These are my photos. My favorite videos, sometimes annotated. My random thoughts and occasionally a few hundred words or so. I liked the name, so I'm sticking to it. Kick off your shoes, look around, and make yourself comfortable. We're all friends here.
I was a photography minor in college. I used to be a major before I got scared and changed my mind. I know a lot of people have opinions on majors centered in the arts, and all I have to say to those people is this:
People should be free to do what they love. I know nowadays its a question of money and viability and thinking ahead. I know many in the arts are having difficulty finding work. That is the reality, but I wouldn’t berate them. They are doing what they love and I applaud their bravery. They did something I didn’t have the courage to do. If you (the non-believer in the arts) think that art in itself is useless unless it generates money, then you are missing the point, for the same reasons that we must continue to pursue art are the same reasons we are here now. It is rooted in the renaissance (and long before) and the beginnings of a mass of writings, paintings, music, and plays that developed the foundations of western society. Like it or not, art is important and photography is a part of that.
That being said, I’m going to rant about it:
Owning a camera doesn’t make you a photographer
De-saturating a picture and just leaving a specific color behind (red…) doesn’t make it artistic or even good. Just because Steven Spielberg did it in ‘Schindler’s List’ doesn’t make it okay to do the same effect for every fucking photo you take
Charging little-to-nothing for your work doesn’t do anyone any favors, it just makes you the “cheap photographer,” and takes work away from everyone else
For god’s sake, white balance
Learn to do it right before purposefully doing it wrong
Shoot film. It makes you appreciate what we have now, and it slows you down. Get a Nikon F-100 with a 50mm, add a roll of 400 film. Shoot. Learn.
Study great photographers. Know what styles you like. Know what you don’t. Make your own style and grow from there
Owning a whole studio doesn’t make you good. Knowing what to do with what you don’t have does
Details, details, details
Nowadays, everyone thinks they are a photographer. The noun gets thrown around more than another one: ‘love,’ and like the latter, is losing its meaning
Love the art behind the image. Tell a story. Draw the audience in. Make it mean something
Force yourself to shoot like you have film in the camera; a million images doesn’t equate to a million keepers
A black and white photograph isn’t artistic because it is black and white
For god’s sake, focus
Study light and the effect it has on your subject
Shoot manually
Use a light meter
Take the photo in your mind before you press the shutter
Megapixels don’t make the image
Before pressing the shutter, take a deep breath
I’m not an expert, and I do think photography is for everyone. Regardless of this, I think it should be respected and explored. Too many people take it for granted.
Wage inequality is a new term I see popping up a lot lately, especially on those clever Occupy Wall Street signs that everyone is so in love with now. But let’s analyze this term for a moment and try and to get a grasp on what this statement references.
Wage. We all know what that is, it’s the money you make in exchange for a service you provided to either an employer or to the market place. Wages are determined on your job, your experience, your skill, your education, your tenure, and most importantly your work ethic. Some people are worth more to an employer because they have a higher education. Some are worth more because they have a certain skill. Others are worth more because of on the job experience or a reputation of hard work. Not everyone get’s paid the same wage because these factors matter. You wouldn’t pay a kid straight out of high school $150,000 per year to be the CEO of your electric company, nor would your electric company hire a CPA with no eletrical experience $45,000 per year to install transformers and power line. Make sense?
Now, onto “equality”. The word equality invokes justice, fairness, equal across the board no matter what differences. Equality is a wonderful concept when applied to things that people can not choose. For instance, a man has no say so in whether he is born black or white. therefore neither race should be considered a superior one, this is because neither man could work to obtain a position in the other race no matter what he did. Things like race, sexual orientation, hair color, ect. are natural things and therefore they should never be considered when determining a persons worth. However, a man’s work ethic is NOT something he is born with. It is something he has to develop and build up. If he refuses to do so than he becomes lazy. And why should a lazy man or woman be granted equal wages as a hard working man or woman?
The simple fact is that he shouldn’t. Natural law would state that man who works harder deserves more. Now many people will state that CEO’s of mega corporate company’s that make millions a year are not working nearly as hard as the guy who works for the county road crew. My response to that is this. The man on the county road crew works hard physically and deserves a decent living wage. But on the other hand, the road crew worker may not have even finished high school while the CEO finished high school, a BA program at a university, a masters at another university, worked as an unpaid intern for however long, and than worked his way up while carrying student loans and a family. So it’s easy to say that the man in the suit doesn’t work as hard, but that is narrow minded. Of course, I hate mega corporations and this is only based on a honest man reaching the top of a corporate ladder, I’m not talking about or justifying crooks or people who have cheated others for their job or wages.
The fact is, though. People have to work to make money. And they have to work really hard to make really good money. Whether it’s physical or educational, everyone has to work hard to get a high wage. If people are unwilling to go to school and study in a field that has real job potential than they have no right to whine for wage equality. If a person shows no drive or ambition, put’s worth as little effort as possible in his workplace, doesn’t strive to reach the next level than they have no right to whine for wage equality.
The very term “Wage Inequality” is preposterous. And so is the idea that everyone should be paid equal wage regardless of how hard they work, or their skills.
Remember the story of the Grasshopper and the Ant? The Ant worked hard all summer to save up for the winter while the Grasshopper did nothing. When winter came the Ant had all that he needed while the Grasshopper was pissed off and was left holding a picket sign at Occupy The Ant Hill that said “Wage Inequality!”
Respectfully, it’s not that simple.
“The fact is, though. People have to work to make money. And they have to work really hard to make really good money. Whether it’s physical or educational, everyone has to work hard to get a high wage.”
- Yes, I don’t disagree with you here. You work hard, and you try to earn a higher wage as you progress through your career. However, hard work doesn’t guarantee higher wage, so you can’t simply state that hard work equals high wage. What you consider to be “hard work” might be something completely different to someone else. My grandfather worked in the fields picking cotton for 12-14 hours a day in 100 degree heat, but never made more than dollars a day when he came to this country seventy years ago. Is that not hard work?
“If people are unwilling to go to school and study in a field that has real job potential than they have no right to whine for wage equality.”
- Unwilling or unable? There’s a big difference. Some people can’t study in a field that would grant them more money because of outside factors. Does that make them lazy? Sorry, but not everyone can afford to do such a thing without making major sacrifices, and what I mean by that is making a choice between food and fuel, between books and electricity. These are real choices. Unless you were born in a mildly advantageous situation, entering into higher education will cost you, and in some cases, cost you dearly because you have to make some very difficult decisions. It’s not as easy as registering for courses and going to school. Making it seem like it is is disingenuous.
“If a person shows no drive or ambition, put’s worth as little effort as possible in his workplace, doesn’t strive to reach the next level than they have no right to whine for wage equality.”
- Again, what do you qualify as no drive or ambition? What does that mean? Does it mean that the person working at a grocery store (or in your case, a road construction worker) for ten years has no drive or ambition? What if they are just as capable as their manager of doing their job, but just hasn’t landed that promotion? May not be a CEO of a company, but they want to move up. Sometimes the circumstances keep them from it. People aren’t asking for hand outs. Stop making it seem like they want the world on a silver platter. It’s America. You have to work to get somewhere, but it’s getting a whole lot tougher to make it. It’s not something for nothing, and it’s definitely not whining.
“The very term “Wage Inequality” is preposterous. And so is the idea that everyone should be paid equal wage regardless of how hard they work, or their skills.”
- You’re right. The term is preposterous, but for the wrong reason. It doesn’t adequately describe what they’re trying to say. They need a better message. No one is saying that everyone should be paid equally regardless of how “hard” they work… whatever you mean by that. I definitely don’t advocate it, and I’m sure that many others feel the same way. Try living off of minimum wage. I dare you. Try it for a month. $7.25 an hour for 40 hours a week. You can double up on jobs if you want… work “harder” if you want to make something of yourself, or better yet, just to pay the bills. Live off of $5 a day. Live off of $1. Don’t berate people for wanting to get out of the hole they’re in. Many are in situations they didn’t even start themselves. The only thing that people want is the prospect of a better life for their families, and they don’t see it. They’re reacting in their own way, “clever” sign or not.
I always find it funny how some people really have no clue what the minimum wage earner (or in other cases, people in poverty, or in low-income areas) goes through on a daily basis. It isn’t just about the work they do, which is thankless, for the most part, but about the choices they have to make. If you want to blame their lot in life on them, fine, but don’t just thumb your nose at them and say that they’re whining because they want a handout. A lot goes into being in their situation. No one chooses that life. You wouldn’t.
It isn’t as simple as a child’s fable… in most cases, they are the ant, they’re just never able to get ahead.
Water flows down the drain and I try to look into the darkness that’s masked with the liquid falling into it, but I can’t see anything. There were points where I’d breathe in and close my eyes, trying to capture a memory or moment that I had so long ago, but as much as I tried, it left me, then I had to wake up and move on.
It’s strange, the reactions inside people’s hearts, and how they often give off the wrong signals. Everyone else seems to make it look so easy, but maybe that’s the trick. It’s given off like it was just the most natural thing in the world, but really, they just struggle like we do; and it might be just as hard as finding someone, but it never seems that way.
You can always just lie to yourself and make it easy. I stopped doing that a long time ago. I remember the first time I faced my pain and looked at it. It was ugly, but the worst thing would’ve been to act like it never happened in the first place. I surrounded myself with it and then I began to shed the old skin and grow into something else.
After awhile, it just became normal. I’d try to be certain things, or certain people to make others happy, but it never worked, so I went through it over and over again. I’d leave so many lives behind that it became harder to keep track of where I’d been, and then it was hard to see where I was going. Each time though, I’d leave something behind. I didn’t really notice it until it passed me by, but it caught up to me and it can happen to you; whether it’s instant, or in a few years, it will happen. You see how you used to be, or how you used to treat someone, and then you realize that the whole time you knew them, you made the mistake of not loving them like you should have.
Why that happens, I’ll never know. I do know that I have a hard time letting people go. I find that having people around you that you love is priceless. Along with that, come the memories that come with them. At times, I’ve been desperate to keep trying to regain old memories without them, and I find it nearly impossible. I just love people too much. It means too much to me.
I wish I could tell some people just how much I feel. I don’t know if this is just a game I’m playing, or if it’s a slice of reality I’m consuming, but I get exhausted and frustrated at the fact that I’ve become calm and understanding. It’s pretty funny because those were virtues I wished to attain, and now that I have them, I often wonder if that would potentially lead to my downfall. I know now that I don’t owe anyone anything other than a shoulder to lean on if need be. I feel inside that my debts have been waived, and I’ve knowingly decided to surrender my need to “act” polite, and just be if I feel like it. I don’t have to answer to anyone if I don’t want to. I don’t need to be nice and calm if I don’t find I have to.
Whether this has been the cause of my actions thus far, I don’t know. I do know that my tolerance for certain behaviors has been drastically reduced, and my temperance for irrational behavior has been close to nothing. I find at the moment, that I am well beyond old habits, and even further beyond bad ones.
It’s nice to learn and grow. For all the pain that my actions, and the actions of others have bought, it has served it’s purpose only because I made it so. I see people out there everyday, who choose to do nothing while the rest of the world keeps passing by, and there they are, stuck feeling sorry for themselves. Still, I find myself waiting on others. Sometimes, I wonder why I still do.
As much as I want to be a bigger part of their life, I refuse to be the one to fix things. It’s not my job, and it’s something I’m not even qualified for. I want to call every five seconds, say hi, send a message, but I fear that there’s no use in that; it will just either be taken advantage of, or tossed aside - neither of which I’m prepared for.
There is a risk involved: the possibility that I’ll be rendered obsolete, unimportant, or just entertainment, but I can’t be that person anymore, and it will only lead to destruction in the end. Inside me, I want to shake them and make them realize that their life holds so much more possibility than they lead on, but I just choose to say nothing instead because it’s easier. Mostly, it’s just easier on them, not on me. Sometimes people just don’t want to hear it, whether it’s truth or opinion. They want to stay in an imaginary world. They want to be ignorant. They want to avoid that darkness at all costs.
So, I keep on looking at the water falling down, and I close my eyes as the steam rises from the sink and onto my face as the humidity in the bathroom rises. I look at the fading vision in the mirror and see the flaws, and I’m satisfied with them. They are just pathways leading to memories after-all. As I look deeper, I just miss them. I wished they would know how much I love them. I wish they knew that I love them enough to just let them be. I love them enough to do nothing.
My very action writing this makes me a hypocrite. Actually, the fact that I’m still a part of this entire “social networking sphere” (and have no plans to escape it - for now) make me an extreme hypocrite. No matter. I guess you can say that I stepped back for a second and figured out just how much of a cancer this whole phenomenon has been. Regardless of my own opinion, it has meant a great deal to millions upon millions of people. It hasn’t meant much to me.
What does it mean to be a member of a social network? What does it mean to gather hundreds, if not thousands, of friends and keep in touch with them? What harm can that do?
Nothing. It doesn’t hurt if the root of the whole experience is to make sure to stay with the people you cherish the most. The reality? It can get out of control.
I always thought that the initial innocent thought behind a place like Facebook, and before then, with Myspace, Friendster, and countless more, was that it allowed for an easy glimpse into your friend’s likes/dislikes, thoughts, feelings, and recent news. There really isn’t anything wrong with this idea on our end. In fact, you could say that these places foster an environment of endless connectivity. Where can it go awry? Well, it depends on the person in front of the screen. It also depends on who is watching…
In my experiences, this is initially harmless. In my observations, it can also keep people in your life that don’t need to be there (ex’s, past friends, people who have been out of one’s life for a time), opinions that you don’t care about (yes, this includes mine as well), a more evolved tool for those socially inept, and for those who need to pad the ego. This creates a bit of a problem. I was usually very selective of who I let in and out of my life, and then it became something more when I went on FB.
Suddenly a friend request meant that you were considering to let someone in your life that wasn’t there before. What if it was an ex-lover? What if it was someone you wanted to leave out? What if it was someone you didn’t even remember? Yes, it’s generally easy to deny someone. Yes, it’s not that big of a deal. Me? I sometimes thought to much about it. Sometimes I let someone in that I didn’t even know. Other times I walked away not saying anything. The point is that without FB in my life, the people that were there (the ones that mattered at least) were there, and everything else stood in the periphery.
My big problem is that Facebook (in my own observation) has satiated four key desires that we had no idea we wanted:
1) The ability to keep an eye on anyone at anytime (satisfying a curiosity, possibly an obsession, possibly the start of one…)
2) The ability to keep in touch with someone without really having to keep in touch
3) A way to be a small part of a bigger thing (whatever big thing that is)
4) A way to express yourself and to make yourself feel like everyone was listening (Twitter is a byproduct of this)
We like to have people care about the things we say, the things we do, the people we love, loathe, marry, divorce, and break-up with. It is a way to find someone else, to pursue a friendship, relationship, connection… the possibilities are endless. Instead of allowing us to do these things in person - the real and meaningful way - we forced its evolution and digitally enhanced it. No one really bothered to ask if it threatened our real ability to get to know each other, if it would begin to erode the real methods of connecting with one another instead of a false structure without a foundation to stand on.
Now, more than ever, the way we interact with one another is dependent on a singular domain that holds all the keys, dictates how we see each other, how we speak to one another, how we decide to let people in, and most importantly, almost forces our hand by telling us what we need.
Mark Zuckerberg and the braintrust at Facebook speak plainly about their aim: to keep the members of Facebook on their site for as long as possible each and every day. This bothers me too. All of these new features were described as revolutionary, but we don’t need a revolution. Google+ claims to be the next best thing, except I don’t need another thing. I don’t need circles. I don’t need to farm virtual plants and buy things that don’t really exist. I don’t need to spend all of my time on these sites. I don’t need advertisers to know what I like and what I don’t. I don’t want people to know exactly what I’m doing at all times. Where I’m at with whom. What I’m listening to (It’s Radiohead, by the way). I guess the most troubling aspect of the “new” Facebook is in the way it dictates what is most important in our own lives. Who is important? What is important? The ability of the user to control things is slowly eroding. There seems to be a hint that no matter what they do, it will not drive away those members. This arrogance bothers me the most.
Privacy and the ability for Google and Facebook to archive all of our data subjects us to dangerous and unknown possibilities. It makes us dependent on these places to keep in touch with our friends, to extend and foster friendships, to be kept in the loop on how other people are doing. These sites are making us lazy. The return we get for all that we put in never matches the time and effort. The reality is that we don’t really need it, but it certainly feels like it. It’s an addiction, for better or worse.
I’ve been in a situation where there was a person I was sitting right next to, and we were both on Facebook, not even talking to each other. This is the problem: Eroding privacy, control, human interaction, and a sense of being real friends - not e-friends.
I have no idea how big these things will get, or whether they will be a passing fancy or a solid and unwavering reality for the rest of my life and extending far beyond it. I hope not. I hope at some point we (myself included) can realize that it’s better to unplug and find new and better ways to keep in touch, to build memories, and keep those timelines Facebook peddles inside of our minds and hearts instead of on a webpage.
I wrote this 3 years and 3 months ago in an old diary. I thought it was interesting, so I decided to share it with whoever wants to read it…
The dark corners of the room rounded off into slight beams of light coming from the closed door’s openings. My eyes wandered around, searching for hints of a dream, but there wasn’t one that night. I kept telling myself to sleep, for the sake of it and nothing more, but it was never enough. I suppose I just couldn’t escape it.
In my life, there are these moments that move through me, and live within me forever. I’ve made it a strong point to keep those memories as sacred tapes trapped in my mind, left to replay in the moments of silence, usually at night. I have a virtual library of memories lodged inside myself, with little jewels just waiting to be found after years of misuse and negligence. Sometimes, it’s easier for me just to look past them, but it’s hard to do when the thing that shines in your eyes is so bright you just can’t turn away. Even when you close your eyes, you can feel the light hitting your skin - overpowering you, and taking you with it. My cherished memories are all that I will ultimately have left after time will deplete me of my abilities to move and act on my wills and desires. I have no need to rid myself of the passion that lies within me, my own overblown sense of relationships, and the moments that reside inside them.
I used to think that they were ghosts, all of them. Now, it’s hard to say. Today was a little bit of everything, mixed into one. Because of my summer that will be spent in New York, I was cleaning up my place today, getting ready for the trip even though it’s months away - I’d like to take care of as much as I can right now. I tend to sweep everything under the rug when I see fit, only because it’s just easier that way. Between my life now, and looking back then, it was just so much easier to handle. Now, I simply don’t have the time anymore to just keep looking and holding on. I found out some pretty serious family stuff that’s going on, and as usual, I was the last to know. I looked around for a little in my room, and I sat on the floor with all of these old books and pictures, and I felt helpless again. I found myself wanting to hear a lost voice that has been gone for ages, it seems - because I needed to hear her voice of comfort, because really no one else could do it but her. It’s just the truth. Tomorrow will be a day I hadn’t really looked towards, but it’s going to be here in the morning. It just isn’t all that important anymore, but I feel the need to remember it for the sake of not forgetting the mistakes that I made, though I don’t blame myself or anyone else for it.
I feel like no matter how far I run away from places, it seems like I’ll always belong there because of my past. Because when I was idealistic and hopeful, I tied my heart to those places, and that’s a bond that is hard to sever. Eventually, I’ll have to drive back home one of these days, and look upon the dusty roads leading to my home and I’ll let out a sigh and remember all those years ago, when I used to feel butterflies in the pit of my stomach, all because of those simple ideas of young love; especially when I met her for the first time. Or like the drives to towns close by, to sleep holding someone, or to talk. It’s just hard to tell which ones are for you, and which ones are a figment of your own wishful persona.
I no longer feel like I’ve got a home to run to, and because of that, have been stuck searching for one. The last day I had a semblance of one was two years ago tomorrow, and before that shaky ground, was one I thought was solid three years earlier. I’ve got everything else going for me. Why am I without the one thing that I really want? I just don’t know.
In a dream, I still remember it all. It is gorgeous to look at in the eyes of sleep. Blossoming laughter in the face of doubt, or a rescue in the midst of danger, I touch her face a million times, though it’s been so long, I’ve forgotten what it’s really like, or what it would mean to me. I’m in a room with her, and we’re just looking at each other. The table is set, and we’re staring and smiling, but there are no words. I’ve had the dream so many times that it’s beginning to make me hysterical. I keep reading old words, wishing the dates on the page would just rearrange themselves to the current. I’m confused, lost, but somewhat numb. I just let time keep on slipping by me, uncaring or just plain defeated at the notion of fighting for someone that’s been dead in my life for so long, I don’t even know if I’m alive in her thoughts anymore - and that’s the point. Maybe the time has passed by and those places will never return to me again.
I miss that feeling I had when I was younger. You know, when you’d leave home and stay away for months or weeks, and you’d tell yourself that you never missed a thing for a second away. You neglect it, and you forget to remember the things that made it charming to begin with, even though those things were simple. The silence of a summer’s night. The light peeking through the blinds from the sun rising in the East, or the smell of food cooking in the kitchen at the break of dawn from your mother’s hands. The houses parked ten steps away, or the smell of the dirt roads after the rain hits in the middle of the springtime. Or even the times when you’d run away from your home door, covering acres and getting lost, because you wanted to disappear. Or, the times when you’d drive the country roads in a truck with the people that you loved, and loved you; talking, laughing, being something other than the moments of your complicated life. I miss the feeling of loving her like I did all those years ago. I missed her voice, and innocence. I didn’t know what it was really like to miss home until I lost her for good.
And, when you come home after all that time away, you gain the feeling of a stranger in a familiar setting. You remember things and it feels like you’re whole again, because at one time, in one moment, when your heart was younger and your love was a bit purer, you felt like you belonged there; and your eyes would close at night, as the rain pattered on the roof, and your mind was quiet, because after-all, you were safe. It was home.
