There are a few photos of this utility pole without fence in view, but this is the one that I feel works best. Can’t tell you why, but I find it far more appealing than just the pole in the field.
I hope you enjoy.
There are a few photos of this utility pole without fence in view, but this is the one that I feel works best. Can’t tell you why, but I find it far more appealing than just the pole in the field.
I hope you enjoy.
Alright, so I have about ten minutes and so I’m going to do a little bit of racing. Have been meaning to write a lot more this month than I have and it hasn’t been happening. Lack of sleep and all that. I have a lot of things that I want to cover and that might start today. Hopefully that starts today. Don’t know. Anyway.
So at work, sitting here. Buying time. Writing this out. Racing, racing, racing. Racing to get ahead. Racing to fall behind. Racing to get wherever this seat takes me. Don’t know where it will. Don’t know how it will. Don’t even know if it will. Do know that it might go somewhere and it might not. The future is yet to be determined, and it will always remain that way. Ascertained, perhaps. Confidence found in direction, maybe. Determined… no. And not yet to be determined, either. Anything could happen. Why, an elephant could crash through the ceiling. It’s incredibly unlikely, but it is not impossible.
You could be sitting at your desk, eating dried mango and then suddenly the sound of a trunk bellowing at it’s loudest. You don’t know what’s going on and you don’t have time to react because an elephant, subsequently, finds itself travelling in a downward trajectory, through materials forming a ceiling, but a floor on the other side, and down it goes, and down you go with it. Maybe you survive. Maybe you don’t. All you know is an elephant has collided with you and there’s little else you can do, and maybe you don’t even know that much. Maybe it’s all far too much to take in in one elephant falling.
But that’s neither here nor there. All this is to say is that the future is uncertain, and that’s a way for it to be. There are far worse things out there in the world and, whilst we can certain plan and reduce chances of things not going our way, we can only reduce; we cannot eliminate. All it takes for good plans to fall to error is one small thing to run afoul of where we are headed.
So… now that that is out of the way, what next? Where to go from here? This is a nice space to be in at the moment, but I’d rather be elsewhere. Enjoy the work; enjoy the cooler office. Rather be at home, taking care of my plants and washing and all of those things. A lot of things to take care of and not all the time in the world to do so. Good thing and bad thing, but rather be at home taking care of things. Home, paid, and not having to worry about financial security. Would be the best way to be, I think. Or the worst. Who knows. It’s a goal, but it’s one a long way away and there are plenty of things that could get in the way of it all. But that’s something to worry about at another time. Right now I want to worry about finishing this off and then getting back to work, and I’m just throwing things at whatever in the hopes that it all makes sense at the end of the day.
Hope is a good thing to have, but one needs action behind what they desire. One needs action behind what it is that they are looking for and believing in, for hope without action is you get the idea. Still, it is good to have hope without action sometimes. One should not give into despair if they can avoid it. Giving into despair is a good way to have hope disappear, and with hope disappearing, you get hopelessness. Or maybe you don’t; I don’t know. I just firmly believe in trying to do what one can to get things happening, and if that means a lot of talking about things, then I don’t know what to say, because there’s not much else that one can say about the state of things when it involves hope and taking action.
Maybe, rather than hope, I mean belief. I think I mean belief, but I don’t know. But it’s good to believe in things. It’s good to believe in guiding ideas and principles, and it’s also good to do one’s best to uphold these where they can. It’s good to be flexible and be willing to learn, too. Too many people are unwilling to learn and grow, and as such they end up knowing everything, and that’s not something I want to be around, to be honest. A person who is not willing to grow and be fallible is a person who might not be worth the time, sometimes. You can still learn something from people who don’t grow, but sometimes you need to think about what it is you are learning from someone and what you’re taking from what they do and what they say. It is rare to not learn anything at all from those around us, and if one is not learning, they’re not growing, and…
So I don’t know where I’m going from this. All I know is that it is too warm and I’m not handling it well, and I generally don’t handle heat all too well. Or rather, I do, but I do tend to be much more irritable in the heat, which is something not worth mentioning but I’ve now mentioned it and now you must live with this information.
How does it feel? How does it feel to carry information you don’t care about for the rest of your life? Sure, I could’ve been the better person and not said a thing, but that’s not my style. It’s now with you, and only through hope and action can you rid yourself of this terrible affliction upon your thoughts. But that won’t happen, and you are doomed to carry this for the rest of your days whilst I rejoice in my malice.
The time it took to write one thousand words: 12:25:91
Not as fast as I’d hoped, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.
I was hoping for something a bit more coherent, but this unravelled well before there was a good thread running through it and so I went with it. Uneven, bit of a mess, but it was fun writing.
Written at work.
I’ve driven this bit of road a good few times now, though not nearly as much as I’d like to have. It makes for a good bit of driving, and it’s a road that helped me realise something about myself that I’ll eventually touch on.
I took this photo after deciding to stop near the right-pointing chevron. Upon approach I saw a large tree near the road and wanted to get photos of that, which after stopping I did. Around that time I also took this photo.
When I took this, I was thinking of the cover photo for Pearl Jam’s Yield which, as I understand it, was taken by Jeff Ament. I was also thinking of the space and the idea of a long road, going somewhere, leading nowhere. I feel that there’s almost an aimlessness in this photo. There are guiding signs and clearly the road goes somewhere, but it feels open to the possibility of going wherever; of desired aimlessness in the process of journeying.
I also thought about perspective. The right-pointing chevron appearing large and the left-pointing ones appearing small is interesting to me, in part due to the depth and in part due to the difference in numbers. One large one up close and many more to come.
The trail of trees I also find interesting. I can’t put into words as to why. I guess it’s due to a mostly featureless space having this token line of trees, as if to say that nature is preserved, or something.
When processing I tried to make sure the featureless feel came through. It’s not a minimalist, stark image, but it feels minimal and stark.
This is my submission into Leanne Cole‘s “Monochrome Madness” for this week. The next one is hosted by Sarah of Travel with Me, and she has chosen the theme of “Markets”, with maybe shops optional if no market photos.
This challenge is open to all, and I recommend joining in. If want to, check out more information about it here, and include the tag “monochrome-madness” when you share your photo. If you’d prefer not to join in, then at the least check out Leanne’s photography, and what other people submit.
I hope you enjoy.
This is about something specific, but I’m intentionally obscuring it as it’s on my to-do list for writing about. In the interim, I churned this out and it reads about as well as one would expect from something rushed.
I hope you enjoy.
—
A line spreading in multiple directions
Leading nowhere, leading everywhere
Full of searchers and empty of their target
They sense and hunt and continue on
They follow pathways both visible and in
They carry purpose in their steps
Steps observed as aimless to the casual eye
They march and step and eventually return
To feel a cold mist to lull them to sleep
Before they can reach their entry
And all that is left
Beyond the stilling bodies
Is one lone, searching
Searching in a vast emptiness
Alone when it joins the others
There’s a patch of vegetation on the dunes I recently was walking around that kind of looks like an island. It comes with a nice bit of shade and that shade is definitely welcome, but I was more interested in the roots. Some of that shade is in this photo, and those roots are spreading out from it and further into the sand, stabilising it more and helping expand the island.
The below image came from me deciding to play around with strong contrasts, and I think it works really well due to the sand. I like the sense of minimalism, or rather, nothing in contrast with something.
I hope you enjoy.
The holiday now comes to an end and so there’s a need to get back to work… and a need for me to get back to working, I suppose. Was the break long enough? Never is. Do I feel refreshed? No. But also, yes? I feel okay. I feel alright. Could be better. Could be worse. That said, my feeling the way I’m currently feeling is more to do with lack of sleep. As is the way it always seems to go, or something. Nonsense stuff and all that. Nonsense stuff and nonsense writing.
But the break is over and, for some reason, I feel more motivated to write now. Perhaps it was due to having much more time on my hands, or just really needing rest. Needing that decompression. Of course I want more, because I’m not just decompressing from a year of work, but from years of pressure and relentlessness. But you don’t get it all and this could be far worse. I’m still alive and functional, or at least passing for functional. I have my coffee. I have a roof. I have comfort. I still need a longer rest, however.
Anyway, the work year starts today for me. Today I return to the “mines”, and today I get through however much work there is for me to get through. I’m tempted to start early, but that wouldn’t be good. Need to maximise what time I do have and I need to take advantage of what time I don’t have. Need to prepare and be ready and look good and all of those things. Whatever those other things are, those too. Get on top of it all, get on top of everything. climb the pile, collapse, fall apart, and so on and so forth and you get the idea.
Today might also be the day where I finally, FINALLY get something done that I’ve been aiming to do for a while. I wonder if I can (and I can), and I wonder if I will. There are so many things to consider and get done, and getting them done is what I’ll be doing. Maybe. But this one particular thing is one thing that I want to get done and I’ll keep on trying, even if that means I have to force myself into action. I hope I can force myself into action. I hope I can get motivated enough. I don’t know if I can, but I will keep trying. I need to keep trying. Well, I don’t, but I will.
I’m talking in a vague manner and it’s not helpful at all, but I don’t want to reveal the thing in case I say it and then don’t do it. I feel it’s better not to say the thing if I want to do it, as there’s less pressure on me to get it done if I don’t. I’m trying to keep pressure down and so, so long as I do, I might just do it.
The time it took to write five-hundred words: 06:17:30
I was a little stuck on few thoughts, and that isn’t good. Thinking more about trying to cover a thing rather than just writing.
Written at home.
I started this nearly four months ago. Had been meaning to complete it, but life and whatnot. Anyway, when I came back to this today I tried to focus more on the shadow… once I cleaned up the lines a bit.
When I do photography, I find myself thinking more about what will work in monochrome more than colour, and whilst the photo this is based off doesn’t come from that thinking, it looks the way it does due to how the shadows in it fall on me. As such, I wanted to try and capture that more in this work, and try to use shading to give the end result more of a sense of shape, so I hope that came through.
I hope you enjoy.
Whilst recently on sand dunes with the person I’m seeing, we walked over to a small grouping of vegetation that looked almost like an island. They saw a few cicada shells around and pointed one out to that they were taking photos of so I got in real close to get my own, as seen below.
I wanted to frame the shell and the bit of wood it was on without the ground or any other vegetation. I felt it would make the photo stronger, and I’m not sure if doing so did, but it has a feel to it that I am having trouble specifically naming. At the very least, there’s a harmonisation between the wood and shell, I think.
This is my submission into the three hundred-and-seventy-ninth Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme for this one is “Favourite Images of 2025“.
The host of the Lens-Artists challenges cycles weekly between the following people:
This one is curated by everyone. The next one is curated by Anne.
I recommend joining the community and participating in the challenges. They’re pretty straightforward, allow room for interpretation, and provide a good way to think about photography in general. If not, however, then at the very least you should check out what others submit to the challenges.
I hope you enjoy.
With this photo I was trying to make the hill behind the vegetation look massive. It didn’t quite work, but there’s a nice framing it provides, I think.
I hope you enjoy.
Another sunset photo at dunes, but a little different.
I named this due to the way the sunset seems to run horizontal. Of course it doesn’t – that’s patently visible – but the main concentration of colour looks like it’s moving horizontally.
I’ve just noticed that there’s a person in this photo, and they’re not as far away as they appear. They are at a distance, but it’s not a long walk. It annoys me that they’re in the photo, but they appear so small and insignificant, and we all are upon the body of nature.
I hope you enjoy.