Saturday, September 19, 2009

Rules and Regulations

This story reminds me of the ongoing conversation regarding the encroaching limitations on photographers. The number of photographers who would be affected by this particular set of regulations is small. But, it's still a scary thought. It almost makes you wonder if some day photographers could be be singing, to the the tune of Paul Simon's "Kodachrome", of course, "Mama, don't take my Photoshop away.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

In a Lull


(Click on the thumbnail for the bigger, better version)

These periods of being stuck are nothing unusual for me and I am getting better about handling them; but, I sure as heck don’t like them.

How best to describe where I am? Who knows? More importantly, who cares? Call it a funk; call it burnout; call it a lull. I have been stuck. I have been pretty much tongue-tied with nothing to say that is fit to share in a family-friendly blog. Most of you know what I am talking about because you have been there. I have been distracted by this business of keeping my finger in the dyke to hold off an impending collapse of my messy storage system. Besides that, I am working on a couple of projects that are taking more time than I expected and I have let that frustrate me. I haven’t been at my best, physically, and I am having an unusual, for me, problem: not sleeping well. And, I confess that it really ticks me off when I virtually lose a day of life, because I am exhausted from a sleepless night. My computer is running slow—bloated with files, and is if all that weren't enough I was having real problems getting anything done on the web.

Finally, it all piled up and morphed into one of those fits of dissatisfaction with everything that I do. Nothing I write is worth saying, much less publishing. All my photos stink—no, I mean really stink. New ones and old ones. Why am I struggling to save any of them from drive failures? How did they get so awful and why did I bother to process them, much less hang on to them, or back them up in the first place? Maybe I should toss all of them and begin fresh. Never mind, the next batch would be just as bad. See what I mean?

At any rate, lest this be contagious, I need to quarantine myself for a couple more days until this fog lifts, the fever subsides—whatever. Perhaps this is just something brewing. Perhaps I will emerge from the malaise energized and produce like crazy. Or, maybe not. At any rate, I will be grateful to go on to the next phase whatever the heck it is.