Contemplations, Ramblings, and Rants

Valentines Day of 2021 will not soon be forgotten in Texas. That was the start of a winter storm, the likes of which is rarely experienced in these parts. We were frozen for the better part of a week and we found out how ill prepared we were for such prolonged cold.

Power was lost at our house late that night. We were told that there would be rolling blackouts. The reality was that power would not return for more than 3 days. The next morning water pressure was much lower than normal. Drawing on our experience of a catastrophic flood in Iowa back in '93 that took out the water treatment plant, I knew what was coming and immediately filled our bathtubs up. When the water flow inevitably stopped, we at least had something on hand that could be boiled to drink or used to flush toilets.

We were fortunate. No burst water pipes. Our house was cold for those few days, but not intolerable. We huddled under blankets and had rations of soup that we heated with our gas stove, along with a loaf of bread and peanut butter. We had plenty of flashlight batteries and candles.

Our preparedness could have been better. The pantry needs to be better stocked and a good supply of drinking water needs to be kept at the ready. A generator to keep our gas heat, refrigerator, and a few other essentials running is going to be a near term purchase. We know we should have been better prepared and failed to follow through. Still, in perspective, we were only inconvenienced for a few days. So many, too many, did not do so well.

I wrote about the pandemic year of 2020 a while back and how my big take away for the year was a feeling of gratitude. The experience of the big storm certainly brought about that feeling again. I also felt a sense of peace, oddly enough. Sure, I was stressed at times and frustrated by the governmental failures that ultimately led to the collapse of large part of the Texas power grid. However, my readings in Stoic philosophies helped temper my reaction to the events that unfolded.

In the days prior to losing my convenient access to clean water from my faucets, I had been practicing a bit of the Stoic mindset. Part of that is contemplating everyday things in terms of a “last time.” What if this is the last time I do this thing, like turning on a faucet to get a drink of water or flicking on a light switch to read a book? By contemplating the hypothetical loss of something, a greater appreciation for that thing can be realized. I've also tried to cultivate a sense of awe in my everyday experience. Isn't it remarkable that I can simply walk to my kitchen sink and get a glass of water from my faucet? How awesome is that and how many people in the world don't have that luxury?

I hope not to repeat the experience of the big Texas freeze, although I have a feeling it won't be the last in my lifetime. Storms in life will come. That much is certain. The unpleasant experience did bring a flood of gratitude, perspective, and humbleness. There are a great many things that affect my life which are beyond my control, but I can control how I respond. Maybe I can even take away some things from the very things that take away from me.

I don't have much of a social media presence these days. It has been a couple of years or so since I dumped most of my accounts. I've still got Facebook and LinkedIn, although I've never considered the latter to be a social media outlet for me personally. Over the recent holidays, I've put a lot of thought into whether Facebook is worth sticking around on.

After watching The Social Dilemma on Netflix, listening to various podcasts, and reading books along similar lines, I have to question whether any value I get from Facebook outweighs the negative stuff. I just finished reading Jaron Lanier's “Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now” and that really has me leaning toward leaving Facebook for good.

Honestly, Lanier didn't discuss anything I didn't already know. The main gist is that free social media amounts to behavior modification. It's meant to keep users engaged in the platform by whatever means necessary for the purpose of harvesting data and pumping ads in order to make loads of money. Lanier calls this BUMMER, an acronym for “Behaviors of Users Modified, Made into an Empire for Rent.” That probably sums it up as good as anything. Word of warning though, if you read the book, you will get tired of seeing BUMMER on nearly every page following its introduction.

Do we need to quit social media or can we just cut back a bit? Maybe you can curtail your usage; that's what I've done for quite some time. I only look at Facebook briefly daily-ish. It's not on my phone – I have to be at my home computer, the device I use the least. Mostly I use it as a calendar so I can wish friends a happy birthday, check on local events, message friends, etc. I try to avoid scrolling the feed.

Still, even though I'm quite intentional in my usage, I'm participating in something that just doesn't sit right with me. If I do find myself doing a quick scan of the feed, I may see a number of good things. Inevitably though, there's something that's going to make me feel badly. Is it worth entering a hostile territory for minimal value in return?

Negative feelings from a social media feed shouldn't come as a surprise. As Lanier puts it, “ Social media is biased, not to the Left or the Right, but downward. The relative ease of using negative emotions for the purposes of addiction and manipulation makes it relatively easier to achieve undignified results.”

Facebook has made staying in touch with some people a bit easier and it has helped me stay in the loop on things I enjoy, such as the local music scene. It's a convenient way to connect with bands that I photograph. Certainly, there are ways to get the information I want and stay in touch with people off of social media and those would be less convenient, to be sure. Convenience comes at a price and I'm not sure I want to pay it any longer. I'm reminded of the computer's conclusion in the movie War Games, “A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.”

After making sure I've got current non-social media contact information for the people I want to keep in touch with, I'm planning to take the first step and disable my account soon. If, in fact, I find I can get along just fine without it, why stick around?

#socialmedia #read

250 – that's the approximate number of photos I took and kept from April of 2020 until the end of the year. Normally, I could easily take that many or more at a concert. Once the pandemic set in, those stopped happening. With my primary photographic passion abruptly taken away, I was left wondering what to do with my camera.

There are other things I like to photograph. Cars and bikes...oh yeah, we don't have those events right now either. Urban wandering used to be fun too. The joy just wasn't there anymore and I failed to find it. Anything I tried with the camera felt forced.

While I didn't take many photos in 2020, I did do a lot of cleanup of my library. I've deleted over 10,000 photos so far and I'm still not done. Why the big purge? Well, photos tend to accumulate like emails and you don't think about how many you have until your drive or cloud account starts filling up. I know plenty of photographers who have arrays of drives with multiple terabytes of data. That's not for me. Pre-pandemic I was at about 750GB in my main photo library that lives in the Adobe cloud. Today I'm at 430GB and expect to be even less as I find time to declutter further.

I'm not deleting anything I value, just the clutter that has built up. Things like HDR brackets that I don't want any more, pairs of raw and JPG files (I keep one or the other, not both, preferring the JPG unless I have a compelling reason to keep the raw), things that don't have any significance any longer – those sorts of things. I'm either “hell yeah” about an image or it gets ditched. No “meh” or maybes.

Just because I wasn't taking many photos didn't mean I wasn't creating. I actually created quite a few photo books. Going through my library with a critical eye helped me identify the images that I truly feel strongly about and I committed a bunch to paper and ink. Thinking in terms of a book really helps the cleanup effort. I really prefer to view photos in print and if I'm not willing to commit an image to a spot in an inexpensive book, is it really worth keeping?

I miss being out there in the music scene with my camera. That day will come again. Nothing else really does it for me like capturing the energy of performers on stage. I've got plenty of work to do until the shows return. I needed to get my library cleaned up for a long time and it was always a “one of these days” sort of thing. Due to the pandemic, one of these days is now.

#Photography

Over the past couple of years I've slowly backed away from social media. Most of my accounts are gone now. Facebook is really the only thing I have left. I'd love to ditch it too, but I do find some value for specific things. I tend to go in to get what I need (mainly event notifications and details) and get back out. Scrolling the feed is avoided.

After reading Messing with the Enemy by Clint Watts over the holidays, I have to question whether I want to stay in the social media world at all. I've viewed Facebook as a necessary evil. Now I wonder how necessary it really is for me.

Watts gives a historical view of how social media in general has been leveraged by those wishing to cause harm, be it through recruiting to terrorist organizations, distributing misinformation, encouraging divisiveness, or promoting hatred. We've probably all heard about social media being infiltrated by Russian hackers and trolls, particularly since the 2016 elections. The extent of the problem is greater than I realized.

It's not just that systems are being hacked. That's “old hat,” as Watts says. Hacking to influence people is the real game these days. Who and what can you trust anymore? It's exactly that uncertainty that mind hackers are after. Watts states, “...nothing can be trusted, and if you can't trust anyone, then you'll believe anything.”

What has me concerned more so than the legions of hackers, bots, trolls, and the like is how social media platforms tend to create tribes that latch onto belief systems that are all too often based on the various bits of misinformation and divisive rhetoric that we are constantly bombarded with on these platforms. Watts refers to these as “preference bubbles.” People end up being herded into bubbles of like-minded people where their preferred views are hardened, whether based in fact or not. This is large scale confirmation bias, affirmed by equally biased peers in massive social media networks. Viewpoints and facts that contradict the bubble are met with hostility.

Can we survive in today's online world? Sure, but it's not easy. Watts offers some helpful advice to close out this sobering book. Healthy skepticism and fact checking comes in to play here and unfortunately too many people just aren't willing to do it. The sheer volume of information and misinformation we are subjected to daily in social media is staggering and the allure of a preferred belief system is powerful when it is reinforced so easily in social media.

This is a quick and engaging read. Definitely worth your time and it will get you away from the social media screens for a while if nothing else.

#read

Wow. Is it really the last day of the year already? 2020 seems like a blurry bad dream that I managed to get through relatively unscathed. There are battle wounds to be sure, all mental, as I've been fortunate enough to still have my health. Bearing witness to a non-stop barrage of very bad things has certainly left me feeling weary.

Ordinarily I'd be reflecting on the past year and contemplating what I want to accomplish and improve on in the new year. This time around I admit I'm just not sure what to think or say. We all know it has been a dumpster fire of a year. You don't need me to remind you. I'll try to be a bit more upbeat.

As I sat contemplating how I could sum up the year for me, one word comes to mind. Gratitude. In spite of the chaos and uncertainty of 2020, I still have what I started the year with for the most part – my health, my wife, my home, and my job. So many others can't say the same. I'm heartbroken by the profound loss so many people have had to endure. I take nothing for granted. I'm thankful and grateful for what I have.

Even considering the loss this year of a couple of friends and my dear dog, Lucy, I am grateful for the years we had together. Loss strikes without warning. We have now. The next moment isn't a guarantee. This is reality and reality owes us nothing.

My main photography passion is live music. The pandemic sure put a damper on that. As a result, I took a minimal number of pictures in 2020. It feels like a failing in some ways. Maybe I could have adapted to photograph something else. Nothing felt right though and I wasn't going to force it. I spent my time instead curating my library and printing a number of books. I gave a few to people who I knew would appreciate them. I saw my work make people cry, in a good way. I'm grateful I could do that for them.

I poured myself into my work and I made it through several semesters of classes. Hopefully I'll finish a computer science degree I've been working on in the summer. I'm grateful that I have an employer, a wife, and friends who support me in my efforts here.

In late 2019, I purchased a bass guitar (I have 2 now actually, but who's counting.) This dumb drummer has never played a melodic instrument and I hoped to spend some free time this year learning to play it. Outside of my work and studies, I was in a mental funk most of the year. I'd pick up a guitar and try to practice here and there, but no real progress was made. It was more of a frustration than anything. Over the holidays, I picked up a book of bass music for The Beatles and started learning some songs. I caught myself smiling, genuinely smiling, for the first time in a long time as I bumbled through McCartney's melodic bass lines. Music truly has great power. I'd forgotten that and I'm grateful to have rediscovered it.

I do hope 2021 treats us better and that we all learn to treat each other better. May you find peace, health, love, and gratitude in the new year.

These days almost everyone carries a quality camera in their pocket thanks to smart phones. People take more pictures than ever before. It doesn’t cost you anything to take a snap and a huge amount of storage can be acquired for a paltry sum. What becomes of all these photos though? After an initial share to social media, they tend to accumulate in a digital landfill of forgotten images.

When I was growing up, digital photography didn’t exist. Every photo we cared about was printed. The best photos got stuck in photo albums and it was fun to revisit them every once in a while. Having something tangible and tactile to hold in your hands while looking at a photo is something that many people have forgotten about or never experienced.

The number of photos we used to have in the pre-digital days was a lot less than we’re used to contending with now. As I considered how to manage my own hoard of digital images, it occurred to me that printing could be an effective way to help cull and curate the photos that are truly meaningful. We effectively have unlimited input with digital photography. Printing is a way of placing a limit on output. Having an end goal with certain limitations helps to guide an entire process of approaching our photos with a curator mindset.

I’ve developed a workflow that helps me think about my photography with the mind of a curator every step of the way, from capturing the images to printing. In a nutshell, my process involves:

• Capturing images
  • Consider the subject
  • Set limitations
  • Culling in camera
• A multiple pass image culling process
  • Initial culling through an intermediary program
  • Additional culling pass in main editing program
  • Final culling pass of edited images
• Creating a short, carefully curated book
  • Laying out a story or a collection of images for print
  • Printing an inexpensive book or magazine
  • Sharing your work – no social media required

Let’s get started!

Step 1 – Capturing Images

The curator mindset begins when you pick up your camera. It’s easy to start snapping away and fill up a memory card. What I suggest is being a bit more mindful and maybe setting some limits. Here are some things to consider when you venture out to take pictures.

Consider your subject

This may seem obvious, depending on the situation. Before you raise the camera to your eye, consider the subject of the photo. Why are you photographing this person or thing? What are you trying to say about the subject in your photo and how best can you accomplish that? Having a good idea of what you are looking for will help you get there in less frames. Be intentional with each shot.

Set limitations

Something that really helps me is to think in terms of an ar