why you’re doing something. If you are just doing it for it’s own sake, or for yourself, then just toss aside everyone else’s opinions! They don’t matter that much after a bit of thought.

random thoughts: capitalization in titles

I recently noticed something. Capitalization in titles looks weird, especially in long titles with a bunch of three or less letter words. It’s like when some magazines or books capitalize words that aren’t supposed to be capitalized; like ‘Family’, ‘Art’, ‘Science’, things like that. It just looks weird.