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* Migraine is less bad but, still dealing with it. I tried today to get back to normal activities and I faceplanted for 3 hours. I haven't done that it years. I would have to look at my tracking journal to even know how long I've been dealing with this. This level of time slip and fatigue used to be my life, but it hadn't been in years. I don't like this happening again.
* Post faceplant I took myself on a short, unproductive photo walk just to break up the blerg. If I'd tries to just go to sleep after that I wouldn't have been able to sleep and, yeah, I needed to get out for a bit. I am still trying to get back into my usual photo walking schedule but stuff keeps happening.
* Why does it feel like every fall I want to go hard on photography but stuff happens? The air is clean and wet and I want to be out in it! It's a proper wet Portland fall. But, it's not even October yet so there is still time.
* Part of why I really want to get back in my usual swing is that I watched video essay on Bliss, the most famous photograph ever take. It's was used as the default Windows XP wallpaper and has been seen more times and by more people than any other photo. Nothing compares. The video essay was okay, there is a far more interesting one that could be made. But, anyway, the photo wasn't a planned photo. The guy was just driving and saw the shot and took it. He took 6 versions of it actually. That's the type of shooting I do, it's not planned. I just walk a lot to give me lots of chances to see possible shots. Some of my most evocative shots are from before I even got serious about photography, I just saw the shot and took it.
* Bliss is weird because it was chosen to evoke a feeling of a breath of fresh air, newness, possibilities. In isolation, it can. I never liked Bliss, my reaction to it was a deep dislike of it's vibe. But it's such a weird part of our culture now and feels liminal to people. Even if you never used WinXP or saw the marketing, you may have seen it in various other contexts including images meant to feel nostalgic and/or liminal.
So, the image itself? Dislike. But just the story of how photography comes from this fluid relationship with the world and unplanned shot, just seeing and knowing there is a shot there? Yeah, that's how I approach photography.
* Post faceplant I took myself on a short, unproductive photo walk just to break up the blerg. If I'd tries to just go to sleep after that I wouldn't have been able to sleep and, yeah, I needed to get out for a bit. I am still trying to get back into my usual photo walking schedule but stuff keeps happening.
* Why does it feel like every fall I want to go hard on photography but stuff happens? The air is clean and wet and I want to be out in it! It's a proper wet Portland fall. But, it's not even October yet so there is still time.
* Part of why I really want to get back in my usual swing is that I watched video essay on Bliss, the most famous photograph ever take. It's was used as the default Windows XP wallpaper and has been seen more times and by more people than any other photo. Nothing compares. The video essay was okay, there is a far more interesting one that could be made. But, anyway, the photo wasn't a planned photo. The guy was just driving and saw the shot and took it. He took 6 versions of it actually. That's the type of shooting I do, it's not planned. I just walk a lot to give me lots of chances to see possible shots. Some of my most evocative shots are from before I even got serious about photography, I just saw the shot and took it.
* Bliss is weird because it was chosen to evoke a feeling of a breath of fresh air, newness, possibilities. In isolation, it can. I never liked Bliss, my reaction to it was a deep dislike of it's vibe. But it's such a weird part of our culture now and feels liminal to people. Even if you never used WinXP or saw the marketing, you may have seen it in various other contexts including images meant to feel nostalgic and/or liminal.
So, the image itself? Dislike. But just the story of how photography comes from this fluid relationship with the world and unplanned shot, just seeing and knowing there is a shot there? Yeah, that's how I approach photography.
no subject
Date: 2023-09-30 03:39 am (UTC)From:I feel like fall is just Like That, in terms of plans and intentions getting derailed. Fall is my absolute favorite part of the year (even if it comes with the lingering dread of winter), but no matter how much I try to do to appreciate the season/do Halloween stuff/plan to enjoy fall-ish stuff... it always seems to get derailed due to other circumstances!
Though you're right - it's far from too late! October hasn't even started yet!
That's interesting about "Bliss." I didn't actually know that it was an unplanned photo. I've always felt that I SHOULD like the image more than I ever did. I love hills! I love vivid blue skies! Nature shots are typically my jam! And yet...
I also know that the image is mostly unedited, but it always felt too saturated for me, in a way that felt aggressively fake.
I guess that says something about perception vs. reality, and maybe says something unfavorable about me and my desire for a falsehood I find appealing over reality that weirdly rubs me the wrong way, but I'm okay with that, lmao.
BUT. An excellent point of the ethos behind photography as something fluid rather than rigid. That's the sort of photography I love, rather than something planned and staged to death.
no subject
Date: 2023-09-30 07:27 am (UTC)From:My reaction to Bliss was thinking it was computer generated and hating everything about it from how bland and lacking in a focal point the hill was to the type of cloud texture. It hits for some people, but definitely not me. I found it downright off-putting, enough that I remember my reaction! It lacks a focal point / subject / compositional emphasis in the same way that AI art tends to have. There is a deliberate lack of one.
Photography is like a conversation with the world around you, or something
no subject
Date: 2023-10-01 02:00 am (UTC)From:I absolutely thought it was computer generated when I was younger! It felt SO fake and unreal, in a way that didn't even feel like it was convincingly pretending to be real, the thing that shocked me the most was to find out it was a photo, and to find out it was not extremely edited. It always felt like it wanted to suck me in to some fake windowsxpland where everything was bright and oversaturated forever.
I feel like good photography should have that "conversational" element! I guess it sounds a bit cliche, but that's part of what I think the appeal of art is (and what's lacking from things like AI-generated images.)