Tag: reflection

After making this photograph Friday afternoon at the usual Cedar Run Dock Road spot I got to thinking. The exponential increase in not only photographs, but their quality this past decade has been extraordinary. On account of the technological powerhouses forever affixed to our palms and pockets billions of people the world over have ever improving picture making machines at the ready. The ubiquity of smartphones coupled with the increase in data and sensor power has turned every man, woman, and child into capable content creators. This has gifted us with growing volumes of splendid photographs the world over. A brand of photography that gets better and more beautiful with time. The improvement is not only at the hands of technology, either. Through the years as our phone cameras get better, it’s the near constant practice of making photographs everyday which has made us all better photographers. Anywhere you go you’ll find someone, often many someones, making a photo.

This democratization of technology has taken photography from a cloistered craft of the few into a pastime of the many. The equalization of this skill makes us all richer. Smartphones have become the great leveler, bringing high quality picture making devices to so many. This has allowed experimentation and practice by people in places who otherwise would have had no chance to learn the trade. As a photographer this excites me. It helps me to be a better photographer. It pushes us all. It’s a wonder to see regular people turning out inspiring still and videos day in and day out. The plebs will out, and I am here for it.

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I am not what I think I am, and I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am.
—Charles Horton Cooley

I came upon this quote yesterday in Jay Shetty’s audiobook, Think Like A Monk, and damn that is incisive insight. Is it not true we are but projections of projections? A skewed facsimile as we endeavor to manifest ourselves as we perceive others see us. I make this statement without judgement, more as a recognition of observable truth. In all our efforts to make ourselves, we build an edifice as an assumed image of what we think we are to others. It’s a trick, an artifice, a distortion.

The problems here are manifold. One, it assumes we know what others think of us in fact. Two, it gives too much power to the opinions and assumptions of others. Three, it assumes others know us comprehensively enough to distill our full character. Four, and most important, it removes our own agency. It strips us from discovering ourselves in sacrifice to serving an unknowable image we think others hold of us.

None of this makes us bad people, lacking and wanting of autonomy and originality. No, it’s more positive than that. It’s a friendly canary in the coal mine singing out for us to recognize this distortion in better service of our true selves. Be not buried in the soot and morass of assumed thought. Do not be the looking glass projected onto another looking glass when together we can stand apart in front of our own mirrors.

Antisocial indefinite

I’ve deactivated my accounts on the Big Three social media platforms. I said so long to Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. This is not a stance in self-righteousness per se, more a timeout from too much toxic information. I doubt you need me to tell you about the inundation of anxiety and filth that has seeped into every post and every comment thread. This coupled with the induced compulsion to keep up, look cool, and fit in, was too much. I needed to get away. It’s something I wanted to do for many years, and I am glad I finally pulled the trigger. Not knowing what is going on in the outside world has been glorious.

There are some drawbacks to my decision, of course. Chief among them will be some lost connections I’ve made over the past decade—connections I cherish dearly. Another casualty is the dissemination of my photography. Far fewer eyes will see my work now. This is a blow, yet I feel the tradeoff necessary. I have this website, little traveled as it is, as my go to spot for creative self expression. I plan to continue posting photographs and writings here. I appreciate each and every one of you who visits my site. It is meaningful support to me.

Round number alert

Speaking of this website, here marks post number 500! Crazy to think I’ve made 500 entries since launching this site upon the world back in January 2014. I never thought I would have gone this far. So here’s to 500 more. Thank you all who’ve journeyed with me along the way.

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It is no secret I’m on team Winter Sunset™, but my goodness summer is bringing it this year. 2020 is, well, you know, but at least it’s allowed us big time heat and humidity, comets, and sky fires. Right! Right? Sunset at the salt marsh has delivered big time the past few months; and that’s with me missing several stellar sunsets and thunderstorms. Sunsets come in bunches and summer 2020 stands testament.

A little inside baseball: The color in this photograph is potent. Storm clouds breaking and intense coloration running up the high level mammatus clouds. An ‘X’ pattern sends deep pastel hues in four diagonal directions. Bisected latitudinally, deep green salt marsh cuts across.

When I make my landscapes I begin with seven bracketed exposures, each one stop apart. Running -3, -2, -1, 0, +1, +2, +3. After migrating to Lightroom I pop the seven brackets into Photomatix to merge them into one image file. Then bang, back into Lightroom. From there edits happen quick—delivering a photograph ready for showtime. Well this little buddy took some wrangling. There was so much color to reign in. After over an hour of jostling I’m satisfied; deep, intense, and smoldering.

Let’s keep this set rolling and catch another one tomorrow?

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