avotius

Enjoying being back in Seattle again.

Professional photography is sort of like owning a restaurant....I guess, I dont really know what it is like to own a restaurant but I do have a wife that cant stand to eat the same thing twice a year so I guess what I mean is you always have to be reinventing what you do, adding new dishes to the menu, and as I start to do such additions to expand the work that we do here I find myself more and more interested in different types of photography that I had not really considered in the past.

For instance I was never really interested in macro work until a client needed some super up close detail photos. I was never really interested in taking panoramic beyond the odd hand held snap across the horizon on vacation, until a client asked for super wide perspective images.

So as a certain United Nations representative with dual PhD's once told me, its necessary to reinvent oneself as you go along to get stuff done.

I guess this is a good start, though a far cry short of dual PhD's....or the UN......

Work work work. Working as a professional photographer is very time consuming. So everything gets set aside while work and what not takes over.

So much of the photo work I do now is for big clients and has been interesting but it leaves no time for personal photo stuff. Which now where I find myself with a little time between projects I find myself both mountain biking around China and taking up a interest in infrared photos. Something for fun and a change of pace. Nice.

So it has been a year since my last journal entry. I never get around to playing with deviant art much. The last year has been work, strange projects, getting married, moving into the new place her and I bought, looking for more work, making money, trying to make more money, and then trying not to let that money disappear.

Wangyi and I bought and apartment, a mere 50 square meters. I took the shell of the place and completely redesigned it. Naturally nothing was where I wanted it, including the walls so most of it all went. Now the house is open and wide feeling, and I make it so there was a large area of the wall could be a balcony and the door is one of those fordable types that lets us kind of be inside and outside at the same time which makes spending long hours on the computer a little less sinful. Being the movie lover I am I could not resist splurging on the TV that is way larger than we need, and the nice sound system to go with it. Movies look so much different in bluray at home. The wife and I are obsessively watching Stargate Universe in HD every week and Top Gear whenever decent Chinese subtitles can be found.

I finally bought a Leica M8. A dream 4 years old finally realized. Yay.

Um....and with most of us, working, here, there, anywhere, nothing is stable now for anyone, "life long career" is sort of an oxymoron now. Even people I know who have been working in different industries for decades are finding themselves out on their asses.

Nice world we have now.

...And whenever "someone" does something to piss "everyone else" off the best we can do is to say we condemn that action. Weak.

I have been pondering going back to the states for a while now, missing the place where I grew up and lived for 19 years. Could I get employed somewhere? That is what keeps me from going back most. Who can get employed anymore? Wont stop me from trying though. Also thought about going back to school for a masters degree. Masters degree....seems that is what people do now when they cant find a job. The new mediocrity. That probably wont stop me either if it comes to it.

Even with all those digital things around....still loving the film. Especially the black and white. Good times.

On another note, the Simpsons needs to end. It seems every new episode they introduce some new person, usually a lame hipster, to prop up the show. Long past due.