The Power of Creative Exploration

AB WatsonThoughts

Consistency, repetition, limitations, or limited creative exploration creates genius. Hear me out on this one. Think about great artists and writers. Their limitations are the medium they use for expression. Their consistency is the genre or style in which they use their medium of choice. Then consistently; practising that particular medium. Getting better, while also pushing that medium and exploring it within their style. That is the fine line you have to walk to create masterpieces, and where true genius comes from.

Buy the camera you’ll use, not the camera you want.

AB WatsonEducation, Philosophy, Thoughts

I see too many photographers worry about their gear over capturing the image. As photographers we love gear, we love buying it, talking about it, reading about it and writing about it. Owning, researching and showcasing photography gear in itself is a hobby. I’ve met so many photographers with far better and newer gear than me. Amateurs normally have better gear than me. But I’ll tell you one thing, I’m not afraid to use it, and sacrifice my camera if I must for that perfect shot.

I grow up without knowing I had dyslexia

AB WatsonStory

I’m 36 at the time of this writing. I started reading books in my mid 20’s. I only started writing and learning to write once I created this blog. It’s a hard thing to bring into into light because I don’t want to be known for it, or pitied. I have dyslexia and auditory processing disorder, and I only found this out in my 30s. All this time I have been struggling and not even comprehend or understood that I’m different. I thought I was just dumb, slow or stupid but I’m not. Here is my story about what it’s like to grow up with dyslexia and auditory processing disorder without even knowing it.

How to backup your photographs

AB WatsonEducation

When it comes to our photos these images are a livelihood. They keep the lights on and food in our bellies. People would say that gear is the most important aspect of photography. But I would say you can replace a camera or a lens. An image only happens once in a lifetime. That moment is everything, and protection should be a priority for us photographers. This is how I back up my images and recommend you should too or at least try and do at least two of my suggestions. But again, your life, your moments and do with them as you please.

How reading books made me a better photographer

AB WatsonInspiration, Philosophy, Thoughts

Over the past year, I fell away from photography, I did it for a job daily. When it came to my personal work I completely stopped. I no longer cared about a camera on my person when I walked out the front door. I stopped reading books and stopped working out. I did my job and went home, and my personal drive for development and creativity dried up. It wasn’t until I started reading books again that something changed.

Time doesn’t exist

AB WatsonPhilosophy, Thoughts

Our world is run on a clock, be it the time we get up too and go to work, to the dates of events like our birthday or celebration, to the sessions of our crops and weather conditions. I would say these events are just that events and only we put a measurement on them that is dictated by where we are rotating around the sun, and spinning on this rock. Nothing more than our attempt at controlling something that doesn’t exist in the first place. There is only entropy, that shows time passing. No causation no passing of time

The dangers of aspiring to be a perfect person

AB WatsonPhilosophy, Thoughts

Be it a healthy person regarding fitness, eating habits. Being it a time-efficient hustler, and productive person. Or be it minimalist, aspiring to consume less and aspire to have only long-lasting high-quality items. To the spiritual or person of faith that preaches their belief without request. There is something about these people that isn’t quite right. Something about somebody that labels themselves as (insert aspiration here), that rubs me the wrong way and that is they are generally speaking assholes.

Romanticism

AB WatsonThoughts

I’m attracted to the romanticism of academia and minimalism from the 1960s-70s. I can’t help it, but be drawn to these aesthetics. Film photography, writing in journals with an ink pen, reading physical books, drinking tea or simple talking walks and talking about philosophy. So why is it that we struggle to let go of the past or hold onto the past as if it was better than where we are now? To put it simple why do we romanticise the past?