The commissary, doldrums, time off, and redemption through salt
My methodology with presenting a short list of links in a few things is to set aside interesting stuff, and write a blog entry when I have enough links and a photo to post. Lately I've been rather bored with all of the content recycling that happens with photo blogs. One person writes something that they probably cribbed from a book, and then other photo blogs react to the post with a post on their own blog. This phenomenon isn't really any different than how we used to do it on message boards, except the content is in individual silos linked by comments and trackbacks instead of all on one message board.
And I'm just as guilty as the next guy sometimes. Perhaps having your own silo makes you feel important, and may even earn you a few bucks in ad revenue if you're luckycontroversial savvy. As a side note, I'm donating 100% of my Google ad revenue to charity this year.
Anyhow, I didn't put ramblings in the title of this blog for nothing, but let me get to the point -- I'm burnt on most sources of photography talk. That goes for blogs, message boards, photo sharing sites, magazines -- all of it. I thought taking a break might help. I've been taking one day per week off from being on a computer at all. Going hiking. Watching badass French gangster films. Drinking Belgian beer. But after taking time off from message boards and photo sharing sites for awhile, and then going back to take a look -- I realize even more that I'm not missing anything that's useful for me.
For some years I studied Ashtanga yoga. A famous quote attributed to the founder Pattabhi Jois is "99% practice, 1% theory." In other words, keep doing the practice and don't intellectualize it too much. Sometimes I think photography is the exact opposite for some of us.
All that being said, I'm going to lay best 1% of recycled content I've seen in awhile on you, starting with a quote:
Currently i think salt looks really sexy . 2 years ago it was wet dirt. I’m also working on a project of football (soccer) goal posts that I’m shooting in all the same countries as salt.
- Clint McLean, in an interview with Tony Fouhse
Now that's some out on a creative limb inspiring talk that I can get behind. And Clint goes on to say he's getting feedback and advice from Lynne Cohen. Clint, you are A-OK in my book. And your interview helped snap me out of my doldrums a bit. If you ever find yourself shooting salt in the San Francisco Bay Area, I know where there are some good soccer fields.