It’s been ages since I’ve been this happy with a group of photos.
The subjects are still pretty mundane (flowers! ducklings!) and I still kind of feel like there’s not much going on, but I like these photos.
photography
Project366: #151-160
PhotographyI’m starting to feel good about my photos again. Mostly. This batch isn’t amazing, and they’re mostly from the phone—I’ve gotten over my cold, but the one time I felt well enough to take a real camera out in the past ten days, I promptly got hit with a brand new wave of symptoms—but they’re not just flowers, and they’re not just random stuff I can see without getting up off the couch.
Inspired | June 2019
LinksEvery month, I share the articles and sites that I found most interesting. Here’s what caught my attention in June: “I wrote a thing,” setting benchmarks, the impact of free stock photography, thoughts on wellness and mindfulness, crossing the US border, the origins of the Green Man myth, and more.
Sketchbook #44
Personal, Photography, Writing“Maybe I’ll have some answers by the end of June,” I said.
Why do I set myself up like that?
I’m being a little overdramatic. The first two weeks of the month were good. Really good. It took a few days to figure out what I was doing with Violet Lane, but I’m well into the second draft now, and it feels like the big changes (cutting down the number of point-of-view characters, eliminating one character entirely, et cetera) are the right ones. I’m still wavering a bit on the tone (I want to make it darker, but it doesn’t seem to be working. I might have to rework the main character again), but in general, I’m happy with it.
My progress with photography is… ok. I’m in a bit of a rut—so many flowers—and I’m trying to figure out how to push myself out of my comfort zone with that. Part of the problem, I think, is that I’m in a bit of a rut when it comes to my routine in general—I do the same things and go to the same places, travelling the same routes, at roughly the same time every week—so I’m not seeing anything new. Nothing is feeling fresh or interesting. (I haven’t gone on as much as a day trip in over a year. The logistics for that kind of thing get tricky when you don’t drive.) Plenty of photographers have found inspiration in mundane environments, but I’m dealing with a general sense of frustration that’s just feeding on itself right now, and I need to figure out how to break myself out of it.
That said, the flower photos are ok—some of them have been quite good—they’re just boring.
Other than that things have been pretty much progressing as expected: I’m having fun with the website redesign, I’ve been making some real progress when it comes to figuring out my long-term plans (which… yeah, I kind of worked on that a few months ago, but I’ve been refining the ideas and framing them in a way that means I can work toward them rather than just dream about them), and I took a few small steps toward that big project that I’m still not announcing, even though I fully intended to do so this month. (More on that in a minute.)
… and then I came down with a cold. Nothing much has happened since last Wednesday. At all.
Project366: #141-150
PhotographyI’ve run into this problem every single time I’ve tried to do a daily photo project: what am I supposed to photograph when I’ve got a cold and spend all day asleep (or trying to sleep)?
Project366: #131-140
PhotographyThere are some weeks when I really don’t know what to say about the photos I’ve taken.
This is one of those weeks.
Project366: #121-130
PhotographyI managed to get away from bright flower photos in the past ten days, at least. Mostly.
Project366: #111-120
PhotographyThe good news is, I’m happier with this batch of photos than I was with the last one. Not all of them, of course, but there are more good ones than bad, and there are a few that I’m really happy with.
Project366: #101-110
PhotographyOk. Yeah.
The last ten days of photos… aren’t great. They’re not awful, I don’t actively hate any of them, but… most of them are ok at best. I only genuinely like two of these photos.
Over the last week or so, I haven’t been paying as much attention to photography as I’d like—I’m relying on my phone, and still taking photos just to check it off the to-do list, rather than putting any kind of effort in.
Project366: #91-100
PhotographyI’ve got mixed feelings about this group of photos. Literally: I am absolutely in love with half of them, and I’m decidedly meh about the rest.
