Holy shit!
How has it been five months since the last time I wrote anything? Yes, sure things have been busy, but things are never that busy. I recently read a blog post by Eric Kim regarding his routine and how he has written 2600+ blog posts over the past 6 years.
That is a bonkers amount of words and he readily admits that sometimes it's probably horse shit, but it's part of his lifestyle. I like the idea of adopting a better approach to things in my life.
In the last month or two I've felt very "scattered" - I'm certain there's a better explanation lurking and perhaps it will reveal itself later in the post. I've had some incredible opportunities so far this year and photographed - and I don't mean to be crass - some fucking cool shit.
Inevitably the monster under the bed and inside my head awoke from its slumber and I've just been feeling; how do I put this? I'm bored with the photos I make. Now, to be fair, this is entirely my own fault. I have time, I really do, but I choose to spend it on shit. Utter and complete shit.
I know if I can get myself into a better routine that I can combat it, but it's f*cking difficult breaking a habit, especially without much or any consequences. I know they are there; snickering at me from behind the curtain and reminding me of my failures and what I lack. I have a massive backlog of work that I need to post, but I find it difficult to go back to things I've completed months ago and this is also entirely my fault. I need to be on top of my game and I need to write regularly. I need to make this a weekly, daily thing, even if it is shit. Show failure and then move along. Only in working through failure do you find success and then you're back to failing again.
My friend Lizanne turned me on to this quote by Ghandi - which I am unable to find now - but it goes something like this; "See every day and every thing you do as an experiment".
Get it? It's okay to fail with experiments, in fact you should fail. I like that sentiment. I'll say it again. It's okay to fail. I've written about failure numerous times on the blog. You can read about it here and here.
Moving on.
Dear reader; here is where I promise to try and be better. To write more and share more, even the failures and I implore you to call me out if I don't keep to it. Starting now here is the story about the photo above and how the shoot came about.
It all started with this photo my friend Jasmyn made of her Grandfather.
I LOVE this photo and I don't feel like any of the images I made on that day in February come close to what Jasmyn captured. I do love the portrait at the top of the page though and I still need to deliver the print to Oom Koos.
My initial idea, because he has an amazing Bonsai garden in his backyard, was to photograph a stitched panorama portrait, but that was a massive flop. Here is the one result of the 3 panoramic images I attempted.
Oom Koos in his Bonsai garden
Not a great attempt I'll admit. I could've worked the scene more and tried a few different options and compositions, but people have other things to do and appointments to keep and I didn't want to take up more time than necessary, so I defaulted to simpler images.
In the end I don't think any one of my images comes close to what Jasmyn captured that day in her granddad's Bonsai garden, but the first and last image in this post I really love. They are very similar I'll admit, but the one is almost more hopeful looking whilst the other is much more sombre and quiet. And what did I expect? That I would capture something so intimate as a relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter in 2 hours?
I'm back and I have a lot to write about so I'll see you all real soon.
Thanks for reading.
