Meta-blogging

Meta capture

This is a post about blogging about blogging. Hence the title meta-blogging.

Writing is important to me because it allows me to organize my thoughts. Sometimes I start a post only as an initial reaction to something but not knowing exactly how I want to conclude the article. Those posts are often the most insightful into my own thought processes, my belief system, and most "revelating" (revelate is not an actual word) in general. My final take on these posts will often surface late in the process of writing; a process which is very much an internal and rhetorical debate.

But my best posts are the ones that I can finish in a single sitting. If it takes more than one sitting, I find that I lose my train of thought and/or I introduce new lines of thought, arguments, opposing ideas even. Not good for the reader. Often more confusing than revealing.

My favorite posts are the ones written with sarcasm. Usually because I'm peeved about something. Usually something having to do with people's reactions to something specific. But there's something to be said about tapping into that kind of energy. While I believe artistry is best expressed in purity, I love a good rant. It's cathartic for me. I'm just more effective. I'm funnier. Smarter.

Or at the very least I'm mildly more entertaining.

Through blogging I've also gotten to know myself better. About what I want to talk about. About what I don't want to talk about. For example, I don't want to talk about the things that I'm doing right now. Why not? Because they're not fit for consumption yet. While in the past I would just blurt things out like a live broadcast, these days my content is delivered on a "broadcast delay". This allows me to formulate my thoughts. This also allows me to preserves the process of discovery in its most pristine state.

I mean, I can't give away all my secrets.

The unfortunate part about this "broadcast delay" is that things sometimes slip through the cracks. With time, everything gets stale. Things that I thought were interesting yesterday don't interest me today. And if they don't interest me today, I don't talk about them. So it's a double-edged sword. By delaying the release of new material, I run the risk of never talking about them at all.

Which is one reason for the decrease in blog posts.

So it's quite the conundrum. I don't want to talk about old news. And I don't want to talk about new news. Which is very limiting as far as what I can and will talk about. Frustrating on many levels because it means less posts and less insight into what I'm doing right now. Which has many repercussions. And all the while I'm wondering whether or not this is worth the preservation of my own discovery process...

Hence this post. It's a post about writing. Not just writing of course but specifically how writing is part of the photography process for me and how I think about the release of material here on this blog. While I should remember that it is a limited audience to whom I write, I can't get over the vulnerability of airing developments before their maturity. Because there's always too much going on and much of it is simply noise. So I aspire to create a blog consisting of more quality and less quantity. More substance, less style. This isn't Instagram where I'm bombarding you with frivolous pictures day in and day out. When I write, I want you to think about what I'm trying to say. Instead of giving you answers, I give you questions. Hopefully questions that will guide you to ask better questions. Questions that define your path.

If you want arbitrary news of stuff that people are doing around the world check out f-stoppers. They're great for that. Or go on the dpreview.com forums or any forums in general. Then you'll get to live vicariously through others doing great things. Or at the very least you'll be entertained by a lot of armchair quarterbacking. Here, my goal is to challenge you to think about your artistry which is not all rainbows and roses. In fact it can be a painful and arduous process. Which is probably why few people actually read this blog. Most people want to be spoon-fed the "answers". But answers are useless if they aren't paired with the right questions. So what I provide here is some philosophy and insight into sustainable processes which hopefully lead to better workflows, etc.

Or at the very least you'll get the rants of a philosophical photographer :)