{"componentChunkName":"component---src-templates-blogposting-js","path":"/blog/what_really_matters","result":{"data":{"mdx":{"body":"function _extends() { _extends = Object.assign || function (target) { for (var i = 1; i < arguments.length; i++) { var source = arguments[i]; for (var key in source) { if (Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty.call(source, key)) { target[key] = source[key]; } } } return target; }; return _extends.apply(this, arguments); }\n\nfunction _objectWithoutProperties(source, excluded) { if (source == null) return {}; var target = _objectWithoutPropertiesLoose(source, excluded); var key, i; if (Object.getOwnPropertySymbols) { var sourceSymbolKeys = Object.getOwnPropertySymbols(source); for (i = 0; i < sourceSymbolKeys.length; i++) { key = sourceSymbolKeys[i]; if (excluded.indexOf(key) >= 0) continue; if (!Object.prototype.propertyIsEnumerable.call(source, key)) continue; target[key] = source[key]; } } return target; }\n\nfunction _objectWithoutPropertiesLoose(source, excluded) { if (source == null) return {}; var target = {}; var sourceKeys = Object.keys(source); var key, i; for (i = 0; i < sourceKeys.length; i++) { key = sourceKeys[i]; if (excluded.indexOf(key) >= 0) continue; target[key] = source[key]; } return target; }\n\n/* @jsxRuntime classic */\n\n/* @jsx mdx */\nvar _frontmatter = {\n \"date\": \"2008-07-07T18:29:19.376Z\",\n \"updated\": \"2008-07-07T18:29:19.376Z\",\n \"type\": \"BlogPosting\",\n \"title\": \"What really matters?\",\n \"entityId\": \"042cb200-f940-11e6-8d52-ffa6c436feb5\",\n \"revisionId\": \"042cb201-f940-11e6-8d52-ffa6c436feb5\",\n \"revisionNum\": 1,\n \"tags\": {\n \"plain\": [{\n \"@id\": \"thoughts\",\n \"objClass\": \"tag\"\n }, {\n \"@id\": \"photoshop\",\n \"objClass\": \"tag\"\n }],\n \"arts.meta.assistant\": [{\n \"@id\": \"arts.meta.people.emilyann\",\n \"objClass\": \"ontag\"\n }],\n \"arts.meta.criticism\": [{\n \"@id\": \"artistry\",\n \"objClass\": \"tag\"\n }],\n \"arts.meta.film\": [{\n \"@id\": \"arts.meta.film.hie\",\n \"objClass\": \"ontag\"\n }]\n },\n \"sidebar\": \"I'm not very good at dealing with what happens when things really need to end. I really kinda wonder what the heck I was thinking when I stuck with that girl for so long because the bad memories of the extended breakup kinda washed out the memories of all of the good times we had before that. My wife describes it as \\\"sleepwalking\\\" through the relationship.\\n\\nMy parents kind of liked her, so they were encouraging me to stay in touch, in case she changed her mind. Which turned out to be about the worst possible piece of advice I could have ever received, actually.\\n\\nIn the same way, it is much more likely that I'll have one last roll of High Speed IR and one last roll of Ektachrome IR sitting in my fridge for the rest of eternity because I won't be able to let go.\\n\\n## Maintenance\\n\\nI found, in the end, that it boils down to swimming. And cycling. If I don't swim often enough (And by swim, I mean laps) my wrists will give me problems. If I don't cycle enough, I get depressed and gain weight.\",\n \"description\": \"Some thoughts based on a conversation I had with a friend quite a few months ago. \",\n \"srcImages\": [\"arts.blog.what_really_matters.san_mateo_bridge-09a26681-f940-11e6-8d52-ffa6c436feb5-infile\"]\n};\nvar layoutProps = {\n _frontmatter: _frontmatter\n};\nvar MDXLayout = \"wrapper\";\nreturn function MDXContent(_ref) {\n var components = _ref.components,\n props = _objectWithoutProperties(_ref, [\"components\"]);\n\n return mdx(MDXLayout, _extends({}, layoutProps, props, {\n components: components,\n mdxType: \"MDXLayout\"\n }), mdx(\"a\", {\n href: \"/blog/what_really_matters/san_mateo_bridge/\"\n }, mdx(props.imgs.Img1, {\n width: \"640px\"\n })), mdx(\"p\", null, \"When I was in college, I had some really awful periods when my wrist problems flared up. It was really depressing because I was working a degree in math and computer science, so I was not only faced with having to adjust my routine, but the possibility that my chosen career path would be taken from me. And the problem is, I realized that most of my goofing-off activities were also involving the computer keyboard or my guitar, so I had some problems figuring out what I\\u2019d do with myself.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"The thing that sticks in my memory is having a conversation with a girl I was dating at the time, when my wrist problems came to a head, that started with her saying \\u201CNow, don\\u2019t get mad, but\\u2026\\u201D and ending with me getting mad, which really didn\\u2019t help me dealing with the palatable problem that my hands were twitching and I was worried I might have to give up a good sized percentage of the things I loved to do.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"I ended up learning to be functionally ambidextrous (or, in my terms \\u201Cambimousetrous\\u201D) and got rid of some of my leisure activities involving the computer, like playing video games. I started wearing wrist braces.. but only to bed, because you can cause your muscles to atrophy if you wear them all the time, and that makes the problem worse. At the time, I felt like I could either give up the guitar or video games, and that decision was easy. Being creative is innate. Were I to have given up the guitar, I\\u2019d go nuts, so I gave up video games.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"I was having a conversation with my friend Emily the other day while she was in town. We hadn\\u2019t had a really good chat in months, so it was just fun to sit and talk with her while we took long exposure photography. At some point, the subject of what I might do if enough of my favorite films went away and I told her that I\\u2019d probably just go digital, except that by the time I\\u2019m sick of film or can\\u2019t get it anymore, I\\u2019ll be able to get a pretty fancy feature-loaded digital SLR with all of the quirks worked out.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"She told me that she could never see me going digital. I found this funny because I\\u2019m actually a fairly digital boy. I have no vinyl records. I spent a long long long time waiting for the mythical day where there was a full-frame digital SLR with enough megapixels at a low enough price. I was using my 35mm SLR camera as a temporary step before I could get a digital SLR. It\\u2019s just that I got a little sidetracked along the way. And I discovered that I really like medium format cameras.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"I told her that some parts of my artistic vocabulary would be gone for good, were I to \\u201Cgo digital\\u201D and that some parts of my artistic vocabulary were already gone because I couldn\\u2019t get the right stuff anymore. For example, there\\u2019s absolutely no fun for me to take a shot using a color camera and convert it to black and white.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"We started talking about what is the essential core of things, artistically. See, I can\\u2019t get High Speed IR anymore. When I run out of my stock, what do I do if I want that look? Do I just say \\u201Cforget it?\\u201D Do I shoot other IR films and be content with the lack of the HIE-glow. Do I shoot other IR films and simulate the HIE-glow in Photoshop? Or maybe a digital camera modified for IR use, so I don\\u2019t need to carry a changing bag and use a tripod.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"Clearly, there is some level of cheating where you\\u2019ve gone too far from the essential core that you\\u2019ve missed the point. Like carefully dodging and burning an existing black and white image to make the dark foliage in what the camera captured light and the bright sky on film dark. Or taking a color image in Photoshop and running it through a filter that selectively darkens blues and lightens greens. Then I won\\u2019t get the actual somewhat unpredictable effects of infrared photography. The green foliage is going to be brilliantly white, whereas the object painted green will be gray. So, clearly there\\u2019s a reason to use a real infrared camera, which can be either be digital or film.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"On the other hand, I am not enough of a purist to deny that one should use tools just because they lack some sense of purity. I tend to draw a line between people who are more photo-illustrators than photographers. For example, I\\u2019ve seen a number of people where their initial shots are fairly plain, but after they\\u2019ve finished editing them, it\\u2019s a new work of art. And I don\\u2019t consider this as being somehow a lesser art, but more just a form of art that I haven\\u2019t got too much interest in practicing at this point in time while I can explore other areas.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"There\\u2019s a more subtle question, which I haven\\u2019t quite answered to my satisfaction. It is very clear that once I\\u2019m out of rolls of Ektachrome IR, I\\u2019m likely never going to be able to do anything remotely similar again. I accept this. It\\u2019s also clear to me that it\\u2019s really not worth trying to get a whole set of 81 series \\u201Cwarming\\u201D filters so that I don\\u2019t end up adjusting the color balance later in Photoshop after I\\u2019ve scanned shots. However, I\\u2019m not quite sure about some other techniques.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"I saw, on Flickr, an image where the photographer had trumpeted their lack of Photoshop and proceeded to go into heavy detail about how they\\u2019d accomplished the shot. They used several Cokin colored filters, plus tweaked the settings of their RAW converter, to get the results. I looked at it and wondered why the heck you\\u2019d bother. It\\u2019s photo-illustration either way you do it, and it\\u2019s not nearly hard enough to get points for doing things the Rube Goldberg way.\"), mdx(\"p\", null, \"But I still haven\\u2019t decided what will happen when I run out of High Speed IR.\"));\n}\n;\nMDXContent.isMDXComponent = true;","id":"93403111-8290-57ef-8a95-f378a0d57ac0","fields":{"sidebar":"

I'm not very good at dealing with what happens when things really need to end. I really kinda wonder what the heck I was thinking when I stuck with that girl for so long because the bad memories of the extended breakup kinda washed out the memories of all of the good times we had before that. My wife describes it as \"sleepwalking\" through the relationship.

\n

My parents kind of liked her, so they were encouraging me to stay in touch, in case she changed her mind. Which turned out to be about the worst possible piece of advice I could have ever received, actually.

\n

In the same way, it is much more likely that I'll have one last roll of High Speed IR and one last roll of Ektachrome IR sitting in my fridge for the rest of eternity because I won't be able to let go.

\n

Maintenance

\n

I found, in the end, that it boils down to swimming. And cycling. If I don't swim often enough (And by swim, I mean laps) my wrists will give me problems. If I don't cycle enough, I get depressed and gain weight.

\n"},"frontmatter":{"date":"July 07, 2008","title":"What really matters?","type":"BlogPosting","description":"Some thoughts based on a conversation I had with a friend quite a few months ago. ","sidebar":"I'm not very good at dealing with what happens when things really need to end. I really kinda wonder what the heck I was thinking when I stuck with that girl for so long because the bad memories of the extended breakup kinda washed out the memories of all of the good times we had before that. My wife describes it as \"sleepwalking\" through the relationship.\n\nMy parents kind of liked her, so they were encouraging me to stay in touch, in case she changed her mind. Which turned out to be about the worst possible piece of advice I could have ever received, actually.\n\nIn the same way, it is much more likely that I'll have one last roll of High Speed IR and one last roll of Ektachrome IR sitting in my fridge for the rest of eternity because I won't be able to let go.\n\n## Maintenance\n\nI found, in the end, that it boils down to swimming. And cycling. If I don't swim often enough (And by swim, I mean laps) my wrists will give me problems. If I don't cycle enough, I get depressed and gain weight."},"srcImages":[{"id":"ce640ebe-e68c-507d-98fc-64e4d183fce2","key":"ea20bdc24a7788750cdcfe2370b1c046","maxSize":2000,"size":647411,"srcSet":"/b2/arts.blog.what_really_matters.san_mateo_bridge-09a26681-f940-11e6-8d52-ffa6c436feb5-infile_ea20bdc24a7788750cdcfe2370b1c046_t.jpg 100w,\n/b2/arts.blog.what_really_matters.san_mateo_bridge-09a26681-f940-11e6-8d52-ffa6c436feb5-infile_ea20bdc24a7788750cdcfe2370b1c046_m.jpg 240w,\n/b2/arts.blog.what_really_matters.san_mateo_bridge-09a26681-f940-11e6-8d52-ffa6c436feb5-infile_ea20bdc24a7788750cdcfe2370b1c046_n.jpg 320w,\n/b2/arts.blog.what_really_matters.san_mateo_bridge-09a26681-f940-11e6-8d52-ffa6c436feb5-infile_ea20bdc24a7788750cdcfe2370b1c046_w.jpg 400w,\n/b2/arts.blog.what_really_matters.san_mateo_bridge-09a26681-f940-11e6-8d52-ffa6c436feb5-infile_ea20bdc24a7788750cdcfe2370b1c046.jpg 500w,\n/b2/arts.blog.what_really_matters.san_mateo_bridge-09a26681-f940-11e6-8d52-ffa6c436feb5-infile_ea20bdc24a7788750cdcfe2370b1c046_z.jpg 640w,\n/b2/arts.blog.what_really_matters.san_mateo_bridge-09a26681-f940-11e6-8d52-ffa6c436feb5-infile_ea20bdc24a7788750cdcfe2370b1c046_c.jpg 800w,\n/b2/arts.blog.what_really_matters.san_mateo_bridge-09a26681-f940-11e6-8d52-ffa6c436feb5-infile_ea20bdc24a7788750cdcfe2370b1c046_b.jpg 1024w,\n/b2/arts.blog.what_really_matters.san_mateo_bridge-09a26681-f940-11e6-8d52-ffa6c436feb5-infile_ea20bdc24a7788750cdcfe2370b1c046_h.jpg 1600w","srcPath":"arts.blog.what_really_matters.san_mateo_bridge-09a26681-f940-11e6-8d52-ffa6c436feb5-infile","width":2000,"height":1254,"sqSrcSet":"/b2/arts.blog.what_really_matters.san_mateo_bridge-09a26681-f940-11e6-8d52-ffa6c436feb5-infile_ea20bdc24a7788750cdcfe2370b1c046_s.jpg 75w,\n/b2/arts.blog.what_really_matters.san_mateo_bridge-09a26681-f940-11e6-8d52-ffa6c436feb5-infile_ea20bdc24a7788750cdcfe2370b1c046_q.jpg 150w"}],"excerpt":"When I was in college, I had some really awful periods when my wrist problems flared up. It was really depressing because I was working a degree in math and computer science, so I was not only faced with having to adjust my routine, but the possibility that my chosen career path would be taken from…"}},"pageContext":{"id":"93403111-8290-57ef-8a95-f378a0d57ac0","parent":"/blog","name":"what_really_matters","depth":2,"title":"What really matters?","type":"BlogPosting","date":"2008-07-07T18:29:19.376Z","hidden":null,"breadcrumbs":[{"url":"/"},{"name":"blog","url":"/blog"},{"name":"What really matters?","url":"/blog/what_really_matters"}],"excerpt":"Some thoughts based on a conversation I had with a friend quite a few months ago. ","updated":"2008-07-07T18:29:19.376Z"}},"staticQueryHashes":["1062461325","1937434333","2193146810","2240196328","3649515864","815954065"]}