My life be like

This is an epiphany post for me. Not really about anything too specific, but I’ve been a little unsettled about myself lately. This post will be all about the bullet lists. [Also, if you want a picture, here are a few.]

Things that I’ve been up to, in no particular order:

• The past two days I’ve been working on the farm.  It’s a summer job that I can’t seem to get away from, not that I mind.  It’s a lot of time of reflection (or annoying songs popping into your head) in a super noisy tractor.
• The past two weekends I’ve assisted/shot with a photographer that I’ve recently gotten in touch with.  Doing weddings isn’t easy.  It was good just being there without the massive expectations of coming up with great pictures.  Currently wedding photography as a profession is what I’m planning on (hint hint ;))–it’s a challenging job that I enjoy.  But anyways, real life experience is great–and so much different than just reading stuff online.  And I think I’ve seen enough beer games to last a long time.
• Today I visited a video production studio (a few minutes from my house!  How surprising).  I’m debating trying to get that job, as it would be kinda cool doing after effects stuff and video editing.  I like video work, but there’s something to dirty farm work that is really appealing to me.  We’ll see what happens with that.
• I bought a lens.  It’s my 2nd lens that I bought, after the 50mm prime that I got a long time ago.  It was recommended by one of my favorite photographers, Matthew Saville, a super guy.  I’ll have some pictures soon enough.
• I’m still doing internship work with Andy Gaskin here and there.  I’m not doing stuff all day like when I started off, more so smaller projects spread out more.  He’s a great guy to work with, and has a sweet family.  Also, he calls me Dark.  ;-)

Now on to the nitty gritty, less of the “blah, blah, blah, this is life.”  Tonight I was listening to a podcast/video/whatever by two good photographers, and something was said (by Zack Arias) that really hit me.  It might have been because I’m in the dark living room only lit by my computer, I’m home alone (no family–I just remembered that they’re at the Bible study that I forgot about), and it’s been a long day, but this certain thing made me want to change…

The video was a question/answer type deal, and a question was brought up about statistics, if he looked at his website stats/ratings.  Zack said that he didn’t look at his stats–at all.  “Because then I’d just get narcissistic about it and go, ‘how can I make it bigger?’” This probably doesn’t sound too profound, but it hit me.  I look at my stats fairly often (but it hits on something more).  I don’t know why I do, since I know it doesn’t mean anything and most of the hits aren’t real people, but it’s a habit of mine, which kinda goes toward a bigger issue that I have with myself.

I want to be successful.  It’s the truth.  I’ve been thinking about my career way too much. I’ve gotten this idea that I want to make a living from photography if I put my mind to it and try really hard.  I’ve just been soaking up a lot of resources on how to do that.  My diagnosis is that I’m pursing photography (and success) at an unhealthy rate.  Now, I’m taking a break from some of the things I do that are turning into addictions:

• I’m not going to look at any of my site statistics for a full month.  Obsessing over these hasn’t really been a problem lately, but I want to try this out.
• I’m not going to read any photography blogs until the end of the month.  This will be a big thing for me.  I follow a ridiculous amount of photography blogs.  See for yourself (my feed reader on Netvibes).
• I’m not going to read twitter tweets.  I don’t know what it is, but I’ve really started to like twitter lately.  It’s a really neat system (don’t dis it until you try it a little bit).  BUT, it’s not cool to always feel like you *need* to update it with something cool when you come up with it (speaking to myself).  Also, catching up on other people’s messages takes a while.  I’ll still update it and read messages directed to me.

I might decide to cut back on some other things too, but those are the things I came up with for now.  I need less worldly wisdom and more Godly wisdom, less world’s ways, more God’s ways, less me, more God.

For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
2 Corinthians 4:5-6

~ Jon