A scene from the Zach Theatre Production of "Santaland Diaries."
I call this one, "looking at the work."
I've been mulling a few things over in my mind the last few weeks. One is about our (collective) growing addiction to "social media" and our headlong dive into web programming (YouTube videos, video equipment reviews, camera reviews, printer reviews, online profiles, forums, specialty websites, etc.). I read an opinion piece in the NYTimes called, "Quit Social Media. Your Career May Depend On It." by Cal Newport. In it he makes a number of good points, including the idea that social media is engineered from the ground up to be sticky and addictive. Also, that the more you consume the more you want to consume. He rightly asserts that, in any moment of boredom, it is too easy and alluring to just click into social media to get a quick fix of faux connectedness. The cost is all the surrendered opportunity to go out and have real experiences with real people.
The article from NYT covers much more than my quick synopsis so if you have an impassioned response to what I wrote above I suggest you go and read the whole thing first...
At any rate, I am certain that blogs about everything are included in his general view that surface dives into endless content on the internet robs us of genuine experiences, the focus to be able to work on real work with discipline and diligence, and more; it also robs us of being really present. It's impossible (my opinion) to pay attention to anything in front of you if there is always a subroutine running in your brain that coaxes you to seek the solace of the screen. Or emotionally implores you to "check in."
I wrote rhetorically this past week about declining comments here and one reader chimed in with a litany of the blog's flaws. The foremost being that I write about the same few things over and over again. Those would include: Experiences shooting corporate work. Experiences shooting for the theater. Experiences walking in Downtown Austin with a camera. Experiences relating to swimming. Showing my favorite, old portraits.
The remedy, according to several other commenters, would be for me to: Get in my car and go on a long roadtrip to places I have never been before in order to get new experiences about which to write. Get on a plane and go to exotic, foreign locales to get new experiences about which to write. And, search out new and exciting equipment about which to write.
It was from this bubbling cauldron of introspection, New York Times guest writers and the insights of my readers that I have come to the conclusions that most social media is a waste of all our time. And that some of my readers misunderstand what this blog is all about. And, that everything must evolve or die.
Remedies? I'm no longer actively posting to or reading anything on Twitter. If you left a pithy rejoinder there hoping I would stumble across it and have an epiphany you will be disappointed. More to the point, you won't likely get a response. I'll use Twitter now only to automatically post links back to the latest blog I've written. Ditto with Facebook, which seems to be the biggest demotivater ever invented by humans. Don't leave messages for me there because chances are I will read them .... never.
My recent direct mail efforts have convinced me that few to none of my actual commercial clients follow me on Facebook (thank God! after this insane political season...) and even fewer on Twitter. They do react, almost every time, to a personal note, a post card, a direct mailing or an e-mail. I've never been hired or referenced from a contact on social media. Doesn't happen.
Now, on to the more personal eye opener: Some seem to think that I write on this blog in an effort to establish a mercantile quid pro quo. Their idea is that I write content for them and in return I harvest profits, sell products, get money, accrue financial advantage, etc. They (perhaps subconsciously) view the VSL blog as a service which receives renumeration as a result of having attracted their eyeballs and delivered freely shared content. As if, somehow, their reading of my essays helps to vault my career and net worth skyward. I only wish that was so.
I write because I love to write. I presumed that people read because they were interested in what I was writing. Now I see that a certain segment sees this blog as a form of general, somewhat generic, photographic entertainment; the entry price of which is the chore of reading through things they don't like in order to find the one or two gems that inadvertently hit the screen.
Sadly, as a I ante up the $65,000 per year to pay for someone's college expenses, I have very limited excess funds with which to fire up the Range Rover and set off to Patagonia to report on the state of various Four Season Hotels and Ritz Carlton Hotels along my route. At sixty one years of age I find my access to super models and skateboard celebrities a bit curtailed, so I won't be switching my focus (ha, ha) to all new subjects that are more popular. And since I haven't been emancipated from the need for income I don't really have the option of ditching all my blue chip corporate clients to pursue the (much sexier?) realm of poorly paying editorial jobs that might allow me to go somewhere different and make a photograph of someone doing something trendy which I can then overlay with an Instagram filter and peddle around as new art.
I'm pretty sure I'll keep writing exactly what pops into my head and I extend to all of my readers the option to read it or not. If you'd like to show your support for my efforts be sure to click on all the ads below...
If you want me to write specific content, hire me.
Have a great Sunday. I'm heading out to walk through downtown Austin, swim, ruminate about a video job I'm in pre-production on and then post some of my old, square, tired, black and white portraits.
