OhBuoyancy! » 43things

Ultimate Guide To Becoming a Better Photographer

Reese — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:54:02 +0000

Sure, you can read many how-to books, online tutorials, and even pay for photography classes, but right here, right now, I’m going to give to you the all-inclusive, ultimate guide to becoming a better photographer. To top that off, it can be done in just 1, yes ONE, easy step. The how-tos, tutorials, and classes can help, but without implementing this crucial 1 step process they are useless.

Step 1: Take more pictures!

The End

“New Look!” or “New, Look”

Reese — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 01:45:32 +0000

New WordPress theme here, come check it out and let me know what you think. I’m not settled on the header image and the colors just yet, I still have a few things going through my head.

I also added content to the articles page that had been sitting there all blank and lonely. It now has the 2 most recent issues of my college’s newspaper that can be read in full.

Speaking of articles, I finished reading Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography and even already wrote my review of it. Unfortunately, it’s way too long and I’m going to have to cut it down a bit.

I’m proud of myself for keeping to my goal of not procrastinating (at least for the most part, I should be studying right now though), but I’m really not doing so good on my goal of taking a photo every day.

How are your goals going?

Goals

Reese — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 00:29:12 +0000

Here’s what I’ve come up with for my goals for 2008 so far:

Create more goals

Think without distractions. Don’t let things hold back creativeness.

Write more (often). This ties in heavily with “Think.” I need to do more creative writing outside of school work.

Get over photographer’s fear. So many times I want to take a picture of something but I don’t because I’m thinking about how people will think I’m weird for taking a picture of something seemingly mundane; I should just let them be jealous of my awesome picture.

Listen to more music, really hear it, not just the words, each note, each instrument. Feel the depth and beauty of it.

Read the Bible, or finish reading the Bible, or re-read the parts I’ve already read. For a while I was reading the Bible every day, but I’d say that was about 2 years ago; I’ll be honest, I don’t think I opened my (non-internet) Bible at all in 2007 and I don’t feel good about that.

Take a photo every day. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece.

Increase reading speed. I’ve always been a pretty fast reader, compared to say other in my class in school, but I don’t read as fast as I’d like to. Now, I don’t want to speed read or anything, I think that’s silly, but if I ever want to be a book editor I need to be able to read a bit faster, without losing any comprehension.

I guess that’s it for goals. Now if I were to make a resolution, and I usually don’t, it would be the same as a couple years ago: a never-ending quest to find beauty in everything, aka find God’s love in everything.

Doh!

Reese — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 08:07:04 +0000

This whole time I had been thinking that school started back on the 7th. Today I looked at my schedule and it starts back on the 10th. Sure, it’s great to have those extra days free, but now I have to tell my cousin she was right.

In a recent post on his blog, Joshua Longbrake has inspired me to create more goals for myself. As I commented on his post, “I have the bad habit of not making goals for fear of failing, but maybe it would be better to make a long list of goals and fail some of them while accomplishing others instead of no goals at all. So, you have inspired me to make my first goal: 1. Make more goals.” (Yes, I just quoted myself).

Tomorrow I will reevaluate my 43 Things and add to them bigger (better?) goals.

Have you made any goals? Resolutions? Are they really that different? Yes, and no, and an undeniable yes.

Improved – Procrastination on 43things

Reese — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 21:03:00 +0000

While I’m still not perfect on this, I’ve greatly improved and don’t procrastinate nearly as much. One thing that has helped me the most is making do to lists at least twice a week. I usually have one for the weekend and then a new one on Monday or Tuesday. When I’m overwhelmed with tasks it makes it less stressful to have all of them written down, so I can see what needs to be down instead of trying to remember it all. It’s a good feeling of accomplishment when I get things done and see the list getting smaller and smaller.

I may still finish things the night before they need to be done, but I’m no longer starting them the night before.

Trying to keep an empty inbox for my email helps too, it pushes me to answer emails at least the same day that I receive them (in most cases).

The firefox plugin “Morning Coffee” , is very helpful with productivity as well. I can push one button and every site I visit regularly opens in tabs, so I get all of my regular reading out of the way first thing.

See more progress on: stop procrastinating

KIT-Keep In Touch

Reese — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 22:16:00 +0000

Photo credit 3193
3191 is a visual blog project by two friends who live 3,191 miles apart. One in Portland, Oregon, the other in Portland, Maine. Every morning (well, Monday through Friday), they take and send a photo to each other. They don’t talk about the photos beforehand, which is hard to believe on some of the pairings because of how well they relate to each other. I think this is a wonderful and creative way to share a part of your life with someone far away.

I found 3191 through The Petri Project, which is what I would call (and they should too) a companion blog to 43things. Anyone on 43things should check out The Petri Project, each post is based on one of the goals people have on 43things and gives some great ideas/advice on completing them.

This post has kind of sounded like a commercial, oh well. Google Reader really needs a “blog this” function.

What this goal means

Reese — Wed, 30 May 2007 22:10:00 +0000

“Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.”
-C.S. Lewis, as quoted in The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey, p. 111

See more progress on: believe in “A Holiday At The Sea”