Photography Pholly

Photographers, camera-wielding people of the world, we need to have a talk. I understand that there is a need within many people to create art, and I am no exception. Whenever I write, I feel fulfilled, like I’m chipping away at a monolith of marble to reveal the figure captured by my mind’s eye. The need to write is right up there with food and shelter. Creation of art is a worthy pursuit from which I could never in good conscience dissuade anyone…

But let’s be realistic.

Let this thought set the tone for the rest of this post: taking black and white photos of flowers with a DSLR does not make you a photographer. What separates photographers from people who take photos? Technical skill, knowledge of how to properly use equipment, and perhaps most important of all, an eye for the art. I know I’ll never be a photographer, or even anyone who is decent at taking photos. Why? Because I don’t have an eye for photography. Photos I take tend to turn out crappy or mediocre, and though I’m sure there are ways I could make improvements, they will only be marginal. Seeing as this is the case, I know full well that I should just stick to writing.

A constant source of annoyance for me is seeing someone I know take an interest in photography, instantly label themselves as a professional photographer, and start pimping out their new business: [insert last name here] Photography. Please be realistic. If you’re going to try to make a living out of this, at least put yourself in a position to do so. Read up on technical details, ask people (not friends) for honest feedback on your work, and get the right equipment. Blurry, noisy 1024x768 photos of baby nieces and nephews taken with a three-megapixel point-and-shoot with a smudgy lens are not going to cut it.

As I said before, I would never discourage anyone from creating art, and if it satisfies your needs, then by all means please continue to do so. Please follow your dreams, because you never know whose art will be recognized as something exceptional. If you just try, you have at least a small chance of success, but if you never even put forth the effort, then your chances of success are those of a fart in a windstorm.

Is this post going to keep any of you out there from snapping sepia-toned pictures of your pets? No. Does this post make me seem like a person who understands the plight of the amateur photographer, set adrift upon the deluge of like-minded photography enthusiasts who have flooded the professional photography market with their entrepreneurial ambition? Not at all. Does this post make me feel better about denying requests on Facebook to “like” three new photography businesses per day? Absolutely.

Friendship Struggle

Three weeks ago, a sweet couple I met had me over to their apartment for dinner. I had a great time, and made tentative plans with them to come over to my apartment for dinner the following week. Seeing as I’m a space cadet, I have yet to follow up on the invitation and actually have them over. Or even hang out with either of them since then. Or even speak one word to them since then. Whoops.

I am awful at maintaining friendships, if you couldn’t tell. It seems I either try to hang out with people so much that I smother them, or I make them feel like I never want to see their ugly mugs ever again. I feel that I have the best intentions when it comes to keeping up with friends, but when it comes to making an effort to spend time with them, I am unable to keep myself from cranking the volume knob to either a shade above mute or a tremor-inducing, deafening roar. Why is it so hard to remain on an even keel with people? How can anyone be expected to consistently maintain a balance between when you want to see them and when they want to see you?

Monday Mediocrity

It’s Monday. No one likes Mondays. Even as a person who has Thursdays and Fridays off from work, I can feel the weight of a Monday with the same acuteness as someone who is lucky enough to have weekends off. There’s a certain gloom and gravity that seems to weigh down the day, and just about everyone feels it. Garfield has even dedicated his life to avoidance of this day of the week. But what is it about Mondays that gets people? If you work or go to school Monday through Friday, you have an obvious reason to be bummed, as an entire week of work is lies ahead of you, but what about the rest of us? Does it stem from the years of a Monday through Friday schedule to which we became accustomed in school? Since most people don’t work weekends, does their depression about the start of the work week rub off on everyone else? What do you think?

Customer Service Chronicles: Body Odor

Yes, it’s that time again. It’s time to continue our discussion about how customers stink. I know right now you might be thinking that I covered the spectrum of stench in my July post about this same topic, and I couldn’t possibly have more to say, but I only scratched the surface then. I also know that you’re worried that I might be taking on too much at one time in trying to delve deeper into the world of retail stank, but I can reassure you that I know what I’m doing, and that I’ll be biting off a chunk of the topic no bigger than either you or I can handle.

Today, we will be focusing on body odor, or BO. BO is the most pervasive and enduring of customer smells. It can pack a wallop and even give you pause, but regardless of its intensity or effect, it is unmistakable and easy to distinguish from other lingering smells. Summer is the prime season for BO, as several days’ worth of sweat and dirt accumulate on unwashed customer bodies coalesce to create a pungent aroma that travels long distances in the hot, low-density air. One customer in particular, a regular at the store where I work (joy), and a notorious non-bather, could be smelled approximately 20 feet away in the heat of August.

We all know what BO smells like, but most of us are fortunate enough to be able to escape it, either by walking away from the source and/or locating the nearest fire truck to request a good hose-down of the source. If your job is to work face-to-face with people reeking of BO, however, you are not so lucky. Continued exposure can have some unusual effects, such as leading you to characterize and distinguish between individual people’s BO. One recurrent customer (who is a gigantic pain in the ass) has the typical BO base with notes of corn bread, while a few others I’ve encountered recently smell as if their BO were spiced with Top Ramen flavor packets.

Join me next time as we continue our journey experiencing the spice of customer service life that is stench.

Motivation Contemplation

Every night around 11 o’clock, I’m hit with a nice glob of anxiety, and it’s all your fault. Yes, you. Don’t look around like I’m talking to someone near you—I’m talking to you. You come around here every day or two looking for a new nugget of joy that you hope I’ve deposited for you here on my blog, and you’re used to leaving unsatisfied every once in a while, but I haven’t posted anything here for over a week. Now you’re resentful. You sit by the computer and wonder why I haven’t posted even a tiny morsel for your hungry brain for several days. Was it something you said? Was it because you didn’t have dinner ready on time last Tuesday? Was it because you applied mustard to my delicious Ball Park frank (they plump when you cook ‘em, you know) when you know damned well I loathe mustard? Wait, why are you blaming yourself? It’s no one’s fault but mine. Yes, you should be making me feel guilty for abandoning you, leaving you out to dry!

And I wouldn’t have it any other way. Motivation can be hard to come by, so whenever or wherever I can get it, I’ll lap it up like a thirsty kitten. I prefer that motivation to write comes in the form of a song, or a movie, or the words of a friend, but if guilt does it, I’ll take it.

Perhaps guilt isn’t really it, though. Maybe you’re all cheering me on, and sometimes I can’t hear it for a few days, as it gets drowned out by the din of work and social commitments. Yeah, that’s more like it. You wouldn’t have come here in the first place if you weren’t at least mildly interested. That’s the kind of motivation I like to receive.

Rejection

For the past five weeks, I have been tutoring a pair of seven-year-old twins in English on the recommendation of my friend Sandman Moon. When I asked their mother when I should come back for the next tutoring session, she told me that she would call me if they needed me, and that she was going to reenlist Sandman Moon’s superior services. I then picked up my supplies, was practically pushed out the door (which happened every time—Do I give off an odd vibe?), and left with a polite smile on my face.

Wait, what?

I just suffered a fairly important job rejection, and I didn’t say or do anything about it? Not that I was going to get gangster on her ass and beat the crap out of her or anything, but I left smiling? That’s pathetic. As the South Africans say, “Shame, man.”

What could I have done, though? If I had insisted that I should continue tutoring the kids, I would have just looked like a belligerent ass. If I had flown off the handle, I would have secured a position outside the realm of possibility of ever being invited back. What can you possibly do in a situation like that? You’re staring down the barrel of a rejection, and all you can do is smile at the one wielding it in hopes that they just graze you instead of blowing your dignity all over the wall behind you.

To be honest, I’m not sure where I was headed with this, but I feel we need to open up a dialogue about what I know we’ve all experienced before. So come on and give me some rejection stories and tell me how you dealt with each experience.

Inspiration

People often ask all types of artists where they get their inspiration, and they will reply with what inspired them to create whatever work being discussed. These same people will then try to find inspiration in that which the artist mentioned, and find only that they are no better off having done so. They listened to the crashing of waves on a beach and heard only noise. They peered down the slopes of an alpine valley and saw only a cleft in the earth. They tried to feel empathy for refugees from war and felt only that they had gas.

Inspiration is different for everyone. Just as there is no daily routine, religion, or diet that works for every person, neither is there a set of experiences that will guarantee creation of a masterpiece. I suppose that’s one reason why artists exist in the first place: to contribute to an exposition of sources of inspiration available to humanity. Though trying to generate an inspirational experience that is identical to that of someone else won’t get you anywhere, you can look at their experience to show the enormous variety of sources waiting to be tapped.

Wouldn’t you like to be the first person to find inspiration in bellybutton lint? Of course you would.