Ali from One Month Two Cameras discusses her needs and wants for her everyday carry camera—the one you use for just about everything.
For 12 years, that was the Canon M for me. Earlier this year, I upgraded to the Canon M200, but I’ve had second thoughts. And those thoughts came right as Ali’s video went live last week.
Put shortly: she’s on to something…
I attended a Methodist college, worked at a Methodist college, and orbited around the Methodist community over the years.
Now, my wife is working with the First United Methodist Church in town on a music therapy program. It’s the church where she grew up, and her grandmother still attends Sunday service, so we have joined the worship service the last few weeks.
There’s something to be said about a classic pews-and-steeple church. New churches look more like warehouses or coffee shops. I prefer a church that looks like a church.
Hymnals backed by a legit organ – as opposed to a praise band – help give that old church vibe, too.
Church helps build a routine, encourages service to others, and fosters community. All of those things are precisely what we need right now.
It was a rare moment of sibling collaboration—when all the kids put aside their squabbling, grabbed their markers, and made something.
This scene used to happen more often, especially before Aiden became a teenager. Our kitchen table was the family art studio, and the kids would take on a three-marker challenge or create handmade birthday cards for friends.
Early on, we encouraged creativity. My wife is a talented musician, and I have a background in music and photography, so we made sure to give our kids a solid artistic foundation. All the kids took early childhood music classes, and we enrolled the girls in the local art school’s preschool program. Aiden is a talented musician in the middle school band, and the girls are musical theater performers.
We know it will do them good. Art for art’s sake is a perfectly fine goal to me, but there are other benefits—like civic engagement and writing skills. And the arts are social: most of Aiden’s friends come from marching band (so did mine, back in high school!). The arts, combined with a love of reading, an appreciation of the outdoors, and a bit of Midwestern kindness, are a pretty good recipe for an enjoyable childhood and a successful adulthood.
For some families, it’s all about sports and competition, or pure academic achievement.
Our kids? They were cursed with art lovers for parents. They didn’t stand a chance.
With Tweetdeck’s subscriber-only model comes the death of Twitter for me.
Yes, it was long in the tooth. Yes, it hadn’t been updated in years (until recently). But darn it, Tweetdeck was my version of Twitter: comprehensive, time-based, multiple accounts on one screen, and so simple to use.
Up to now, all the drama around the sale of Twitter and its loathsome owner hadn’t affected me. I built a comfortable corner of the platform – full of photographers, Mac enthusiasts, and funny Simpsons accounts. It was quiet, and I only saw what I wanted to see. My Twitter break last February helped even more because I eliminated a lot of political Twitter that affected my mental wellbeing.
Now that Tweetdeck is paid-only, I don’t see much value in the platform.
Those two simple requests alone leave much of Twitter useless to me now. And the lack of third-party clients, establishing some order and preferences, makes it worse.
For so long, I got Twitter. Unlike many of my IRL colleagues and friends, it seemed built for people like me. I built up a lot of good online relationships on Twitter. I shared my photos, got great ideas, and “met” tons of people with similar interests. I don’t know where those will go now, but maybe it’s back to following blogs and email newsletters exclusively. Another social media network isn’t what I need.
I need a good, reliable platform. Twitter’s not that. Not anymore.
See you somewhere else.
Neat new music from the Zero 7 universe.
Their first three albums were amazing, then they just kind of fell off the Earth for a bit. Nice to see them collaborating with talent like Swim Surreal.
It’s tough being a University of Michigan football fan this season.
Last year? Easy. One of the best years ever.
This year has been challenging, with key wins, disappointing losses, and a lot of inconsistency. So when the number one team in the country, Oregon, came to visit, our expectations were easy to set: we probably weren’t going to win.
Instead, my buddy Don and I went for the atmosphere. We and 110,000 other fans descended on Ann Arbor on a beautiful autumn afternoon in November.
It was us and the big corporate sponsors, apparently. Mt. Dew set up a station a few blocks from Michigan Stadium, complete with velcro walls and a DJ. We popped in and grabbed a few (free!) BBQ sandwiches, and watched the college students come and go.
Inside the stadium was as festive as ever, and we got to watch the sunset on both the game and evening.
Shot on the Canon M200 and EF-M 22mm f/2.
Not much to say on this, the day after the U.S. election, but a few thoughts I had this morning waking up to the news:
I’m sad and nervous. I’m also dumping my usual sources for information (Twitter – deleted my account, and Reddit for general browsing) and am committed to casting a weary, skeptical eye on news media reports that seem confident.
In the meantime, we all have feelings to process and art to make. Let’s get back to work.
It was a constructive summer. Especially in the last few months, I’ve made a go at getting out more and more, trying to fill my photography buffer so I have plenty of material to edit and share as we move into the cold and gray months.
I feel like I’m getting back to a familiar sense of normalcy, photographically speaking. In some ways, I’m recreating my work commute from 10-12 years ago. On the weekends, I get up early, hit the road to a local town, and shoot in the morning light. A few things have helped, like:
Back into the groove. Back to normal – or at least a new normal (I say one day before the U.S. presidential election).
For now, it feels good.
