Freedom to be Creative

Social media bring lots of benefits as well as many problems. The thing i have noticed, I actually saw this coming it long ago, is that the restrictive ways photos and posts must be formatted and submitted, definitely limits and fences in creative expression. First we could blame the way the popularity is scored, should I rather say celebrity-like biased feeding frenzy. And don’t get me started on the very biased algorithmic display bubbles. The Online – Social Media Aesthetics we see today suck.

So what to do about it?

Should we #TURNOFFSOCIALMEDIA, we can and in the short term that can be a big relief (unless your hooked). However it means that you end up in a much smaller isolation bubble, aka you cause yourself to be largely overlook. Some presence at least seems to be expected of us these days, for example you might hear “He doesn’t have an Instagram account he can’t possibly be a real photographer", which of course is rubbish.

Even this blog, and blogging in general have become overly constrained by restrictive SEO scores download speeds and bounce rates. Whereas I feel it should be accuracy, reliability of information and ideas, inspiration and originality that should be rewarded instead in is popularity! Enough of the rant. Back to what is worth embracing and why. The big plus of sharing things on the internet is extending your exposure. In theory that should happen if what you share is good and/or informative.

I was getting particularly frustrated on the restrictions and difficulties of posting several pictures using Blogspots web based post tool. (I missed the ease and flexibility of Open Live Writer, but that can no longer upload photos, #FAIL most likely due to google photo changes). So after listening to Brooks Jensen’s Online Aesthetics podcast I decided that making an occasional PDF would be firstly easier to create (using anything, word, Canva etc) and also easy to share. So I have started with a photo essay of the murals in Townsville.

So I began with a simple page for an Instagram story, and guess what you need to format the image as a thin vertical. Whereas  I do a lot of #3by1grid, where I subdivide panoramic images into three square images. Most people wouldn’t realise this since you need to look at my Instagram profile to make sense of these grids. So only a few people in the know will realise what I am doing here. Anyway my Instagram story did get about 25 views.

Thus the search for creative expression that is not beholding to the Online Aesthetics of Social media continues…

Alvin returns as my photographic Life coach

Its more than a year since I sort out my cartoon ultra-ego., Alvin, as a personal trainer to help me reduce my mucking around in photo editing software and social media. Potentially avoid wasting a lot of time.

So how did I do? Social media is definitely cutback (largely because of frustrations rather than conscious effort). My attempts to reduce my burgeoning harem of photographic software mistresses hasn't gone so well. What I have found is a hybrid solution of using the tools that are best suited my projects at the time was far more satisfactory than trying to adopt a strict workflow and a single software application. Having a range of tools suits my creativity, providing I know how to use them, then I don't have too!

PS I seldom use Lightroom (its version 4.4) any more, just occasionally to find an old image.

#TURNOFFSOCIALMEDIA :: Work in progress

Seems there was a lot of angst generated yesterday, because the social media drip was taken away. The really sad part was that the emergency services in Australia (triple zero) has to take to conventional media  to stop ringing to report Facebook and Instagram. So sad….

Well there is a good alternative #TURNOFFSOCIALMEDIA and go and do something in the real world, the more creative the better or actually talk to someone, especially a friend. It will be really good for your health.

Yesterday I when for a walk for with my sketchbook, watercolours & pens (the actually fit in my camera bag) Sat in the sun (and strong breeze) and sketched.

Time disappeared into a flow of seeing and sketching. The only rude reminder of reality was fighting against the wind. Such is life and it is good.