Things I'm Learning

(It snowed this morning!  This has nothing to do with this post, other than, it's snowing as I write this!  Snow snow snow!) 

Well, I post a list of my 2013 to dos and then I take off, right?  How annoying.  Let me assure you that no one was more annoyed last week than me.  I have spent the last 5 days with a computer that is out of working order, and had a few moments of tears and despair, (like when I thought that I had lost every single picture, document, download, and file from the last 4 years.)  But I hadn't.

I had a few triumphs last week as well.  36 hours in a row(ish) of fussing with this or that on the computer, taking cues on what to do next via Facebook chat, text messages, emails, internet searches, and forms from the Apple store finally put me back in working order.  Whew.  It turns out that I can install a hard drive, and reconfigure, and install, and setup, and move a bunch of crap around until it is all in happy working order.  

That said, I don't think I'll ever do it again.  Sometimes money saved is not worth the headache, or the emotional torment of 2 days of constantly fluctuating between "It's working!" and "It's ruined!"  But still, there has been learning.

1.) Turning my brain off turned my brain on.

Seriously.  Giving the creative parts of my brain "the month off" has actually kicked them up a notch.  I'd been thinking "don't make anything, just do photography stuff" and then a window dressing solution just popped into my mind with things I already had on hand, I made it, and I love it.  It was a bit like how you can't remember something when you're trying, but when you're falling asleep it suddenly is there.  Kind of weird, but great.  I hope this happens in some other places this month too.

2.) I don't know what I'm doing.

I have been so eager to take a photography course just so that I could learn what I've been doing wrong.  But it's still hard, particularly when there are certain "rules" that I've been following that I shouldn't have been following.  But I posted a question on the wall the other day and was like, "Wait a minute.  I thought that…" and it turns out that a few other people had this question too.  And the teacher really liked this image of mine, and I'm happy with that.  Particularly since my computer was dead to me all week when I needed it, and I just grabbed this one and two others from my camera, quickly edited them and threw them onto my class' Facebook page.  Whew.  But next week starts the very critical critiques, and I'll be hunkering down with some chocolate beforehand to nurse my poor wounded ego.  But I kind of can't wait.  How weird is that?

3.) I like what I like, and that's okay too.

After the kids were down last night I was flipping through my pictures and came across this one of Hannah, which I remember taking and thinking "that's my shot."  I also thought, "the teacher won't like this one."  Not that it's bad, because it's not, but because it wasn't what she was trying to get us to do.

But I still love it.  Chris saw it and immediately started talking about Hannah and I did too.  It's the type of picture that perfectly captures one half of her personality.  A moment where she is all sweetness and chubby cheeks and a kissable neck.  These are the moments when I'm so glad that I have my camera around, and I know how to use it well enough, if not perfectly.  

I know that I'm a perfectionist and a bit of a people pleaser, but I'm aiming to be refined by my class, not completely changed.  Or am I just being preemptively stubborn in the anticipation of critique?  I'm not sure.  

Either way, wish me luck.  :)
Linking to Miscellaneous Monday.