Starting something new..

OK, here we go.

This started as a simple travel blog. I originally just assembled and posted travel pics into a slideshow for friends and family upon returning from wherever we'd last gallavanted. I didn't shoot all that much anyway, and it was just sort of an afterthought.

Our spring Mexico trip this year saw a change. I decided to start a simple blog and actually, a step further, made it an experiment in mobile blogging. It was a geeky, fun thing to do: posting pics and text all from my mobile phone while in a foreign country. I didn't even take my laptop, for a change. Fun, sure, but I'm not sure it was any less work or hassle at the end of the day.

This years' Hawaii trip saw the change evolve further. The photography bug had bitten in the previous year, and I'd just moved up from the point-and-shoot. I took a lot of pictures, and transferred them to the laptop each night. I posted pics and stories every couple of days, and our peeps apparently enjoyed this and asked for more.

As a quick aside, I don't know what, exactly, had changed in me that years and years of playing with different tiny gadgety cameras was no longer enough, but something certainly took hold. A couple shots from Hawaii 2005 really tickled me, and I was all of a sudden much more interested in my own photography as something in itself, as opposed to just a means to an end (two ends, actually - wanting to play with cool electronics and wanting to have pictures of places we go). I started going back through years of archives and found more stuff I'd shot previously that I really liked.

As another aside, going back yet further (apparently, this is free association time).. I think I was a "creative" person first, or right-brained, or whatever. I always drew and wrote and imagined. Then, I think as a by-product of gritty circumstance, I sort of shut that off and gravitated toward the tech-mol-ogy and engineering and whatnot. Having spent the last decades studying sciences (which I do truly love), becoming an applications engineer and systems architect, and then finally, due to a self-imposed directive, digging into business management and all the hullabaloo that goes with that, I'm finding that what I want to do next is rediscover that creative side, maybe reinvent myself a little bit or something. I'm getting older, and instead of still wondering what I want to be when I grow up, I've found that I seem to want to spend at least part of my life writing and creating somethings for purely aesthetical reasons, as opposed to serving some practical function or as the means to some end or another.

So we're doing photography now.

Clearly, I'm not a professional, and I aspire to the abilities I see in others. But I'm digging in, new or no, and trying to do so fearlessly. Making this decision to put work online, not just vacation pics for family, is part of that digging in. I felt frustration with that part of the creative pipeline: the output. Where does all this work go? I can print some, but we've only got so many walls. I can endlessly futzt with some favorite images in Photoshop (which can be a blast, I assure you), and that does scratch the itch some. But I still need to output.

By accident, I stumbled upon Photoblogs.org. Well, shit. Here are people who put work online for all to see. Like, lots of it, all the time. Some of these folks are good. Do I have the balls and/or audacity to try to hang with that?

Yes. Yes, I do. Good or bad, I'm diving in.

However, there's something wrong with me (well, several somethings - but, we all have our foibles) in that my "look good" character defect wants me to look like an experienced photographer to the rest of the world, because, well, apparently it matters what complete strangers think of me. I am indeed proud of some of my shots, and I've had some compliments that have certainly served to encourage me, but I somehow take from that a desire to appear like I know what I'm doing to anyone who might look. Maybe somehow all my future posts will feature stunning photos that anyone would be proud of, but some of my previous posts certainly do not. I'm having to fight temptation to go back in time and edit myself. But looking good or pretending I'm something I'm not is not the point of this exercise.

Blah blah blah. Longest post ever.

Finally (hopefully!), there's the matter of the blog itself. God DAMN, but I sweated (am still sweating) the details. I had to re-skin this thing before I wanted anyone not in my inner circle to see it. I had to force myself not to code up something myself - those who work for me know well that I militantly shun any premade templates or made-by-others shortcuts in our own development process. I've reprimanded people for using stuff they didn't make by hand. But hell - I'd still be coding and tweaking my own template. God knows I spent long enough on this one (it has to be just so, and, honestly, I'm still messing with it) and it's not like a client is paying me to build this or anything. Why this small thing is such a struggle for me I just can't say. Along these same lines, a free Blogger account was fine for my travel pics, but I've spent hours in the past couple days looking at installing dedicated blog software on the servers I own. For my personal use. Taking up my time and staff time as well as physical resources so I have a place to post my pictures. Seems reasonable from here. But stepping back a little bit, I can see that maybe, just maybe, I'm a little obsessive compulsive.

What to name the blog was a topic of some import. As I click around looking at other photoblogs, I see most people have clever names for their sites and use their 'net nicks exclusively. I thought about this for a while. Basically, I'm a narcissist and I've decided I'm going with my real actual name (I have a nick, but that's for gaming and forums, IMO) and calling the blog the same damn thing (I came up with one or two clever-ish names, but, well.. again.. narcissist). OK, I'm probably overstating things - I'm likely only mildly narcissistic.

Let's wrap this up.

Thanks to my lovely wife Deena for encouraging me wholeheartedly.

Thanks to my lovely hetero lifemate Casey for always having positive things to say about everything I do. I try to be as encouraging to my friends as he is to me.

Thanks to a man with real talent, my good friend Jeff, who patiently and sometimes (not always) gently helps me along.

Finally, Jim over at his new Frog and Bear blog.. OK, buddy.. We made the committment to each other and, so far, we're strong out of the gate. Thanks for being sunny and gently nudging me to do creative things. Let's keep it up and see where this goes. And the above photo makes "one."

Finally actually finally, thanks to anyone who's read this far. I may be longwinded again in the future, but probably less so, and more on an actual topic.