I am an analyzer. I analyze lots of things... sometimes, too many things. I am a photographer, woodworker, software developer... and my favorite thing to analyze, is human nature. Why people choose to do (or say) what they choose to do (or say).
I am an avid Flickr user. If I'm not taking pictures, I'm posting them. If I'm not posting pictures, I'm studying them (on Flickr). I see my contact list grow quite regularly. Although I wish it was growing because people were adding me, the truth is that is the other way around. I desire to be added... I get depressed when I am not... I [admittedly] sometimes even take photographs for the sole purpose of being added... and am depressed when I am not. However, way deep down inside, I only want to be added... if I truly deserve it. And maybe that is to say, that I do not yet [deserve it].
What defines "greatness"? Analysis please... gladly.
I've noticed (through my own human nature/behavior) that I sometimes choose to make people my Flickr contacts, because someone else pointed them out to me. I briefly scan through their images, find a couple that look good, then add them as a contact. You see them show up on Flickr's "Explore" and all the sudden they reach celebrity status. Are they "great" because someone says they are? Or, are they "great" because they actually have a great defining characteristic or quality? It is my firm belief, that many areas of life (art, music, sports, etc...) there exists a forced "greatness", which derives from word of mouth band-wagonists. They MUST be "great" because EVERYONE says they are "great". I say, "I don't think so".
I am taking a stand for "greatness" tonight... for TRUE "greatness". Tonight, I am going through my Flickr contact list and removing the ones that have not yet deserved true "greatness". I'm not talking about getting rid of the contacts whose images I truly like (but aren't "great"), I'm talking about getting rid of the contacts that I added because someone told me they were "great". Maybe one day they will be added as a contact, but only when I truly like their images... or they truly become (and deserve to be) "great".
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Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Letting Go
One of the more difficult things I've had to deal with when I decided to take photography seriously, is the concept of disassociating myself from the photos I take. Conceptually it didn't make a whole lot of sense when people told me to do it, but along the way I've realized why it is such an important thing.
Today I took a chainsaw out and ripped through my Flickr account. When I began, I was slightly over 1000 photos... when I finished, I was down to just under 500. That's right, I laid-waste to over 500 photos. Granted, some of the photos I axed were for school projects and were no longer necessary, and of course there were a few duplicates. However, much of the task had to do with re-evaluating my photos. Those things that were near-and-dear enough to my heart to make the trip up to Flickr once upon a time. Because, I [personally] don't treat Flickr as my photo album... I treat it as my photo display case. Granted, I know not all the images in my Flickr account are fantastic, but they all have something about them that caused my eyes and brain (at the time they were posted) to deem them as worthy.
One of the most fascinating things about photography (for me) is witnessing progression. Progression takes many forms in photography (and other places in life too). For me, it is sometimes made apparent by running across a photo opportunity I've had before, and shot before, and deciding to no longer shoot it again. Progression... deciding that certain shots have run their course, and that sometimes there was never really a shot there at all... I just couldn't see.
I honestly didn't expect that my delete count was going to be as high as it was. But at the same time I was very proud of what I had done. Even though it wasn't exactly easy, there was a time when I couldn't do it at all... so today I felt like I had progressed... significantly.
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Today I took a chainsaw out and ripped through my Flickr account. When I began, I was slightly over 1000 photos... when I finished, I was down to just under 500. That's right, I laid-waste to over 500 photos. Granted, some of the photos I axed were for school projects and were no longer necessary, and of course there were a few duplicates. However, much of the task had to do with re-evaluating my photos. Those things that were near-and-dear enough to my heart to make the trip up to Flickr once upon a time. Because, I [personally] don't treat Flickr as my photo album... I treat it as my photo display case. Granted, I know not all the images in my Flickr account are fantastic, but they all have something about them that caused my eyes and brain (at the time they were posted) to deem them as worthy.
One of the most fascinating things about photography (for me) is witnessing progression. Progression takes many forms in photography (and other places in life too). For me, it is sometimes made apparent by running across a photo opportunity I've had before, and shot before, and deciding to no longer shoot it again. Progression... deciding that certain shots have run their course, and that sometimes there was never really a shot there at all... I just couldn't see.
I honestly didn't expect that my delete count was going to be as high as it was. But at the same time I was very proud of what I had done. Even though it wasn't exactly easy, there was a time when I couldn't do it at all... so today I felt like I had progressed... significantly.
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Seeking Focus Flickr Guide Feedback
To help get us a all a little more acquainted with blogging, and to hopefully more quickly help us to decide whether or not we want to make this a part of our group, I've decided to setup this blog post as a study in leaving comments on a blog.
Hopefully by now you have all received the Flickr guide that I sent out. This is your opportunity to leave comments with your feedback, recommendations, or corrections.
Let me start this process out by noting some things that I know of:
That is all I am currently aware of. Please leave comments below indicating things you noticed. (I am temporarily allowing "anonymous" comments on this blog so that you don't have to create an account. I will be disabling this in the future though. I will also have it setup so that I can moderate the comment posts, so that any malicious deviants don't litter our site with nonsense. This means that your comments may not show up real-time... I have to approve them before they will appear.)
If you have questions or problems leaving comments here please send me an email.
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Hopefully by now you have all received the Flickr guide that I sent out. This is your opportunity to leave comments with your feedback, recommendations, or corrections.
Let me start this process out by noting some things that I know of:
- Document eventually needs to be converted to PDF.
- It appears as though the table of contents (page 1 of the document) did not update correctly, so the page numbers are wrong. This is an easy fix, but I decided not to re-send the document due to the size of it.
That is all I am currently aware of. Please leave comments below indicating things you noticed. (I am temporarily allowing "anonymous" comments on this blog so that you don't have to create an account. I will be disabling this in the future though. I will also have it setup so that I can moderate the comment posts, so that any malicious deviants don't litter our site with nonsense. This means that your comments may not show up real-time... I have to approve them before they will appear.)
If you have questions or problems leaving comments here please send me an email.
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Wednesday, June 10, 2009
N.E.W. Seeking Focus Meeting Minutes - 6/9/2009
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Time: 6:00pm - 9:00pm
Location: Appleton Yacht Club
Meeting agendas were handed out, and a brief discuss followed regarding using agendas to provide flow and structure to the meeting format.
Two new members were introduced, Lisa Ann Krutzic and Chuck Dunning.
Re-introduction of existing members followed, in order to acquaint/re-acquaint ourselves with each other.
The next portion of the meeting was dedicated to discussing some new things that are going to be implemented, or are being researched, for our group. Some of these include the following:
While discussing the items above, we actually went out to Flickr, navigated through portions, and answered some high-level questions about it.
The next portion of the meeting was dedicated to reviewing the photos we took of Courtney at the previous month's meeting (May). While reviewing the photos, we talked about the lighting setups, poses, and what we liked or disliked.
Brett Stoddart was selected as this month's "Photographer of the Month". Even though he was unable to attend the meeting, he did fill out a questionnaire that we went through. (If you are interested in that questionnaire, please contact Carolyn to see if she has a copy available.) [Edit] Brett was recently interviewed by PortalWisconsin.org (a nonprofit web site created by the partners of the Cultural Coalition of Wisconsin to support the state's culture, arts, humanities and history) for his work photographing abandoned buildings... be sure to take some time and check out the article here. Congratulations Brett!
A slideshow of member photos was next.
We finished-up the meeting with Wayne discussing his recent lighting training (Touscany) in Green Bay. He also shared some of the photos he captured from that training.
Next Month - July
Other Items of Interest...
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Time: 6:00pm - 9:00pm
Location: Appleton Yacht Club
Meeting agendas were handed out, and a brief discuss followed regarding using agendas to provide flow and structure to the meeting format.
Two new members were introduced, Lisa Ann Krutzic and Chuck Dunning.
Re-introduction of existing members followed, in order to acquaint/re-acquaint ourselves with each other.
The next portion of the meeting was dedicated to discussing some new things that are going to be implemented, or are being researched, for our group. Some of these include the following:
- Flickr - Streamline and centralize photo sharing for our group. Documentation is being put together in order to show our members how to create an account, upload photos, share their photos with the group, and utilize Flickr's discussion thread feature.
- Blogs - Being researched to determine its usefullness as a communication tool for our group.
- Photographer of the Month - We will select one group member each month to ask questions of and view their top 10 photos. This is an effort to get to know our members better.
- Photo Critiquing - We will be considering doing this again. Our first phase of this however, may be to critique "third party" photos (i.e. not the members of our group). The purpose of this is to share our thoughts, likes, dislikes, techniques, etc. with each other, while [hopefully] preventing it from becoming something which can sometimes be negative or "attacking".
- Monthly Themes - A theme will be given each meeting for our members to go out and take photos of. Those photos will then be reviewed at the following meeting.
While discussing the items above, we actually went out to Flickr, navigated through portions, and answered some high-level questions about it.
The next portion of the meeting was dedicated to reviewing the photos we took of Courtney at the previous month's meeting (May). While reviewing the photos, we talked about the lighting setups, poses, and what we liked or disliked.
Brett Stoddart was selected as this month's "Photographer of the Month". Even though he was unable to attend the meeting, he did fill out a questionnaire that we went through. (If you are interested in that questionnaire, please contact Carolyn to see if she has a copy available.) [Edit] Brett was recently interviewed by PortalWisconsin.org (a nonprofit web site created by the partners of the Cultural Coalition of Wisconsin to support the state's culture, arts, humanities and history) for his work photographing abandoned buildings... be sure to take some time and check out the article here. Congratulations Brett!
A slideshow of member photos was next.
We finished-up the meeting with Wayne discussing his recent lighting training (Touscany) in Green Bay. He also shared some of the photos he captured from that training.
Next Month - July
- Dave Jackson will be joining us for another outdoor photoshoot. Dave indicated that there is a strong possibility the shoot may go past 9:00pm.
- The current Photography Theme is "Dairy Month using your aperture". This means you should go out and take photos that relate to June being "Dairy Month" and while doing that you should shoot pairs of photos with two different aperture settings (which will illustrate the impact on the depth-of-field). This next part is so hard to explain... It is "recommended" you bring in 6 total photos. Technically that would be 3 unique photos where each of those 3 photos is taken with two different aperture settings. There is a chance we may not be able to review these photos in our July meeting because of the Dave Jackson photoshoot. But, we still encourage you to go out there and try to capture something anyway.
Other Items of Interest...
- The Payne Art Center in Oshkosh is having a photo exhibit June 6 - October 11. We have selected Sunday, August 30th as a possible day for us to go there as a group.
- There was a general reminder about the High Cliff camping trip on October 2nd. If you have any [photography] ideas/games/challenges/etc... that could take place during that event, please let the group know.
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Thursday, June 4, 2009
Day Won (1)...
A minor victory for me, of sorts... blogging that is. My good intentions don't always lead me down obstacle-free paths. In fact, here is a quote I read recently, that sums-up exactly how I've always felt about my own life:
So what does this all have to do with the overall purpose of this blog? Maybe not much to those who read this first entry. For me, it marks the start of a new journey... that begins with everything that evolves from this point on.
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"I've always had an especially hard time with everything I've tried to do,... I had huge obstacles to overcome in anything I tried. Had to work against my genes to achieve my dreams."
So what does this all have to do with the overall purpose of this blog? Maybe not much to those who read this first entry. For me, it marks the start of a new journey... that begins with everything that evolves from this point on.
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