Apathy in the UK?

ClickMore 📷 said

Double vision. No driving, no moving stuff around, seeing the light settings, seeing the camera let alone the viewfinder.

Sorry to hear that - hope you get better:)

No apathy here, plenty of work around for me.  I have awarded myself a long weekend off for a trip to Belfast to see my dad and visit mum in her care home even though she no longer knows who we are.  Dementia sucks!

hyperphoto thank you, I hope so too. Apart from anything else, the money would come in handy! 😬😆 lol

I worked out that I have ideas for over 30 shoots. I have a list of 18 models I have discussed working with on them ,I have 4 shoots this month, 3 next month and it's looking like I will be busy for the forseeable future.
Getting a tad expensive though.

Edited by Nigel Boulton

Just as it looked like we were getting over the worst of the pandemic, I was looking forward to getting back out into the world and shooting again.

However, since the start of the year I've had a series of health issues that have put me out of action and I have been physically unable to shoot or even think about it. It's kind of funny that I still haven't had covid yet so I am fully expecting to catch it once I return to the population.

Given that I have lost months of productivity, I now have to prioritise other aspects of my life over photography, so it may be a while before I am shooting again.

Sis Benedict said

hyperphoto thank you, I hope so too. Apart from anything else, the money would come in handy! 😬😆 lol

(Y)

hyperphoto thanks. Appreciate it.

She's at a great age where her character is coming through. It's also good practice for fast moving subjects...

I have shoots I would like to do and I'm beginning to discuss.

I also have builders wandering in and out, and no kitchen. Seemingly with no end right now.

Money is an issue, always.

Mainly money - every time I think I have money for a shoot, life seems to have other plans.

So far last month (and on the horizon for this month)... Alternator for my wife's car, excess for insurance policy to fix water damage for a leak (which seems to be the excess for all types of claim added together to make a ridiculous excess level...), and a bill for my car that is likely to be £2000 but with the option of a further £2000 in the not so distant future (Failed part which is one of two. Failed due to age, therefore every probability that the other will fail as a result of age at some point too. Based on my current luck, probably within minutes of paying to get the first one repaired)...

So if anyone has an ABC valve block (or 2) for a C215 '04 CL500 just lying around, that would be great... 

On the other hand, if anyone would be up for a TFP shoot... please get in touch!

Alan Ewart said

No apathy here, plenty of work around for me.  I have awarded myself a long weekend off for a trip to Belfast to see my dad and visit mum in her care home even though she no longer knows who we are.  Dementia sucks!

It really does. :-(

She may not know who you are if challenged to say so, but the sound of your voice, the sound of your laughter, she knows at an instinctive level. So if you sit with someone in her room and talk to them, just so she can be around a conversation, that might resonate a little.

I have an idea that even in this phase of dementia there are parts of her mind that still know those things; they just aren't wired up well enough to the rest that she can respond in the moment. But later on, perhaps after you've left, she might get a glimmer of that, and realise she was visited by family, and be comforted by it. 

Edited by Unfocussed Mike

Crisis of confidence and a kind of fear of repeatedly taking the same shit photos fantastic models and great imagination totally void of skill to achieve my goals

londonjohn said

Crisis of confidence and a kind of fear of repeatedly taking the same shit photos fantastic models and great imagination totally void of skill to achieve my goals

Find someone else who thinks the same thing and is EQUALLY WRONG ;-) and just swap confidence. Subcontract confidence in you to them, have confidence in them on their behalf.

The impostor syndrome that won’t leave and the realisation I can’t put anymore time and practice in to be any good at it 😞

For reasons I won't bore you with now, my wife and I need to be rather careful regarding respiratory infections. I did my last model shoot 2020-03-08 and shut everything down pro tem due to COVID. Amongst other projects, I used the time-out to undertake a complete refurb of the studio. i wanted to pursue my obsession with getting as much stuff off the floor as possible - and avoiding cables draped all over the show. It was quite a lot of work. Amongst many other things, the upgrade included...

• Repairs to concrete floor.
• Stripped cleaned and painted walls, ceilings woodwork etc.
• Industrial flame-retardant "wheel-rated" carpet tiles.
• Dedicated mains feed, c/w built-in DMM to monitor power consumption.
• Isolating switch, so all studio flash can be isolated with the flick of a single switch whilst keeping other kit running.
• Separate feed from large UPS in garage to power our GNU/Linux Media server, security cams, Ethernet switches etc. etc. Powered by 12 electric wheeelchair batteries, it keeps essential kit running for 25-30 minutes in the event of mains power failure.
• Trunking - to get cables off the floor.
• Gigabit Ethernet.
• New more efficient radiators and thermostatic valves.
• Wide-band aerial distribution - uses redundant TV aerial to "listen to the aeroplanes" on my computers - amongst many other things. :-)
• IP security cams.
• Raspberry Pi-4 GNU/Linux Zoneminder and WeeWX security/environment monitoring server - no moving parts an uses just 5 watts!!!
  
  • That came about as a spin-off from another Raspberry n4 project that Gothic Image and Unfocussed Mike were working on at the end of 2020, to whom I am most grateful for their input and encouragement. :-)
• Internal sensor cluster so WeeWX can also monitor, record and analyse temperature and relative humidity in here.
• Radio/IP-controlled RGB-CCT LED lighting.
• Added carefully measured rows of M5 metric captive nuts to paper roll mounting plates so hangers can easily be moved to accommodate 3 metre vinyl instead of conventional 2.72 metre paper.
• Shed loads of 16mm spigots to mount studio lighting.
• Metal-cased, wall-mounted, 12 volt 15 amp + 5 volt 5 amp DC fused distribution board. This to replace all the sodding wallwarts I used to have lying around the place.

A few snaps from just before I started to put everything back...

It's become a fabulous work room, I'm really rather pleased with it. But so far, it's only been used for fixing computers, remotely upgrading customers' servers, photographing electronic kit, writing articles and other other work-related stuff, too dull to list here. Well OK, I I've listened to quite a lot of music in here too lately. The acoustics are really rather good now. But no actual model shoots yet.

However, I'm just about to fix that. After fairly extensive testing of the installation, I have three TF's booked here over the next couple of months, two newish models plus a 21st anniversary shoot of an Italian lass I first shot back in June 2001. Also have several provisional bookings for models I had planned to shoot before the COVID crisis kicked-off.

Edited by waist.it

Shoots - 4 this month and another 5 booked for June. My problem is keeping on top of the editing !!