I have a confession. I love a LOT of mainstream dubstep. Back in my punk rock and hardcore/metalcore days I wouldn’t be caught dead listening to anything mainstream, let alone trendy…but in my old age I don’t have more than 1 shit to give, let alone give 2 shits about whatever anyone else thinks of my musical preferences. I know what I like, I know I can appreciate good music (or fun aka trendy music), and I have no shame bumping my favorite songs in my little 08 Nissan Sentra, Sally. She loves that shit, the bass sounds pretty decent for a stock car sound system, good call Nissan.
ANYWAY. Here are a few of my favorites, they just happen to all be dubstep today, and yes, a little mainstream, if you don’t like it…well thats too bad for you cause these are pretty dang good songs.
Gemini – “Blue”
The Neptune Project – “Aztec (Marlow Remix)”
Ellie Goulding – “Lights (Bassnectar Remix)
Easy Star All Stars – “Money (The Alchemist Remix)” this one is for all you old school peeps out there. <3
Hope you enjoyed these few songs I’ve been loving on this weekend.
I gave the columnist a 10 minute interview over the phone and all that stuck out to her from all my ranting was one small but hilarious phrase. “Its cheapening the art.” The whole day at work I would yell dramatically to my coworkers ITS CHEAPENING THE AAAARRT. We got a kick out of it. So yeah, small potatoes to some, but my mom made sure I bought a couple copies of the paper considering this is the first time I’ve ever been mentioned in a paper…let alone as a “photographer”… holy crap, that makes it official!!
I have this board that I’ve had for a while now, some number of years, I’ve gradually added to it. It started out as something to remind me of who I am (I don’t know why I thought I needed reminding, my personality is pretty strong lol) but has quickly turned into a board of things past, good and bad, but the past none the less. I recently rediscovered this beautiful journal I used to keep, with a polaroid and a journal entry, but all its filled with is stories of my pain and how I’ve tried to overcome it. The truth is I never got over any of the pain written down in there until way after, until I stopped writing about it.
first thing you see in the journal, my favorite spot at Loon Lake
Looking back now I cant imagine why I’d ever want to write it down, to memorialize all the heartache I’ve endured over my short 25 years. I already lived it, why write it down? Its not like I’ll ever forget what I lived through, its ingrained in my memory forever and so are the lessons I’ve learned.
written when I thought I had hit rock bottom, oh boy was I wrong! lol
Lately I’ve really been struggling to go the next step in my life. I have a general idea of where I want to go but I’ve been stuck in the same place for a couple months now, and I don’t like it. Sure I’ve taken baby steps and have been trying new things, but its not enough for me. I need to think bigger, dream bigger. I want to redirect my old journals filled with horrible times in my life I went through and fill those pages with everything I want to do, my hopes, my dreams, and my plans to help get me to them. I want to look into the future, not reflect on the past. I think that’s whats been holding me back for so long, honestly.
The board has got to go. I used to think it was an inspiration board but its the exact opposite. I want to fill it with the things I want to accomplish, motivational things to help me keep at it. Tonight (last night by the time you read this) I started on the board, taking things down and sorting them into 2 piles: Trash the Past and Inspiration.
this is known as back to square one
Now that I’m starting out with a pretty much blank slate, I have to ask myself, what now? Where do I go from here? And how am I going to get there? We shall see. All I know for sure is today, I’m leaving the past where it is and not looking back anymore, its only holding me back.
Not many know this but I’ve been blogging/journaling/online diary-ing ever since, well…since the internet began really lol (damn I feel old saying that). I’ve always gone through phases and websites and not cared about what I said in them until I started Photo Talk. This blog/whatever is something I actually care about, I care what you guys, my readers have to say, even if it isn’t much. I like sharing my passion and sharing what I learn along the way. I love having a place to talk out my photo-related thoughts, cause I usually bore my friends with it or confuse my mom with all my tech talk.
I’ve been blogging on my personal blog here and there when the mood strikes, and lately I’ve been mulling over the idea of combining the two. Its a risk because this blog serves as my primary source of exposure to my photography and I like keeping it somewhat professional just in case, but at the same time I feel like this blog is becoming stagnant because I’m ONLY talking about art. And lets be honest, I have a life, so sometimes my art gets put on the backburner to surviving the daily grind which is when you will see me not posting anything for a week.
So I need your opinions. Do you care enough to read about my personal life too (and I promise to keep the bitching to a minimum)? Or should I just stick to business as usual?
I’m about to step on a lot of toes and for that I am sorry, but these are my opinions. This is quite possibly the most controversial post I will ever write about, but I have to share because it eats me up alive every time someone posts a picture. Also, to my friends who use instagram, this is not directed at you but in general so I apologize if I offend you.
I hate instagram. Yes, I will confess it. Every time I see one of my friends/companies I follow on twitter post pictures of their beautiful children/dogs/beers/whatever using instagram I feel so… disgusted.
Yes, its great that now in the digital age, everyone can have cool photo effects, and when I shoot on my phone I sometimes use filters and programs to tweak the pictures, but with the total widespread use of instagram I feel like the actual art behind the IDEA of instagram has been totally and utterly lost and blasphemed. Almost all of the pictures I’ve seen people post are totally misusing the filters, and yes I know “art” is highly subjective, but what bugs me is that actual learned TECHNIQUES are being mistreated and repurposed for a quick fix and half the time it looks awful. Most if not all of the tilt-shift pictures I’ve seen aren’t even being used properly. Tilt-shift isn’t for selective focus on normal “flat” pictures, its so the plane of view looks TILTED, and you shift the lens, hence the name TILT SHIFT. If you wanted a selctively focused shot you can use a macro setting on your camera.
The thing that bothers me is the users of instagram aren’t and have probably never been photographers, the reason they are misusing these settings is because they have no idea what half the crap means!!! UGH…I know this is one god awful rant, but I KNOW other real photographers out there who actually know how to do these techniques BY HAND are as frustrated as I am with this. This is one step beyond digital convenience, this is total decimation of artistic technique.
The tilt shift thing is just one example. It bothers me deeply that the things I know how to do BY HAND in the lab or by adjusting my lens, using different lenses, whatever analogue style, is being mass produced by instagram and people are using it without even knowing how to really use it which results in really shitty “photography”. Whats even worse is that I’ve seen actual flickr sets dedicated to “digital photography” with people using instagram for their filters. HOW LAZY. SERIOUSLY HOW LAZY CAN YOU BE?!
The real thing, I think you were going for this? A great example of amazing work by Andrionni Ribo via flickr
Really I’m only writing this to get it off my chest, but if I can purpose this post into anything, it will be that hopefully you instagram users out there will actually take the time to read up on the filters and techniques that the program allows you to reproduce and LEARN about them and how to really use them well to take full advantage of it. Please, that is my only request of you instagramers out there.
You must be logged in to post a comment.