A Different Kind of FOMO

I chuckle when I stop to skim through previous posts from years ago that I barely remember and find themes and topics that I forget I’ve written. I’m sure that if some SEO, “digital strategist,” or PR person were ever to happen upon this haphazard collection, it would cause an upturn of the nose, potentially a sniff, followed by “this is why you need me.”

Fortunately, this space isn’t meant to be some perfectly polished and curated work. It’s a constant work in progress and push towards greater skill. AKA, I can do whatever the hell I want and however the hell I want. It’s a very liberating feeling.

Tangential thought aside, it is funny to me when I find those common themes, even years later. I’ve written about FOMO before, back in 2016, but today I’m thinking about it in a slightly different context. I find that during those amazing probably-once-in-a-lifetime travel moments, I get the FOMO bad. Instead of taking the time to apply some technical knowledge or think critically about composition, I snap the lazy shot. It’s only in post that I realize how silly that is when those shots aren’t very interesting. They’re kind of cool, but doesn’t make you feel anything or react in any kind of way.

I clearly love to travel and go to new places, which means plenty of new experiences, some of which I do want to document and look back to say “hey remember when x happened?" But, it’s hard when that mixes with when I’m trying to actually push to the kind of photography that makes you feel something. I find it hard to shoot mundane subjects because they’re kind of boring and everyday by definition, but that’s also where I can focus 100% on the technical aspects and consider how the light falls on something boring AF. I don’t get caught up in the moment of sensory overload in an amazing new place and experience.

That’s a hard temptation to resist though - it’s not exactly fun to do technical drills, but it’s probably something I need to do more of to really push to the next level. I’ve gotten away largely with “good enough” or “lucky enough,” for the past 850 hours and almost 7 years… it’s definitely time to uplevel my progress with some deliberate practice.

f/8 @ 1/500 sec - this is one that if I could redo, I would have at minimum, opened the aperture up and cranked up the speed to remove the distraction in the background. Light was tough since it was pretty harsh.

Generally still love this shot, but it would have been interesting to line up his blue eye with the sunbeam streaking through.

Active Shooting Time: already counted
Review Time: 1
Hours To Date: 850

Slowing Down & Speeding Up

I can’t believe I haven’t made a single post in 2019 and am now penning this just on Christmas Eve.

And yet, thinking about it for just half a second, it makes total sense. 2019 has been a year of a ton of change - some of it thrust upon me and some of it I chased after. I’ve never been one to settle for anything. When work circumstances changed on me earlier this year and I was popped out of a role I loved into one that I just found draining, I knew it was time to do something about it. I know some people can compartmentalize or recharge using their creative pursuits, but I just am not that kind of person. My energy levels sink to the part of my life that’s low and underserved. After a few months to see if things would improve and when they didn’t, I found a new challenge and a new opportunity. That probably sounds like small potatoes, but considering I had been at the same company for almost 10 years (pretty much unheard of among my millennial peers), it was a big step.

It felt great though - to be living in line with the best advice that I got from business school - to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Really pushing up against the ceiling of my capabilities until I burst through to the next level.

Now that I’m back in a job and a company that I love, I’m back to doubling down in my creative pursuits. It’s definitely a symbiotic system for me - I go HAM or I don’t bother. I looked back at my project hours just out of curiosity and the hours prove out:

• 2019 was the year I spent the least amount of time on this project since I started 6 years ago, clocking in only 62 hours to date.

• During the period immediately following the restructure, I only clocked 2 hours total in 4 months. Probably the longest I’ve gone without touching my gear.

• About 40 of the hours from this year (roughly 65%) happened after I changed companies to a better professional situation in September

Needless to say, I’m excited and ready to get back on with this project. I have had some great opportunities to shoot this year and try new things, like renting a monster zoom lens for an Alaskan cruise that yielded a ton of amazing shots.

The Hubbard Glacier calving into the sea - never would have gotten this shot without the telephoto I rented

I went back into my spreadsheet and looked - all told, since my last update in October 2018, I’ve put in 125.5 hours into this project, which brings up my total to 844 cumulative hours in 6 years.

Here’s to hoping I’ll get to updating these into full blown editorial posts - somehow Instagram is so much easier!!

Creativity Craves Structure

I’ve always found this idea to be so paradoxical, yet so true. It’s totally unromantic to think about, but then again, I feel like actual reality is pretty unromantic… it’s not until we have those intentional meta mindfulness moments or look back with fond nostalgia that it becomes magic.

Being creative to me is a process. Like any other process, a structured set of steps helps to bring that flow state where amazing things start to happen. And then you go back and scrutinize for edits and improvements. It’s rarely linear. Whenever I try to shoot with literally no boundaries or guidelines, my images actually tend to come out pretty generic and underwhelming. Too many points of focus results in none. Capturing everything at f/8 or f/22 gets what I see (sort of - in a crappy 2D rendering of a 3D world), but not what I feel. I find (and have read) that having some hard rules and guardrails forces a fresh perspective and new ideas.

The workshop started off with taking pictures of flowers as a composition test, a subject that I find to be not very interesting, but that’s where the skill has to stand alone. This could pass for a nondescript stock photo, but otherwise, meh. Granted, I was feeling strained and bored when I took it, so maybe I did capture the feeling!

To go back to the basics, I signed up for a photography workshop tour during some down time I had when I was in Puerto Rico for a business trip.

Instead of tossing back beers at the bar with coworkers and ‘grammin local eats (though I did do my fair share of that), I traipsed around Old San Juan for 4 hours with an experienced photographer who forced me to go back to those foundational “rules” of composition - rule of thirds, keeping elements in background and foreground, looking for lines, etc. Not going to lie, it was an intense workout for the eye and a bit personally hellish to focus so exclusively and singularly on composition fundamentals at the expense of learning more about the interesting history… but it worked. I got better quality images than I have in a WHILE.

Better, but still missing something.

Interestingly enough, I just faced the opposite direction down the street from the previous shot and managed to capture this, which is one of my favorites!

Like anything else, incredible creative work requires focus and discipline - a level that I just haven’t had time for in the past year that I’ve been settling into the new gig and also running the gauntlet that is wedding planning. The experience (and straight up advice from the pro) made me realize that I need to go back and overhaul my process with some composition basics and literally write down some process steps to run down when I’m lacking an immediate light bulb inspiration rather than relying solely on my eye in the moment.

Active Shooting Time: already counted
Review Time: 5 hours
Hours To Date: 709

Gritty and old doors that are part of El Morro - designed to guard the entrance to San Juan Bay, with construction beginning in 1539.

Land, sea, sky - I like the distinct focal points and lack of unnecessary background noise. This shot took a few tries and a bit of precarious climbing along a ledge that was a few feet off the ground to compose to my liking.