Four and Three

My interests do come and go. Along with fluctuations in my energies for productive work, this makes progress towards a goal that also keeps changing hard to define.

The excellence that this blog attempts to explore is disseminated among these three: photography, lifestyle, and writing. This morning, after visiting some Internet sites and signing up for vimeo.com, I felt my interest in videos rise like the phoenix. I have not thought much about videos since last April at the NAB conference but making commercial videos or "movies" is my fourth musketeer.

To mirror its arising (or is this just another instance of superstition?), Charlie Rose in last night's show that I watched at lunch chose guests from the movie industry. "Bob" de Niro, director Barry Levinson and producer/writer Art Linson graced the first half of the show discussing their movie, What Just Happened opening this coming Friday. Later Rose chatted with comedian Bill Maher and Larry Charles, director of the surprise hit, Borat, about their movie, Religulous.

Just before breaking for lunch I went through the 259 images on my Flickr photostream. These are not "astonish me!" images, nowhere close to the quality I am aiming for and with which I would have the gumption to invite the public to see and criticize but when viewed as a whole they are rather impressive. The mix of images I have, reflecting my interests, is unique to me. It is from this mix though not necessarily from every ingredient that my public work shall come from. I don't have my "voice" or "vision" yet but fate has already determined the grist for their mill.

I have not shot models since July. I miss the high of those shots although I have a feeling this present phase on the journey holds an important place in the overall schema. I want to finish at least Deke McClelland's tutorial before I start processing images from my "professional" shoots. Meanwhile I do a handful everyday, just to keep my spirits up.

As usual, the Internet sites I visited awed me by the virtuosity and "outside-the-box" thinking of artists, software engineers, and entrepreneurs. If I have my four musketeers, I also have these tres virgines: art, digital technology and entrepreneurship as the powers behind the musketeers. 

Life is too short for everything I want to do. This is how I feel when I am feeling creative. It's a feeling; I don't believe it to be true. Time at our disposal is important but what we become proud of as we become proud of children are small parts of the package. Our pride in our work is symbolic of the struggle that is life itself.