Zhaf and the Cellar

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Seven Paragraphs of Progress 

Usually I try to post a photograph when I write these blog posts, but today, I'm not going to do that. Primarily because it is already my bedtime at the moment, and since I have to get up early tomorrow to get to class on time, I don't have the twenty minutes to pull up Photoshop and do the tweaks that I normally do to the pictures here.

Class went well today. I had a chance during the break to ask the instructor who were his favorite photographers. He listed, aside from himself (good grief!), John Sexton, John Shaw, Tim Fitzharris, W. Eugene Smith, and Ansel Adams. I checked them out online and each one is a technical master at taking photographs, which of course, I knew they would be. I discovered Todd Hido the other day, thanks to a link in one of the blogs I ready occasionally, and although I am the rankest of amateurs who know little about the field of photography, I think that I would have to list him as one of my personal favorites.

But the thing that struck me, as it often does these days, is how much everything costs. Art supplies aren't cheap, and the reality is you need to spend money to create art. I know that there are those who would argue with me on that point saying that a pen and paper aren't that expensive, but I would invite that person to go to the art store and shop for supplies. You can spend over 10 bucks for a single sketchbook, and for the very nice pens, around 6 to 8 bucks. I'd love to learn how to paint satisfactorily, but I'd hate to spend 50 bucks just to make a mess trying to figure it out. I've got an entire shopping list in my head of items that I know I can't afford. And unlike the video games I longed for when I was a teenager, these items might actually help my development career-wise and personally. But then again, maybe I'm delusional.

After the instructor let us go for today, I worked on a personal image that I put in my moleskine, a project for my typography class. It features an asleep cat character in a smoking jacket and fez reclining in a Victorian wing chair. It's a silly image that, frankly, could be drawn better. I'm not normally a very disciplined person, but I've dedicated myself to drawing more--at least once a day--and so far I've kept it up. Eventually, I will put that up too.

Finally, I am writing myself a reminder here to write a post here about the time I drove up the coast in the middle of the night. I was simulataneously processing the rejection of a woman that I was attracted to with the big life worries and concerns about my future.

Thoughts like those seem so grandiose now when I look back into my twenties. I really had no idea how insignificant I was to the grand scheme of life. Now, I knew I wasn't some monumental hero in the history of the world, but I figured that I would have more impact in the larger world around me. I guess this is the ambition of youth. No one ever grows up dreaming that they're going to be a patent attorney for the rest of their life, or worse yet, homeless. There are so many people that life has chewed up; my own problems amount to just so much whining.

Anyway, it was an interesting trip up the coast that I don't think I have posted on my blog before, so I am planning on doing that soon. This is my reminder.

:: z. 12:07 AM [+] Permalink ::

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