taken from my blog, The Blathering Broad
Yesterday, I had a woman looking to buy some food, interested in the sandwiches we serve. Once she settled on her choice, she looked around her before leaning to tell me,"Okay, this may be weird, but I have OCD." I immediately said,"No, it's all good! I do, too!" Her eyes brightened. "Really?! I could hug you right now. Most people think I'm crazy!" For her comfort, I took care of everything, washing my hands several times between glove changes. She was very very grateful, stuck around for a few more hours, and came back for more food. It made me sad that this poor woman felt that she'd be perceived as "crazy" because she has OCD. Goodness, I hate how stigmatized mental illness is. In the years since writing my post, things i'm afraid to tell you, i've become even more open in discussing my condition in the hopes that it'll allow others to feel less alone.
Personally, I've always felt alone and choose to isolate myself with those feelings of despair and anxiety come around. If I'm around others, I feel like a bummer or a burden if I talk about what is bothering me. When I'm deep in a funk, I'm all alone. It's my own personal hell. To quote Arcade Fire,"My body is a cage that keeps me from dancing with the one I love, but my mind holds the key." I interpret that as I'm in my own personal mental hell, but the key is within me to fix it. I fix those feelings by reaching out to others so they feel less alone, as well as I will feel less alone. Whenever I discover something like a friend with severe anxiety or someone struggling with self-harm, I always let them tell me their stories, as well as share my own. To know that you're not the only one struggling makes a huge difference. Just remember: everybody's trying.
be more open
fourteen years ago
Fourteen years ago, I was a seventh grader at Samuel Morse Middle School for the Gifted & Talented. My cousin had her first baby, a little boy she named Izaiah. I wore fat pants, chokers, listened to Limp Bizkit, Incubus, and Linkin Park. I was a pop-punk emo kid. The morning of September 11th, 2001, I remember my aunt screaming and crying as she got ready for work in her bedroom nearby. I didn't quite understand what was going on. I recall her mentioning something about airplanes hitting buildings in New York and how we needed to call my grandma. I am now aware where my grandma lives in relation to the towers. At the time, though, I had no clue. Whenever the subject of my paternal grandmother living in New York came up with peers, I always decided which sounded more badass- Bronx or Brooklyn? Well, my grandma lives in Manhattan, in East Harlem. I know that now, but New York was too complicated for my thirteen year old brain, having not visited for five years. There was no time to call that morning (I doubt it would have gone through anyway) so we decided to call when I got home from school. I walked to the bus stop, and thought things would be normal.
I don't recall any other class than my algebra class. Advanced math nerd that I was, me and a few other smarty pants seventh graders were taught with eighth graders the wonders of algebra. There would be no algebra that day, though, much to my not-homework-doing delight. Instead, we sat and listened to our teacher's clock radio as the news was somberly played for forty-five minutes.
"I heard it was the Ay-rabs!"
"I heard it was the Puerto Ricans!"
"Shut up! Puerto Rico is a US Territory, idiot!"
So many stupid things shouted by thirteen and twelve year olds not really sure what was happening. My brother was at the high school I'd be attending in two years. He told me that the teacher who ended up becoming my English teacher senior year ran into his Spanish class screaming,"We're all going to die!" Now that I know her, I can see it clearly in my mind. My best friend's sister was in her Italian class where they turned on the TV to watch the horror unfold, rather than studying vocabulary or whatever was on the agenda for the day. I remember moving through the rest of the day as though I were floating. I don't remember anything else about school that day. I was there, but my mind kept turning to the things I was hearing. What was going on in the world outside this building?
When I got home, 24 hours news monster was already spewing images that haunt me to this day. It took some time for my brain to comprehend that the things falling from the burning buildings were people jumping. I cried and wailed uncontrollably. I stuffed a pillow in my mouth so no one else could hear something was wrong, but everyone else was upstairs with the baby. I was alone to deal with these images. For weeks, it was all I could see in my mind when I closed my eyes. I couldn't understand why. Why did this happen? Why did those people have to die? Why did they jump? Was taking matters into their own hands better than waiting for whatever fate had in store for them?
That day always plays in my head when the anniversary comes around. We were able to get ahold of my grandma the next morning. I talked to her briefly before school, said,"Bendición," and "I love you," as if those words were enough to alleviate this strangeness we all felt. We were able to reconnect with someone we loved, but what about the thousands who never can? And the lives of innocents who didn't ask to be in a war zone? What about those whose voices we'll never hear again? What about them?
the best camera
...is the one that's with you. This phrase came about when Chase Jarvis, an American photographer, released his book of iPhone photographs. He also had an app called Best Camera. This is something that has slowly taken me time to learn and accept. If I don't have my DSLR with me, just my iPhone, I could become a bit sad because I'd rather have the ability to shoot RAW, but I will still take a picture. Recently, a few people have said to me,"I wish I were photography savvy" or "I need a better camera; I like to take pictures." No, no, no, people. You've got it all wrong!
Do you like to take photographs? Do you have a device or actual camera with which to take photographs? Then you've got the tools you need! When I was thirteen, I was bitten by the photography bug. For Christmas that year, I asked for a camera. I should have been more specific in that I wanted a digital camera, despite the fact that it definitely was not within our means to get that kind of gift just for me. I pasted a smile on my face that I got a camera, period. I also got the Bell Jar and Red Hot Chili Peppers cd. I was excited about the camera. I put the battery and film in and began shooting immediately, but also being cautious as to preserve the film. I took that camera to middle school, taking awkward flash photos of my eighth grade friends. I brought it along on a Mitchell Park Domes field trip, those same friends in botanical conservatories. Those photographs are so clear in my mind, it's as though they're in front of me right now. I would have to search many boxes for those specific pictures, but they do exist. Eighth grade graduation, us frozen in that weird adolescent transition from middle to high school. But underneath it all, I just wanted to take photographs. I had sketchbooks full of awful drawings, and although I got into abstract painting that year, I wanted to capture moments. Those years, I became an observer. Things changed even more significantly after read The Perks of Being a Wallflower. In becoming more observant, I was able to frame things with my minds eye, always itching to take photos. If I forgot my camera, I was so bummed. I carried extra double A batteries at all times, for fear that my now monstrous digital camera (2.3 MP!) would die at the worst moment!
These days, things are significantly different. Late to the smartphone game, only within the last three years have I had the tools to photograph with me at all times. I still carry my DSLR, but I do mostly shoot with my phone. Some people don't feel that's enough, but if you look at photographers like Amanda Jasnowski and Kevin Russ who have built careers with the very phones we carry with us each day, you can see that it's not the camera itself, but how one uses it. I have demonstrated to people how to adjust brightness and focus by simply touching the phones and they are amazed! It is all about how you choose to use the tools given to you. You can learn by practicing and exploring all the different settings and options available. Don't be afraid of using the camera on your phone. You'll be amazed by all of the things it can do. You can also search how to improve your phone photography, if you so choose. There are many great posts here and here that can show you how.
personal style blogs: a thing of the past?
It's better to burn out than to fade away, at least that's what they say. Does burning out mean going out with a bang? I'll pretend for the sake of this writing that that's what it means. I've noticed this quite a bit with blogs I have been following for years- they burn out or fade away. It's a bummer, but a reality of the fickle young industry of blogging for a living. Even if that was not the goal at the start of the blog, it sometimes has a way of coming back to bite you.
I could be 100% percent wrong, but it's as though around 2009, fashion blogging exploded all of the internet. Folks with a flair for personal style garnered an audience thirsty for more- more creative looks, more information on how to cop the same or similar items, and more information on their personal lives. The audience demanded it! Most blogs I visited always had thirty+ comments. "Cute skirt/dress/shoes! Check out my blog kristinsfashionblog.com"
The audience saw how successful a handful of these people were that they wanted a piece of the pie. Where were their free pair of Swedish Hasbeens close? Why couldn't they get a dress "courtesy of" Modcloth? Quite honestly, I don't believe there is a formula to the success. For some reason, things worked out for those girls. That's not to say that some of them didn't work hard. I can only imagine trying to please an audience you gained while being yourself, but now you have to also work in sponsorships and advertising without losing too many people. As the bloggers grow older and begin families, is the audience going to care enough to stick around if the blog transforms as the blogger's life transforms? Is a blog that's strictly style going to bring in the same success approximately six years after the boom?
Lots of blogs nowadays have changed quite a bit. Some of them still feature their personal style, but there are little bits of lifestyle, personal life, maybe even some cooking mixed into these blogs once so dedicated to personal style. It's interesting to see the change over the years and how it seems that the style "blogging" has moved over into Instagram, it seems. Instagram is a place to grow an audience with some well placed hashtags and killer style. Companies seem to lean towards the social media aspect of advertising and utilize a lot of these Instagram style 'grammers. Can the blogging world keep up? Or have we seen it have its moment, with its time to now fade away?
film vs digital: an exhausting debate
It's crazy to believe that such a debate still exists in the 21st century. Film and digital have their aesthetic and technical merits, but they still remain a heated topic amongst photographers and photo-enthusiasts alike.
It appears as though recently, there has definitely been a spike in film usage. That is not to say that there are not those that utilize the medium well, but there are those out there that use film in order to diminish any digital processing to achieve similar effects. The way that film captures color can be replicated digitally, but is easily accomplished shooting film. With auto white balance sensors, and even manually setting white balance, can be hit or miss when shooting digitally. As long as the photo is shot at the correct exposure, the colors will come out cleaner on film than digitally.
In developing film, one can appreciate having total control over the end product. The time and effort that goes into processing a roll of film, enlarging the negatives, and fixing any issues manually can give one the sense of being completely part of the end product. However, these days, it's not as simple to process one's own film outside of a school lab or creating an in home lab, which can be expensive. At a time when most people carry their cameras on their phones, film has become rare, therefore more expensive. Wet labs have shut down due to less demand, resulting in most without access to a school or home lab to send out our film. That can be quite terrifying, to put these images you have no way of getting back, into the Postal Service's hands and hoping for the best. But no matter, because if things work out well and your rolls get developed, one can still feel a sense of accomplishment in knowing that each shot was well thought out, well composed so as not to waste a single frame.
One major convenience of digital photography is the ability to shoot as much as a memory card can hold without worrying about having to pay for each frame. Rather than having to wait to examine the shots after processing and creating a contact sheet, you get instant results with digital photography. If a shot is not what you wanted when you examine it moments after depressing the shutter, you get a redo. You don't have to attempt to reshoot everything another day, or salvage a decent image from the roll(s) you have. Digital can get expensive in terms of gear, but so can film equipment due to its rarity. In post-shoot editing, one has the ability at their fingertips to render an image similar to film in color and grain, or they can create their own aesthetic in editing. The possibilities can be endless for digital photography.
Now, many debate whether one is better than the other. I don't think there is really a definitive answer, at least not for me. For some, film is more "authentic" than digital. That's not necessarily true. As an art form, photography can be executed utilizing different types of cameras so long as the artist's message is easily conveyed. I don't think it's a matter of one being better than the other, but rather which benefits the user most. So, are you a film fanatic or digital darling?