I guess I can say that I’m well and truly settling back into life at home. Once again I’m spending insane hours in front of the computer, post-processing images and deciding where to find a home for them. I have a love/hate relationship with this aspect of photography. It does require a good amount of creativity and this is the time when you really polish your photographs and make them look the best they possibly can. But I hate being indoors for so long and staring at that monitor. After a while it feels like a pathetic existence, especially when your images are a constant reminder of where you’ve been and of the adventures you’ve had, it doesn’t take long until you get the urge to say “The hell with everything, I’m leaving this crap and going on another adventure!”
But of course in reality you can’t do that. The raw files that I’ve spent months capturing are only half-baked photographs, so to say. In order to create a finished product I have to work on each and every image, which I or my editor deem worthwhile. And so it’s back to the computer and more hours spent like a hermit, away from the world.
How does one stay sane during this time? Music would be ideal, but I rarely discover anything worthwhile and when I do, I play the same tracks till my ears bleed. So, I turn elsewhere and the next best thing after music, at least for me is – Podcasts! If someone’s been even more isolated from the world than me and has no idea what podcasts are, then podcasts could be described as recorded radio shows, in fact sometimes that’s exactly what they are. They air on the radio first and then become available for download on the net. There are podcasts on virtually every topic. Just go to iTunes and search by category or keywords. I listen to many things that BBC puts out and being in Australia we have some decent Aussie content too. But I’ve found that most of all I have found myself listening to TWIP (This Week In Photography) and these “geek” shows by CNet, as well as almost everything by Leo Laporte - a self-confessed geek and a gadget fanatic. Their stuff is great and because they talk about technology it’s very relevant to the side of photography which I’m working on as I listen to them. The big plus is the fact that they don’t talk about anything that would make me want to abandon my work. There’s no mention of travel, adventure or anything that’s really outside of the world of technology, and that’s great – I can focus on my work, on being a sort of a geek myself, as I stare at the freakin monitor.
So, in short, anyone who finds themselves in a situation similar to mine – get iTunes and start listening to podcasts that you can relate to. You’ll be absorbing a lot of info, true lots of it useless, but some will give you ideas that can help in your photographic world.
In the next post I think it may be useful to talk a little about my workflow. Some people may be surprised that Lightroom is not a part of my workflow. Well, I have my reasons and use what I feel is a better alternative.
