Well, well, well. Long time no see. This episode is a rambling mess but my dedication, hero of the week, is reason to listen by itself. We hit new camera gear, the idea of Trump going to jail (not likely in my mind) doing more as a human being, the new Clint Watts book, and much, much more. What are you waiting for. Go!
Create: For What It’s Worth Episode 043
Comments 30
What is holding me back? Motivation is a big thing, lack of talent would probably be the next thing. At 69, I am best described like the children of Lake Wobegon, a little above average in all the areas I have dabbled in, sport, art, whatever. So at this point in life, the motivation to prove in some way that I am other than what I have always been, just isn’t there, and that’s okay. I have potential projects in mind, but moving on them is hindered right now with covid.
Also, I wish Blurb would kick some ass in the area of their ipad app, which is almost worthless for anything other than a family photo book. When I left work life five years ago, I shed my laptop and have never looked back, so Bookwright and Indesign are not options for me. I can make pdfs easily enough, but the standard pdf size is not readily workable with all of Blurbs options or MagCloud for that matter. I have worked around it and will continue to do so, but a more sophisticated ipad app would be a nice bonus.
Glad you had a good day!
Chuck
Author
Chuck,
MOtivation is on you, but solveable. Talent comes with practice. iPad app is probably unlikely. Heaving bookmaking via a tablet ain’t really in the cards for most folks. I would love to make that work but find the interface so hard to handle.
Daniel,
Downloaded the Word app for ipad to see what it is like. Has some cool features I wasn’t expecting in the design area, so will work with that for pdf and use MC after that for printing
I’m curious why the iPad and Bookwright aren’t all that compatible. I haven’t used my ancient iPad for years now, so I’m not all that familiar with them. But it makes me think, probably correctly, that I’m only scratching the surface of Bookwright. Image Frames, add image (fit to frame), and add some text here and there. I really need to go back and re-watch one of Milnor’s bookmaking tutorials.
I don’t have enough geek dna to understand why the Bookwright interface can’t be adapted to an ios app. That being said, from what I have seen with the Word ios app, there appears to be the same kind of flexibility with image size and text, including the feature of handwritten text as well. Looking forward to working with it further.
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Chuck,
Me neither. I wish I was a geek but have so far failed at my quest.
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Scott,
My issue with the iPad has always been getting things INTO the damn thing. I find the iPad a wonderful device for consumption but a bit frustrating for production. I know this is changing and the new ones are better.
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Chuck,
MC is so awesome.
Regarding your reference to social media and the pandemic being similar. Several months ago I began referring to Covid-19 as a “revelator” meaning it’s effect is to reveal the strengths AND weaknesses of all our social systems. From the economy, health care, politics, geo-politics, business models (which is different than the economy), housing, entertainment, what is “essential” and yes, even family systems, all are exposed. Some will adapt and some will disappear. My fear isn’t that things won’t return to normal (whatever that is) but that they will and we will have not learned, or grown, to any degree.
I so agree with all of that, David, especially the concern that culture will return to normal without learning from this what was broken and needed new adaptations. The emptiness that is social media is one of those things in my mind.
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Chuck,
Agree.
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David,
That is a great point. Seventy million people voted for the idiot. That does not bode well for America in general and it tips our hand in terms of how poorly educated we are. I fear we come out of this pandemic and go write back to where we were.
My family is holding me back. If I wasn’t married with a child I would be out doing work and trying to get into the VII agency! I would really love to try some NGO photography. Antonin Kratochvil and Joachim Ladefoged are a big inspiration on me.
Also, a while ago, one of my friends had broken up with his girlfriend and I remember him saying “I’m going to announce it on FaceBook tomorrow”. He said it as if it wasn’t official until it had been said on FaceBook. I remember thinking that was crazy.
Great episode, start to finish. I’ve also got a lot of work I want to do. Never stop.
As usual with FWIW, a ton of great stuff to think about and reply to here. I really need to start listening to these with a notebook and pen. And that relates to what’s holding me back. I have a ton of “I really need to start”s in my journals and cobwebby brain. I think about this a lot, but I’ll keep it general for now. The biggest obstacle – in the opening round – is me. I’ll think of ideas and then talk myself out of them. Sometimes it’s because I’m being sensible – do we need another 50 year old white guy writing about and taking photos of something that a thousand other middle aged white guys are doing, something that would be much better served and more interesting if it weren’t the same old same old? That’s a trap, though, and I have to figure out a productive way around that, because I’m not ready to crawl into a hole in the ground just yet. But I’m also very happy that photojournalism has moved beyond Nat Geo or Life parachuting a 45 year old WASP into a region to tell the story…lo and behold, there are already incredible storytellers there! That’s a long way of saying that I think I’d be good at letting other people’s stories breathe or helping someone else tell the story…I need to figure out how to make that happen. And I need to get better about sending the emails and making the calls…planning prep, research, and logistics makes for compelling photo work.
We’re going to have to disagree on most of the Russia stuff. And that’s cool. I think you and most of the Shifter community are fairly old school – people can disagree. I came out of the foreign service world, and I recognize Russia as a geopolitical adversary – spheres of influence and all. But we’ve been headed to this point for 30 years. A perfect storm. People recognize that 95% of journalism is garbage. They sought other sources while simultaneously freefalling into a lack of critical thinking envisioned by Idiocracy. I’m not playing the holier than them card…people are not concerned with media literacy and the age old Who What Where Why When. Friends of mine across the political spectrum send me garbage tweets (in text, I’m not on Twitter), and it’s clear they haven’t actually read the article they’re retweeting or they’re adding in commentary not supported by the article.
If Russia somehow had ceased to exist in 2015, we’d be in the same spot. There’s not a single conspiracy or argument I see floating around that we weren’t already entertaining. They may have sought to build on things and exacerbate them…but we have seen the enemy, and he is us. I hope we stop talking about Russians soon. If our republic couldn’t survive some Cheetoz eating Mountain Dew drinking hackers who lie on Facebook, then that’s on us.
Big news to report – pulled the trigger on my first Blurb journal. A small test, built just for December 2020. My procrastination means it might actually be built for 2/3 of December.
Scott, you really nailed for me as well. I have backed off several ideas for the very same reasons, many after starting research and seeing what has been done and questioning what can I do that would be different or new in a particular area. And I’m with you on the Russian thing as well. The Chinese will be the next target I suspect after the latest election results.
“questioning what can I do that would be different or new in a particular area” – well said! Sounds like you and a few others here really make use of the iPad. Dan does, too. Sounds intriguing. I’d like to explore that, but I think if I make any purchases in the next 6 months, it’ll be a Go Pro. Those new iPads do seem like little marvels. though.
Author
scott,
They do look good but the new M1 machines are what I would go for.
I would have to agree with Chuck, what prevents me using Blurb more often is the poor iPad app, I rarely sit in front of my iMac anymore, preferring to edit on the go. Have a word with them Milnor, if they won’t listen to a YouTube sensation we are totally screwed!
This was really great Dan! The part about motivation was especially poignant to me. I have been retired for two plus years and due to some personal issues have not really been able to do all I set out to do. That’s mostly finished now, so I’m learning to play chess, enhancing my knowledge of French, and using my library card nonstop! Thanks for putting these together!
Author
Paul,
The library is a goldmine. Total goldmine. Good to hear you are on your way up.
Daniel Milnor: 00:33:45 And so God would also work on a project for 10 years before it was before it was released. So he did, you know, uh, the, his first project, big one that got recognition was the famine in Ethiopia. And then he did a project in the Americas than he did workers. And these were 10 year increments. And so Gada would come to someone like Kodak where I worked at one point and he would say, I want x amount of money. And they would give it to him because he come in and say, if you give me this money, this is what’s going to transpire. And it was all worked out over like a five, six, seven year period. And you’re like, nobody else is doing this. While it’s remarkable, you want to be able to key for really the key to be an a to being a photographer is to try to tell unique stories in a way that people can immediately recognize who did the work. And that’s hard today when there’s so many people working in. So much of the work you see looks exactly the same. And it’s hard. It took 10 years of shooting every day to figure out what I was doing. Literally 10 years.
Author
Yes, he worked in ten-year increments. And backed up his ideas with real images, books, shows, tours, etc. Nobody else like him working today.
Important take away is that you feel good Dan! In these dark times it’s awesome to hear.
Author
Thanks Jim, I’ll take what I can get.
Dan, your rambling isn’t so bad to listen to.
So what’s limiting me? The short answer would be me. So easy to blame time and money but I don’t believe they’re valid excuses for anyone. I’ve broken so many personal walls in the past 10 years, it’s incredible how many barriers we’ve accumulated by just absorbing the wrong messages while we grow up. But I’m still very much a social disaster, I’ve literally spent 25 years of my life avoiding other life forms. I love starting projects, which is good and bad because when I hit the hard parts of a project I tend to turn towards 50 news things I could start off. I’ll fabricate excuses all the time. I’m getting better at catching them but it’s tiring to constantly fight your unconscious. Those are all “me” things, but really I’m doing good overall 🙂
Like you, I ‘m baffled at how people become so fake on social media both personally and professionally. All of a sudden personality isn’t a thing anymore. Seeking likes and followers who don’t care about you… why would you want a follower who don’t care about you. I don’t know. I’m speechless, it doesn’t make any sense to me. I follow you, you follow me … why? Who are you? Oh you follow 245 963 persons on Instagram…
I’m building my website, maintaining my little blog and newsletter. Not much value there but it’s my stuff, done my way.
About Iceland and all other “iconic” places, again why would I want to do something everybody does. Last year I saw a bunch of Faroe Island photo project. Amazing looking place. So I googled the place and drop my pin on a village, the villages on the island have those amazing little houses with grass roofs and none of the photographers I’ve seen bothered taking a picture of that. That’s probably the only thing I’d photograph (I’m terrified of cliffs, I wouldn’t go very far. So that’s probably not a very good example). Nothing about culture and the people. I can still look at Iceland images, still not at my quota, for me it’s the lavender fields, can’t stand them. I’ve seen a million, who still wants to go there and take pictures, I don’t know.
Enough rambling. I took the PM off work, I should be doing something good with that. Move that ship forward.
Quickly … I know you mentioned that a few times. Apple vs Windows. I’ve started moving towards Windows again Apple is starting to lose it completely, I’m starting to have more frustrations than positive points with Apple.
Shoot I didn’t realize I wrote THAT much! Well it’s your fault, if you’d make 20 second clip like the rest of the world we wouldn’t have so much to said back!
Haha, I think a lot of us wrote a lot! I’d bet $1 that the FWIW feature gets the most and longest comments.
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MC,
A new (Intel) Mac arrives today. Do something small and set a tiny goal. An 8-page MagCloud Digest. Shoot until you have 4-5 really solid images then design and move on. A victory is what you need…