Timelode's blog

The long over due, and highly anticipated upgrade from Bibble 4.x is finally here (http://bibblelabs.com/). Bibble Labs intended, and in fact promised an upgrade by the end of 2008. Well, that time came and went. They apparently ran into a number of development issues but were strangely quiet about what was really going on. Many in the Bibble user community speculated that the developers were attempting to put in too many features, mostly in regard to blending DAM (digital asset management) and RAW conversion in the same product ala LightRoom.

I mentioned earlier that I had a recent vacation which served to rekindle my excitement for photography. For that alone, it was one of my better "shoots" (for lack of a better term). However, for some time I have been a little disappointed in the sharpness, or rather lack of it, in many of my photos. Some older shots from a few years ago with the same equipment are so crisp and clean, its made me wonder why I'd need to consider "L" glass.

Like so many others I've been very busy. As such, I haven't spent a lot of time here. The main reason is I'm essentially rediscovering photography. Over the summer I started to feel like I was in a bit of a slump. I was shooting, but not getting anything too exciting out of it. I thought that when I went to Yellowstone in Sept., I'd be re-inspired. That was mostly true, yet much of what I shot didn't "pop" the way I thought it might. I've recently had an epiphany. It's actually a bit of a story. Perhaps journey is a better word.

During the summer I discovered that Adobe bought Pixmantec. I was greatly distressed by this. Pixmantec seemed to be a company that understood photographers and very quickly made a name for themselves. What I didn't know was that Adobe had been working on developing Lightroom, a new aproach to digital photography workflow. They wanted Raw Shooter for it's RAW conversion engine. It intriguied me enough to start playing with LR b3. I was amazed at what I could do with RAW conversion and disapointed at it's DAM capabilities. It was slow as molasses, but still showed a lot of promise. I was especially impressed by the control over individual colors that it offers. Then LR b4 was released. Much faster, more tools, but still really crappy DAM capability. Not even close to ACDSee.

Well, I'm going through one of those periods where I haven't used the camera for a while. I haven't even carried it with me. No motivation. Not for three months. I took it out of the bag the other day. I even turned it on. That's about it. We're supposed to discuss what makes us tick. Sometimes I don't even know myself.

I've read it many times that artists and writers lose their inspiration from time to time. After 3 years of shooting, it's only a few months ago I actually started to think of myself as an srtist. I made a lot of shots on a trip to San Diego in February that became mostly what I expected them to be when I pressed the shutter button. So does my lake of inspiration make it so? That I'm really an artist? Ha, not likely. More likely, it's all the stress that work has put on me of late. Working 60 hr weeks does little to encourage the creative side.

Part 3- Self Criticism

I really meant to write this a while back. Life, being what it is just didn't allow me the time. So here it is.

This is a scary thought. Really scary. To have to look at one's own work the way someone else might look at it. To take away the emotional attachment that you have for your work. WHAT! That's what my art is all about, my emotions! How can I separate my emotions from my work? Well, that's the real trick isn't it? The fact is, this is one of the keys to self critique. Remember, others will not look at your work with the same viewpoint or emotions. Let me qualify one point, human nature dictates that it is nearly impossible to completely separate our emotional attachment. However, we can train ourselves to take an objective viewpoint. One of the best things we can do is to walk away from our work, that is, put it out of sight, out of mind for a few days or better yet, a few weeks. The advantage to doing this is to allow your emotions to take a break.