Has reached into my psyche and grabbed me at a fundamental level... In February I uploaded my first of what I think of as family archive pics to Flickr, the Yahoo! Photo sharing service. It was a neat little deal, I thought, something I could fart around with. A few weeks ago, The borders of my life were drastically redrawn, and as coping mechanisms, I started posting to my blog more consistently, purchased a couple of cameras, and began in earnest as I discovered how effective photography, writing, and interaction with the online community could be in temporarily escaping pain. Now blogging, I love... but it is difficult, and writing for me is a slow, torturous process. (I have heard creativity described as birth pangs, but being a male, I must equate it to extreme constipation, that has reached a critical level, and
will be resolved, either with happy, excruciating pain, or death. you
know what I mean...) and my writing is definitely better some days than others. Photography, on the other hand rewards volume, and if you take enough pictures, you gonna get a jewel sooner or later.
Mamma's Losin' It claims to be an "attention craving poodle", and I can identify with this, though I am not a purebred. As my nuclear family dissolved, and my web traffic went through a tiny climb, I realized that attention, even fleeting, and from perfect strangers, felt
good, and my pictures have gotten more than my blog. As a writer, and a photographer, my skills hover a RRCH over mediocrity, with the occasional shining moment, but photography is
easier and
burns more calories. My friend Insane Mamma (not her real name... there is a
Stalker out there) reminds us the life-changing circumstances and events can hardwire associations between
stimuli and memories and photos can surely be a trigger, like scents, and music, but they can also do this on a more general level bringing up feelings of
as well as taking us back to another place and time.
Anyway, photography has become my drug, or my mistress, and I have spent most of the day writing about it, stepping out back to do it or editing the results of it. I have got to get a handle on some things, and as a birthday present to myself, I am going to try to have a little more balance to life (ha ha, right) but maybe not till Sunday
