These days I’m a giant ball of frustration when presented with any menial task that wouldn’t even exist if it wasn’t for someone elses stupidity. I spent 2 hours Wednesday night and 3 more hours last night presented with this exact scenario.
I’m wrestling with a new online system that I intend to use to showcase my photography and to sell prints. In true “MySpace”:http://myspace.com/ fashion, this particular product offers all of the features any professional or ambitious amateur photographer could ever dream of. However, it offers them in the most confusing, cumbersome, incomplete, difficult to use fashion imaginable. Various inconveniences and a dead-end user interface has led to a waste of 5 hours of time with no tangible result for my effort. And that sums up how I spent yesterday evening.
This morning’s meeting went well for which I’m grateful. The rest of the day has been a mixture of boredom, busy work, and restlessness that I could surely do without. Lately, my desire to capture the world with my camera has made every second spent in front of a computer monitor or in traffic a restless, foot-bouncing, clock-watching extravaganza of unbearableness. I look at the clock – 2:23pm – and think, “Wasn’t it 2:22pm, like, an hour ago?”.
My mind is starting to run wild with ideas for some more journalistic photography projects. Unfortunately, I have very little experience in that realm, so, it’s time I get some. I’ll be making a more official request with all the details ironed out in a few days. Until then, if you have a friend, family member, or co-worker with an unusual life, job, talent, passion, skill, or story to tell I’d like to hear about it. Email and let me know. If it interests me, I’d like to photograph this person doing whatever it is that they do. In exchange I’ll offer two 8×10″ prints for each of you.
My sister-in-law (and therefore my brother and nephew by proxy) have been giving Jess and I the silent treatment for a few months now. Earlier today I sent an email to her telling her that I was fed up with it and that she either needed to confront me and tell me how I had wronged her or, or drop it and get over it.
Family
I’m pretty sure she’s upset because I refuse to disassociate myself with a good friend of mine who happens to be my brother’s ex-girlfriend. I’ve known this friend since before she dated my brother. They dated for over 5 years, and they’ve been broken up for at least 3 now and I’ve maintained a friendship with her this entire time. I’m not going to end that relationship because my sister-in-law has jealousy issues. That’s her problem. I doubt any good will come from the email, but, I had to make one last attempt before filing her (and my brother and nephew by proxy) away as one of those family members you only see once or twice a year. I really enjoy hanging out with my brother, I love my nephew, and I was really starting to enjoy my sister-in-law’s company too. I hope she decides to talk it out or just let it go.
Tonight we were supposed to head to cow-town for dinner, drinks and fun with a friend of ours. She cancelled last night. For those of you keeping track, that’s three cancellations in as many days. Of course in each case there has been a perfectly good reason for cancelling, but, it’s still annoying and I’m starting to feel a bit avoided. It may be a blessing in disguise. This will give me some time to play with my new camera and lens bags (which should be on my door step today), bash my head into the desk some more over this new photography software, edit some photographs, spend time with my wife, and get ready for a very early morning tomorrow.
Texas Horned Lizard
by “Ross Tsai”:http://flickr.com/photos/rosstsai/
Tomorrow my Dad and I plan to meet somewhere near Decatur around 5am and then head into the “LBJ National Grasslands”:http://www.southernregion.fs.fed.us/texas/recreation/caddo_lbj/caddo-lbj_gen_info.shtml. This place is beautiful. On the surface it appears quite common, especially if you’re used to to the landscape of North Texas. However, after you start to look closer you realize it’s much much different indeed. First of all, these gentle hills, small creeks, trees, rocks, dirt, and lakes are more uninterrupted than you would find in most of North Texas. The surrounding land that isn’t part of the grasslands is mostly owned by energy companies and quite accessible as well. This means that this may be one of the few places to catch a glimpse of North Texas landscape that is not speckled with man-made structures. Further more, this makes it all the more inviting to the nature and wildlife that used to fill these parts of the world. It should be spectacular.
Again I find myself yearning for that “Sigma 70-200 f/2.8″:http://www.adorama.com/SG70200DGNKA.html?kbid=62466 which would make photographing wildlife so much easier. If I had my new gallery up and running, I’d give referral codes to all of you and offer you handsome rewards for leading your friends and family to purchase my work. However, since I don’t have these things yet, all I can do is ask really nicely. Please. Pretty please. One thing you can do is to “pick out one of your favorites”:http://flickr.com/search/?q=forsale&w=37996577120%40N01&m=tags&s=int&z=t, then display it in your journal, link to it, and mention that it’s for sale. You *can* do this by hand, of course. However, if you have a Flickr account (“sign up for Flickr”:http://www.flickr.com/signup/, it’s free!), take a few seconds to “configure your blog”:http://flickr.com/blogs.gne and you’ll be able to post any Flickr image to your blog with the “Blog This” button that will then appear above my Flickr photos. Easy, huh? It’d mean a lot to me.