Time for Photos

I haven’t done this in a while: tromp around outside on a snowy morning (in April!) and take some sunrise photos.

It’s one of the benefits of the new job. I now have some time to stop and make pictures, and this week I realized how much I missed that.

As soon as I saw the sun rising in the backyard, and the light catching the snow crystals, I knew I had to grab the macro lens and get out there.

Maybe it’s a good practice to schedule these types of things. Or maybe it’s good enough to have some time in your schedule to let serendipity happen. Maybe, as Forest Gump says, it’s a bit of both.


Two Weeks Off

It’s a weird time right now. I have two weeks off in between the old job and new one. I’m car shopping, I’m playing stay at home dad. And I’m thinking about the future for the first time in a while.

There’s the portrait project that I need to restart and finish this summer. Should I get into the studio space again? Will my head be ready?

Summer is not far away. What’s our vacation going to look like this year? What will the new job entail? Where’s Madelyn going to go to school in the fall?

It’s probably too much, and I’m probably not ready. So I’m back living day to day, capturing the sunshine as it comes, and getting the house ready for the warmer weather. These two weeks, I’m taking it as it comes.


Season of Change

All the fun stuff happens in the spring.

Not only is spring my favorite season, but it’s when my life seems to change the most. Things that have happened to me in spring in the recent past:

  • Left my job of eight years to go into higher ed
  • Purchased my first home
  • Got married
  • Purchased another home
  • Started another new job at the Museum of Art
  • Had another baby

My first daughter was born in late summer. Otherwise, all the big stuff in my life takes place from March to April. A season of change.

And so it goes this year as well: I just accepted a new position as the internal communications manager at Dawn Foods, here in Jackson. It’s another career pivot. My previous roles have all involved external communications: social media, public relations, website work, advertising. Now, it’s all in house – a skill set I’ve developed over my entire career. I’ve always, since the very beginning, been the go-to person for internal communications. This month, I’ll make it a career.

Just as March is a messy, transitional month from season to season, life has been messy and in transition for about a year now. A few ups, quite a few downs, and lots of struggling with productivity, passion, and maybe even depression. My hope is that this new position will clear up, and clean up, a few of those messes.


In Like a Lion

In Like a Lion

“It’s good to see you taking photos again,” my wife told me this weekend.

Indeed. Maybe it took a freak March 1 storm that had both soaking wet rain and giant snowflakes. Maybe it took the light coming back in the morning and the evening. Maybe it took some hope on the horizon.

March is in like a lion. Me? More in like a lamb for a while. Let’s try that.


Try Not to Try

Try Not to Try

Desire, as the Buddha taught, is the source of suffering.

This is true in photography as well. New gear comes out, and photographers start sweating from Gear Acquisition Syndrome. It makes photographers feel like their gear is unworthy, and that photographs would be so much better with that new lens/camera/whatever.

Here’s a trick I learned to get over that feeling: just wait.

Wait a week. Don’t think about it. Maybe wait a bit longer.

Then: assess your feelings. Do you still desire that object?

For me, the waiting works every time. I look back at my week-ago self and wonder, what was all the fuss about? Is my life worse off? Did I suffer for not jumping on a purchase?

This strategy applies whenever I’m thinking about making a major purchase. If I wait, and I still feel strongly, then I know it’s important. If I wait and the feeling passes, I know I can either save up a bit more, wait a little longer for a discount, or just not go through with the purchase.

As Tom Petty sang, sometimes the waiting is the hardest part. Once you’re past that, you’ll make better decisions.

 


An Easy Decision

An Easy Decision

My heart hurts. Another school shooting, another reason for our kids (and parents!) not to feel safe, and another bunch of nothing gets fixed.

Aiden has to do school drills to practice being safe if something terrible happened. In my day, drills were for tornadoes – natural occurrences that you can’t control. Our parents had bombing drills, and we all decided that hiding from nuclear weapons wasn’t a thing we wanted to do. Hence: arms control.

Today, drills are for something we can control, but fail to do anything about. It’s silly.

Glad to see the Florida students shame our politicians, and (hopefully) many Americans who feel our kids aren’t worth protecting.

I’m pro hunting, pro owning a shotgun or a handgun – but also pro safety and controlling these killing machines from the crazies. We can have both.

Most of all, I’m in favor of kids over guns. It should be an easy decision, America.


Make And Take

Leave it to me to schedule our Family Art Studio session for the snow storm weekend.

But so it went. We drove to Ann Arbor, braving the highway traffic and slick conditions, to spend the day making art at my work.

This was the boy’s first trip to an art museum, and he had a lot of questions. Were the statues real? Why can’t you touch the art? That bust of George Washington – where’s the rest of his body? Why was that girl so hairy?

We took inspiration from Japanese graphic design and made our own poster out of cut-out shapes of colored paper. It was us and six other families – half of what was scheduled to show up.

“The difference between your art on the fridge and these drawings is that there’s a frame around them, and they’re hanging in a museum,” I said.

I hope he took the day to heart.