Photography I Created
On the Sea of Cortez, near La Paz, today
I can handle my parents being disappointed in me, my wife, children and friends. All of your disappointments will come and go.
But man, letting Duolingo down, this cuts deep.
Notes for my gravestone
“This is not a verification status; it’s an Important Blue Internet Checkmark, which in 2022 is just as legit. Also the Important Blue Internet Checkmark may turn into a bunch of crabs at any time 🦀”
Day 30 in Mexico: Still haven’t joined a drug cartel. Fish tacos are amazing. Send coffee.
So apparently the Commonwealth marriage celebrants portal and database was hacked … just a program run by the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s department …
Missed the eclipse, but caught sunrise this morning
We’re heading back to Hawaii in mid-January and it got me thinking about the last time I was there and I created a marriage ceremony across the bay from Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler house.
I’ll never know if Steve witnessed me in my element on Maui, but they’ve never officially said what I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing was about …
Anyway, this is just your regular reminder that I make epic marriage ceremonies from Ipswich to Iceland and everywhere between.
Apple Frames is the ultimate shortcut that most Apple computer users don't know about
Over seven years since Workflow first graced the Apple ecosystem - since then being acquired by Apple and renamed Shortcuts which makes it so easy to Google for information about - it’s still a little-known tool on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
My favourite shortcut - it’s the ultimate shortcut - created by the ultimate Shortcuts guy, Federico Viticci at Macstories, is Apple Frames. The shortcut has just been updated to its third version and is ever more powerful and works even better.
You feed the shortcut one or more screenshots you’ve taken on the device, and it inserts the screenshot into an Apple device frame, so the resultant image carries more context. Examples beneath of some quick single screenshots, and three iPhone screenshots shared together in one image.
“Chinese restaurant”
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry. Them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye.
Wondering about Unsplash and why my recent work isn't resonating
I’ve been uploading to Unsplash for almost five years, and people always ask why I would submit my work to a website that gives it away mostly for free?
I consider Unsplash my photography mentor and university. Because ultimately, I believe, that good work resonates with people. Firstly it has to resonate with you, but secondly with someone else. It doesn’t have to be the most popular work in the history of work, but a successful artwork resonates with at least as many people as that created it, in my humble opinion.
I started uploading in early 2018.
So back to Unsplash, I’ve shared 505 photos that have been viewed over 152 million times, and downloaded and used over 800 thousand times, making me one of the “1000 most seen contributors ever” which is lovely.
A problem though is my recent work. Work that is arguably better, shot on better cameras, with better lenses, and better colour grading … because I’ve learned and gotten better with better gear.
Of my most viewed photos “of all time” only two photos from the last year are in my top 70 images. After 70 they start appearing a little, but inside the top 70, number 69 is a boring drone shot, and number 8 was an outlier. Luna had woken up early so the two of us wanted to go watch the sun rise, and we both took our cameras.
Obviously the longer a work has been available, the more views and downloads it can get. Secondly, as Unsplash is online longer, I’m assuming more photographers are uploading more work, so the pool gets larger, and the available views and downloads may lessen.
When or why would I leave Unsplash?
I used to think I’d leave Unsplash when I reached 1 million downloads. But I think the truer statement is that I’d stop giving my work away for free, when it resonated with enough people who wanted to pay for it.
How do I reach that number? How do I find those people? I have no idea. The only thing I know to do today is step one, to create, step two and three and four can’t even happen without step one.
Money is nice, but making work that resonates with people, work that makes you and I feel something. That’s like a little bit nicer.
I’ll leave you with my most popular piece, a photo from a backroad before sunrise in Queenstown, New Zealand, shot on my old original DJI Mavic Pro, with just enough light for it to be a sharp and in focus image.
Just a boy and his favourite seventy to two-hundred millimetres of glass photographed by another boy and his medium format film camera, Jack Fitz at Playa Los Cerritos at sunset.
John Ruskin in a letter to C. E. Norton, 4th Nov 1860:
“I find Penguins at present the only comfort in life. One feels everything in the world so sympathetically ridiculous, one can’t be angry when one looks at a Penguin.”
I’m reflecting on the recent Optus hack today as I wonder what to do with my phone number I’ve had for 20 odd years.
So much of modern society needs a phone number to work and to identify us.
New services register with a phone number and text message verification code, trusting that only you would have your phone number or SIM card.
When I turn off my Australian SIM card in Mexico iMessage warns me the clock has started.
It’s kind of ridiculous that something as fragile as a phone number is the backbone of identity.
I think do Dave Winer’s ten year old blog post proposing DNS as a form of ID, but I feel like that would exclude so many normies.
Funnily enough, in many parts of Mexico the police will take your number plate or drivers license back to the police station as that’s the closest the national identity systems don’t really exist here.
How are we supposed to verify who we are? Maybe a blue tick will help?
Just going on the record before November 2022 hits to say that I had a blue tick before it wasn’t cool.
That’s right, mum. I was verified before @tealou.
Is this mural on the toilet entry wall about menstruation?
