I uninstalled the Facebook app from my phone yesterday. It feels good. It’s been a year since we ditched the television. I don’t miss it. When people find out I don’t have a television they look at me like I’m nuts (I’m used to it) and usually ask, “so what do you do?” To which I reply, “anything I want!”

It’s liberating. No more “pokes” in the middle of dinner, no more 7 ½ minutes of commercials waiting for a weather forecast, no more political commentary while getting ready for work, no more 40+ comments about the hurricane that didn’t even come close to you interrupting me at work. When I have time to sit down and look it’ll all be there. In the meantime I can relax and enjoy being in the moment with whatever it is I’ve decided to do. What’s not to like?!

Among the tributes to Steve Jobs over the last few days was this quote, from a 2008 interview but about when he returned to Apple in 1997 to discover that the company was in disarray, suffered from way too many products and lacked focus:

People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the 100 other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done.

We spend far too much time today living other peoples’ lives, worrying about what other people think and trying to please other people. Generally we do it in a well-meaning way. We do it because we care, or at least we think we do, or that we should. The reality is, most everyone else is doing the same thing, and they’re too busy to even think about us or notice if we do something nice for them.

My work day is full of distractions, most of them are even work-related. It’s part of the deal and one of the reasons they have to pay us to do the work. If it was fun and easy we would do it for free, right? When I get home, the last thing I want is more distractions. I want quiet time, creative time, time to think, time to breathe.

I recently had a couple of friends over to the house, and one of them had some photographs we made prints of. The photos are really, really nice and they made very nice prints. He appreciated me taking the time to do it. We had a great time, spending a couple of hours talking about and discussing photography. I’d rather do that than just about anything. But if any of us felt like we had to leave to go watch a race, a football game or some talk show, it never would have happened. It’s great to set aside time to do something and actually get to do it without interruption.

When I go out to do my photography, I like to go off by myself or just a small group of friends. Ideally they are friends that think and shoot like I do and will go off on their own and leave me alone to do my thing. I’m happy to do the same for them. I turn the phone off and leave it in the car. Yeah, I know there are tools for my phone that will help me figure out where the sun is or when it’s coming up (although it’s usually pretty easy to tell), depth of field charts that will tell me where to focus, and if I don’t know where I am I can always get directions. But if I have the phone along I get distracted, and then I can’t do what I set out to do.

We’re going to the beach this weekend, and I’m looking forward to sitting in a chair and watching the waves. I’m going to read a couple of books. I’ll probably take some pictures. We’ll go for a walk, probably several a day. Hopefully the distractions will be limited to the occasional swim or lunch break. No phones on the beach. It’s a rule. Could we be doing something else this weekend? Sure, but this is what we’ve decided to do. We could have booked a trip to Vegas, jumped out to wine country for the weekend or maybe even taken a cruise, but we know we’re never going to get to do everything, so we try to pick and choose those things that will best allow us to accomplish whatever we want to accomplish. And sometimes that means sitting my butt in a beach chair for a few days!

Canon’s coming out with a new camera soon and I’m not buying it. Well, I might. But I’m not scouring the rumor sites, breathlessly awaiting any and all speculated details about megapixels or sensor sizes or whether it has a mirror lockup button. I’ve got a camera that works. I actually have several cameras that work, and even the oldest ones are still better at taking photos than I am. I laugh when I see people speculating on the latest lens, or whether a camera that isn’t even out yet will take good pictures. Did the camera you have suddenly stop working? Get out and shoot! Relax and enjoy!

Everyone has to make their own choices, and whenever possible I like to be able to make mine. Being bombarded with distractions makes it difficult to decide what my priorities truly are. We can’t make that decision while we’re being pulled in all directions by what are essentially other peoples’ priorities. The main thing is that, whenever possible, I want to choose. I want to answer e-mail or comment on a photo or “Like” someone’s post. But I don’t have to do it while I’m driving home from work, or eating my lunch or sitting at the beach. When I’m out photographing I want it to be about photography, not distractions. When I’m on vacation I want it to be about the vacation and not about what’s happening on television. Do whatever works for you, and hopefully you can have the freedom and flexibility to do what really matters, once you are able to figure out what that is.

A long, long time ago as a pre-teen I use to be – like most other guys my age and older – really interested in cars and racing, and I spent a lot of time looking at Hot Rod, Car Craft and other magazines. I have always remembered a photograph in which a particularly shapely young lady was wearing an appropriately fitted T-shirt that was printed with the saying “Some is Good, More is Better and Too Much is Just Enough!” I’d like to think I would have remembered the saying on its own merits or even on a less-attractive T-shirt, but regardless of how I have managed to remember that saying, it has stuck with me for a long time.

For better or for worse, that seems to be the theme by which our society operates these days. We have noise and visual clutter everywhere. You can’t walk through Lowe’s now without being inundated by televisions blasting information about the latest in toilet technology or peel & stick wallpaper. You can’t go to a restaurant without being surrounded by 800 big screen televisions broadcasting everything from sports talk shows to 8 different versions of “Breaking News.” If people don’t have enough drama in their own lives they can participate in others’ drama through social networking, (un)reality television and TV talk shows. There is literally something to entertain and possibly to offend everyone.

So what does this have to do with photography?

In my own jaded, old-school pre-geezer opinion, it has everything to do with photography. I see it in how photographers promote themselves, how they process their photos and how they present and share their work:

• HDR, Infrared, specialty lenses or other techniques without regard to the quality of the underlying or resulting photograph. Some is good….

• Hyper-realistic processing to the point that “looks like a painting” is no longer a compliment. More is better….

• Constantly posting comments and articles on blogs, Facebook, Twitter and (now) Google+. And it’s not enough to just publish a post, we have to feed our comments from one site onto all of the others so we see the same comments 4 or 5 times. Too much is just enough!

It seems that we no longer have any idea what a good photograph is supposed to look like. We see the “stars” using software and assume that all we have to do is use the same equipment and software they use and our photos are good too. Not so fast. Learn how to make your photos good first, then use the tools to express your vision. Too many times I see these tools misused as substitutes for good light, good timing or just good photography.

Good photography should pretty much promote itself, assuming you can get the right people to look at it. Unfortunately, a lot of people are using social media to beat us over the head with it. Take good photographs, put them out where people can see them, then stand back. You don’t need to shout at me. In fact, if you do I’ll probably move on to someone else. Sorry, but I’m not interested in that!

I realize that this post has fallen dramatically outside of my usually happy and positive self, but it was on my mind and I just had to get it out. I feel better now, thanks!

Just this morning I experienced one of the less-pleasant rites of passage into the realm of approaching-old-agedom. It wasn’t a lot of fun but as it turned out the anticipation was far more difficult than the reality. In the course of answering all the questions and giving my name and date of birth for what seemed like a dozen times, one of the nurses mentioned something about my age and said something like “we don’t usually see men under 60 in here unless there’s a problem.” I hadn’t given it much thought other than to wonder how many people actually follow their doctor’s advice, and I guess her comment kind of answered my question. Sometimes you just have to do something even though you really don’t want to because it’s the right thing to do. So I did, it’s done, everything is fine and I couldn’t be happier.

Arnold Palmer used to do a commercial for Pennzoil where he talked about “taking care of the old equipment.” He was primarily talking about using the right motor oil, but the implication was that the right maintenance was important regardless of the actual “equipment” being referenced.

We change the oil in our cars, check the air in our tires, change our furnace filters and (sometimes) clean out our refrigerators. And that’s all fine, but don’t forget to first and foremost take care of yourself. Do the scheduled maintenance.

This has been a public service announcement.

• Why are there so many more people willing to drink coffee than there are willing to make a new pot?
• I know they are trying to be helpful, but I wish that the people who constantly post links on Facebook to articles they find interesting would be a little less helpful.
• There’s a woman who writes a column for Forbes that does a podcast, a blog, an e-mail newsletter and a You Tube channel about cutting clutter and getting organized.  Isn’t that kind of self-defeating?
• Why do people (when they are driving) worry so much about which lane they are in when they are only racing to the next red light?  I suppose that probably represents the way they live their lives.
• Do you realize how much more smoothly traffic would flow if people paid just a little teeny bit more attention?
• My days got a lot less stressful once I decided that I didn’t have to be the first person at work.  I’m happy to let someone else claim that title.  Same goes with the last person to leave.
• A successful class is one where the students come away with the knowledge they had hoped to gain from the instructor.  A really successful class is one where the instructor learns from the students, too.
• If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, it’s no wonder that photographers are (usually) so friendly.
• Based on a lot of the photographs I’ve seen lately, Viveza should come with a volume limit.  Only after approval from a pre-determined number of one’s peers should they be able to go over a certain (low!) limit.  A little bit goes a long way, people!
• How ironic is it that since I moved my blog to a WordPress site I have had to install a filter to block all of the spam comments.  Since March 1 I have received 864 spam comments – all blocked by Akismet – and a whopping 1 legitimate comment.  I don’t do much better on Facebook.  It’s a good thing I write for my own enjoyment!