March 9, 2016, I published a blog post which reflecting today I handled poorly. It was in response to a weekly photo challenge on the subject of harmony. Revising the post I think it is a touch better. I like the photo I am substituting for the older one, a bit risqué but I feel a better photo.
This week’s photo challenge is to illustrate harmony, or what gives the feeling of harmony. Today I took another photo, adjustments in mind, that I thought would better indicate how I feel about what the idea harmony means to people.
I took a similar photo Wednesday, October 18, 2017, to the one I took March 9, 2016, when I had less experience. The people drinking were long gone when I noticed what they’d left behind, but we’re not hard on visitors, as we understand they’re mostly out to have a good time.
The problem is that people often grieve at the cemetery at the top of the hill. If they were there at the same moment we were, I suppose we might rush them away, but it has never happened that way.
After a long winter in my part of the land, it is beginning to be warm, quite encouraging. I thought this day, as many people are feeling relief, harmonious. This is the idea behind my photo.
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Though the colors of the photo are sedated and muted, we have a wonderful little creek there, a hint of solace and it spoke to me the idea harmony.
Many times we seek harmony and want it as something other than sweet music, or the power, however fleeting it can be, of a prayer.
Do you take photos? Do you see this photo and agree and disagree that it hints at harmony? Feel free to let me know with a “like” or a “comment.”
To be honest, I took this photo about nine in the morning Wednesday, before I’d read Krista Stevens essay on the idea of “prolific.” I’d known, however, that a photo challenge would be published again that day, and I took photos with the idea they might fit into the challenge, or otherwise find use.
Prolific is a word that suggests kind of an outpouring of artistic work, like writing, painting, or music. A talented person who is prolific and is known for the creative mind they have often led the way with what they contribute to their field of endeavor. The best-known people who are successful and enduring are often found to be that way because they are both hardworking and adept.
It’s been a long, long winter, and even this morning here it’s quite cold. I guess it is daunting that the conditions are so adverse, but taking photos for fun is hard for me to resist and I think this one is possibly along the lines what Krista invited this week with the challenge, a photo of water and snow in front of the church where I help with its operations.
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
It has been disbanded since 2006, but it is pretty to the eye. It is unusual that snow is still on the ground in mid-April.
The reason I spend weekly time at the church, other than having an interest in religion, is that there’s a not-for-profit of which I am the junior member caring for the cemetery which lies behind the church. That’s where I apply my skillset, including photography. It happens to be a benign setting for shooting photographs.
The wind stirring the water on the ground struck me that I might get a good photo if I tried to capture it–I am a little sorry it isn’t a touch better, but the sky was a little dark even though it was morning. When spring finally breaks properly, photos will be better.
I also have a nicer camera available to me now–I will need a little practice. I just don’t want to take it into the outdoors much what with the cold temperatures. It will lend me a new mode, so to speak, of versatility when I do get to apply it.
I am also including a photo I took after reading Krista’s challenge–I took it Thursday. I photographed a spot on a local trail for similar reasons to why I took the photo of the water puddle in front of the church. Again, with skies like we have, it is hard to get a photo that isn’t too gloomy, but I don’t think it is too bad.
Thursday, April 19, 2018
I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the WordPress photo challenges–they are open to all and they are easy to join. It is an advantage both to be able to think what other bloggers who enjoy photography are doing, and from the standpoint of wanting to speak in blog posts on WordPress, the daily prompts are likewise helpful to getting something tagged and published.
I feel it is a good idea, given that my chief aim on WordPress is to have fun, to look at the daily prompts now and then and to read the photo challenges. We’re a real-life not-for-profit, but there are no rules or restrictions how to participate in blogging despite the requirement to do work in the offline world.
I am not exactly prolific, I don’t think, although I am dedicated. Like many, many others, I enjoy blogging and I feel it is valuable to be “aligned” with what other bloggers might be doing or thinking. I appreciate any feedback I receive from people who see my blog.
When my maternal grandmother was in her golden years, she tried to assure me, “Don’t worry!”
It hasn’t been that bad.
Today’s WordPress Daily Prompt is the word, “fret,” and it’s a timely choice by the folk at WordPress.
What’s being outlined by writers on tech around the world in the news and elsewhere is big trouble… the Cambridge Analytics scandal dealt with Mark Zuckerberg decimated trust in Facebook and cost Zuckerberg a fortune. For someone like me, maintaining a tiny little Facebook business page to assist with the operations and goals of our likewise tiny little nonprofit, I am sure I am characteristically flabbergasted the same as so many other people struggling to market their brand on Facebook in the same boat.
It is potentially back to the drawing board for many.
Meanwhile Twitter, beginning the twenty-third of March, put into effect a change in policy that restricts marketers from tweeting the identical thing across multiple Twitter accounts, which is less a problem for me personally as I only have one Twitter account, but which is intended to scale back the impact that spammers and the like can have if they’re active on several Twitter accounts. For example, there is far less risk that trending topics on Twitter will be launched by the dubious and artificial method of conflated Twitter accounts bringing to prominence a devious trend.
It is nonsense, though, because honest Twitter users who make Twitter part of their business model have far less freedom to market their brand. It also comes on top of several months of other changes to Twitter that consistently kept people who love Twitter up in arms, like notably extending the famed hundred and forty character limit for a tweet to twice that, two hundred and eighty characters.
The little tweet was suddenly full on birdsong, and now, counterintuitively, restrictions are in place so that the social noise on Twitter is slowed down considerably.
Photographer: Mahkeo
My little blog defaults to options to share a post on both Facebook and Twitter, and now both social media giants are mired in an unpredictable morass that quiets down an outcry that until this year seemed like just a normal part of using the social media leaders.
Could be time to shop around.
Twitter finally made a quarterly profit, it is worth noting, so the changes effected under the leadership of Jack Dorsey may continue to prove effective. For Facebook, on the other hand, the steep increase in distrust of the formerly reputable social media giant will play out a drama that will see many Facebookers transmuting their internet profiles elsewhere, or at least becoming far more aware of what can happen to data once it is committed to the Internet.
Photographer: Flo Karr
What’s happened with Facebook is only one page in the news-intensive deconstruction of all the trouble the United States is seeing given their leadership is so unsteady at a time when a strong technology industry is necessary for friendly waters in the face of the potential for major change in the near future when many players want as much control as possible over the cyber landscape.
There is every reason to fret. Above and beyond prayer, it would be advisable to equip yourself with as much information as possible to ride the tide back to shore. It is exciting to observe, and if you have a tidy niche from which to beam the perspective you want people to take, I’d recommend you do it with dedication and surety.
If you’ve read today’s post, I thank you. Any like, follow or comment is welcome.
My dad and I began work on our not-for-profit venture in the year 2012 (a year widely prophesized to be the very last of life on Earth). 2012-2013 was our formative year as a nonprofit.
I took photos that helped define what we’re doing. This week’s photo challenge from Jen at WordPress is an essay on awakening. I thought I would show a formative photo from Louth United Church, which disbanded in 2006, when it came into our hands and how it was that first summer we were there.
Wednesday, July 03, 2013 1:41 PM
In the summertime what’s probably our chief task is to keep the grass cut. I try to fill other roles to illustrate to my dad, who’s senior in our operation, that I’m worth keeping in the picture, shoes like SMM and web designer. None of it is too hard for me, but not everybody would want to involved keeping care of a little cemetery. There are numerous of them everywhere.
It is extremely disheartening what’s happened with Facebook and the latest privacy scandal, and even the nonsense on Twitter is likely discouraging. It is as if the only resort is prayer.
I have heard of the Christian adage, “Everything is as it should be.”
I am game to look at some of the posts other bloggers do in response to the WordPress essays on photography. Some of them are devastatingly good! It is an invigorating hobby.
Businesses require blogs, but I am only nominally tying this blog to the practical operations we do at the cemetery. I am mostly held accountable to my dad. I realize we should be both transparent and authentic, and I feel we are, but also genuine in a touch of passion for our venture. It is pleasing for me to share a look at it with the outside world.
You’re kind of lucky if life’s been luminescent for you. That’s today WordPress daily prompt, the word luminescent.
Luminescent is a word that has a lot of connotations. I can think of a few with ease.
You’re kind of lucky if life’s been luminescent for you.
Think of the stellar skyscape–the myth that when the moon is full, lunacy runs rampant.
Do you like monster movies? You probably know that the wolfman transforms in the luminescence of the full moon.
This month’s full moon is the twenty-ninth and the thirtieth. Tonight’s moon is a waning crescent.
Belief in the power of the full moon can be a devilish outlook, which I’d assert is unfortunate in the season of Easter. We should be celebrating spring.
I am a Canadian, and while I live in the southern parts of the great nation of Canada, it is here, you might say, a short growing season. I’m certainly envious of the good fortune of people living in more idyllic parts of the world.
The work I do, year-round, is to carry out operations in a small not-for-profit cemetery (in a junior capacity), and at times I see luminescence when I am there (usually accompanied solely by my dad). Effects of that kind can be creepy, but there is often a benign atmosphere there as we care for the grounds and for the church. It is generally serene.
Just past Maple Lawn Cemetery
I’m inclined to see luminescent as peaceful, which is what the cemetery really is. I know about grief and I know people go to cemeteries to pray for the departed, but it doesn’t need to be an uncomfortable experience. When it’s luminescent, I find the ambiance comforting.
You know I’m expected to be solemn. I’m not one for a pint with the lads, shall we say. A stab at art or writing or pastimes of that kind in a state of mind that’s luminescent is apt to be rubbish.
You have to approach creative endeavors from a point of view that’s solid. At least do your editing sober. It is up to you, all the same.
Jackson Pollack, for example, painted while very drunk, I believe. Something he said on the subject is
Bums are the well-to-do of this day. They didn’t have as far to fall.
If I look at something I’ve posted or photographed or the like and it’s terrible, I wonder what my poor beleaguered mind was set upon. It is easily unflattering. More frankly, you can make a fool of yourself quite readily. I know I have.
What I think, though, on whether you’re proven a fool is that mistakes happen–shit happens. One takeaway from college that I have is a theatre axiom.
A little foolishness is genius. Too much foolishness is madness.
I am not sure you should repeat that.
Youngsters if they’re inclined to creativity should have their own time to discover what’s art and what’s merely luminescent. Time really does speed and any sane person should fully know the weight of what’s in store in the decades of adulthood and never worry about how it is luminescence plays on the heart and on the mind.
I know it’s less than profound, but you can get the same impact on yourself from drinking a basic coffee and watching a good film, like The Shawshank Redemption for example. I don’t think it’s any better to probe personal depths and pour it out to feel your art than it is to passively and alertly watch something like a good film bringing with you a philosophical bent.
Don’t tear yourself apart. The full moon will rise every single month of your life.
I struggled to find satisfaction in a post I wrote June 15, 2017, although by now I’m better at the task, I feel.
The WordPress Daily Prompt for that day was the word “Total,” and what for me was the “total” mind-blowing news was that Twitter was undertaking a major step on route to what a lot of Twitter users hoped would mean success for the social media platform. That sounds dramatic, but Twitter did become visibly different. As German social media and blogging expert Susanna Gebauer reported again, on February 28, 2018, it could have meant the end of Twitter, or instead improved chances of success as a social media platform. (Last updated: 2019/11/26) In short, I wonder will it turn out like Myspace, or Yahoo!, or will it keep its status as an enjoyable user service.
I am obviously on Twitter and I enjoy it. Look here:
What’s more, I am sharing links both to an article which explains the change which happened, and also to Susanna’s post which explains where Twitter was coming from with the change, on the twenty-third of March, to restrict Twitter users with several accounts from automating the same tweet more than once.
I myself slowed down on how I was tweeting by dramatically slowing down how often I would twee. It would be a gigantic bummer if Twitter failed, and I continue to hope Twitter stays alive and well.
If you’re not on Twitter, maybe you should consider joining. It can be a lot of fun. I am curating this post to improve its accuracy, to provide Susanna Gebauer’s February 28 blog post, and because if you do find this note relevant, you’re welcome to, “like,” “follow,” and/or “comment” this blog post.
Thank you for noticing, and all the best to you in your personal life, and in business.
The WordPress community provides a daily prompt to get bloggers thinking about what they can write and post. There is also a weekly photo challenge, accompanying the daily prompts, a weekly essay that invites photographers to put a new photo for others interested in the daily prompts to see.
This week’s essay, written by Ben Huberman, has the title “smile.” Ben says to illustrate a moment of joy.
For my birthday this year, the day of March I celebrate my birthday, my parents got me a nice new camera to supplant the one I was shooting with for years, often photos to show what we were doing at the not-for-profit for which I help provide operations. Even though it is already April, I am still learning how to shoot with the new camera, building on the knowledge I already had with the point-and-shoot model that was quite a few years old, several years anyway. I am finding out I am not as good a photographer as I thought, but I hope to improve– https://www.facebook.com/LouthUnited
A friend reminded me of times past when she showed me photos on her phone of a gentleman who was a good friend to me when he was alive, a man in his sixties named John. In the last several months of his life, we were close and he did me a few favors by getting me things for my home that I needed.
He was proud he was good at “finding” things if you asked him, and he knew for example that the Salvation Army thrift store discarded items which they didn’t feel they could sell to anyone and that he could grab the odd item of value that they didn’t see the value in. And he knew that sometimes neighbors in the complex would put out items for the garbage, which occasionally still had value in them for the purpose of reuse.
I do a lot of my work on a Windows 10 PC, but I never had speakers for it until the day John brought me a pair of computer speakers that positively thrilled me, speakers that both reminded me of the past when I was younger and more exuberant, and in the age of Windows 10, speakers, that gave me the ability to play music with Spotify, for example. It was the best of two worlds.
Of course, I smiled–I took a photo today of John’s gift to get me thinking music. You can see the speakers–and I don’t think the fact that they’re an older model means they’re “rusty.”
They sound nice. I’m not an audiophile, but music helps with a bum mood.
You can’t say the gear’s rusty yet
You can see a lamp, as well, which true to form John got for me the same way, picking it up when it was headed for discard. John was real and he was cool and he knew how he could help me out.
I shouldn’t overlook my parents’ help, either–the first photo I took with the new camera, when I was still literally learning how to turn it on, was a photo of another lamp, which lights my way to this day, and my favourite chair, and believe it or not, it was John who outfitted me with both of these.
A reading chair
Of course I miss John and everything he contributed, which was as about life lessons as about material goods. There is an adage that people come into our life for a day, a season or a lifetime, and if you see life in those terms you can enjoy gains that simply wouldn’t have been there if you never trusted.
Findingenvirons is a name I devised to capture an interest in a kind of abstract engineering, to be an engineer without the baggage of the hard work and expertise that goes with being a true engineer. It’s a name I use for Twitter and for WordPress.
Today’s WordPress Daily Prompt is the word explore and by labeling my blog and Twitter account findingenvirons to indicate engineer is to indicate explorer. In the days before Windows 10’s Microsoft Edge browser, you could take to the Internet as it’s most commonly understood with Microsoft Internet Explorer, and my compound word findingenvirons is kind of a hangover from those days, pointing to a territory of the imaginary kind.
You know what Pathfinder is, the tabletop RPG that brings players together to collectively invent fantasy adventures designed by rolling dice? That’s kind of how I intend findingenvirons to be, too, an interest in how it is to show an interest in gaming, however, as things were when tabletop Dungeons & Dragons ruled the RPG market.
My game plan is to draw inspiration from the WordPress Daily Prompts, so that I am in check with other WordPress bloggers who want to be thinking of the same concept, and to put a finger on a fledgling interest in the weekly WordPress Photo Challenges, when they inspire me personally, so that my blog becomes like a WordPress pamphlet, not unlike the blogs of others but also with a unique fingerprint that it is made by my hand.
I’m in operations at a little not-for-profit and anyone doing that kind of thing or in business for themselves ought best to have a blog. Mine’s an amateur operation, but I feel it’s working and I’m not sure I need to grow it in the present.
Maybe in the future, but for now, I want to let it spread its little roots at its own pace. I see the urgency in others, but I don’t feel it for myself.
The Myth of the Independent Blogger and How I Learned to Love It 