All Good Things Do Have to End

It's true what they say, "All good things do have to end.” It's a sad reality of life but we have to deal with endings, even the end of our very own existence.  I say this today reading the final strip of a web comic I have been following for over five years and the sadness as well as the joy knowing it has ended.  It has been my great pleasure to have followed the final journey of it characters and in part being part of their lives though I am sad that there will no longer be another strip it was wonderfully unwrapped up in a way that even I didn't expect.  The artis and the written should be proud on how he wrapped up his saga and the memories it will leave with his fans for years to come. 

Sometimes we have to let go of the things we care for and let them. simply end. That is the afflictions I see a lot with the comic industry today.  The simple lack of the willingness to let go of their iconic character and finally let them past to memory is a failure I see in the comic industry these days..  It's become a common group to say a favorite superhero or villain will never stay dead for long simply because the producers don't want to let go of what has been making them money for so long.  And that is what is making most comics simply stale.

They no longer want to take risk in something new and exciting that could truly rekindle the fires of fandom and bring in a younger readership.  How many relaunches of Batman or Superman have we seen through the years?  How unkillable have the mighty Wolverine have become? 

These characters have entertained us for yeas but it comes a time to let them go and star something new and inspiring.  The web cartoonist I previously referee to has inspired le to focus more on on my own creations and other creative endeavors and I do thank him for that.  I hope that one day to being my own characters to life and as he has done have the courage to let them go when their stories have finally been told in full.

All good things do have to end someday but they don't have to be forgotten ever.

The New Normal

            We all have different definitions on what "normal" is but basically it's the day to day habit of our lives.  Recently I have just made a major change in my life and so have to get use to the new normal which is harder than it sounds.  No one like change in their life but it's something we all faced.

            For five years I had a set routine for my mornings, at work and for the period between work and when I inedible pass out so I can repeat for the next day.  That routine linger works and so I have to change it and doing so is harder than most people think.  People get set in their way very easily and it is very hard to change those ways.  in the morning now I struggle to wake up a simple 30 minutes earlier than I did before and something so simple sound should be easy but it isn't.  I am so use to those 30. minutes of extra sleep my body literally fights back causing me to literally dragging myself out of the bed.  What was a simple drive to work is now far more complex since I now have to get use to a different flow of traffic altogether since I now head a different direction. 

            Once I get use to the "New Normal" it will become far simpler but till then I guess I just have to fight through it.

Post Pure Spec and Lesson Learned

Okay this is really post but I only now getting back to posting.

            Near the end of last year I was fortunate enough to find time to attend Pure Speculation and was able to indulge my growing photography hobby.  For those people who are unaware of it Pure Speculations is the local Science fiction and Fantasy Con in which focuses mainly on the genre of Sci-Fi and fantasy wither they be literary for or illustrated.  As part of this event they old several seminars/panels covering a verity of topic from self publishing, the history of cartoons and even the science behind comic super powers.  And as with any convention focusing on pop culture there were chances to take a lot of picture of people in costumer, merchant table as well as other fun things.

            For me I went to the con with my DSLR with the intention of practicing my photography and taking the opportunity to try my hand in event photography.   This was something totally new to me since I never took it upon myself to shoot with a specific goal  in mind before and neither do I have much experience in event photography and I learned so much doing so. 

            When reviewing my photos I realized I didn’t really capture the meaning or spirit of the event.   Even though I did get some great shot of people in costumes, I missed out of several great chances to tell the story of Pure Speculations and the people that attended.  I focused too much on the people in costumes and not on other things, such as the new location, the merchant table and their wares, how the other attendees were interacting with each other, or even how they setup and tear down for the con would have showed more what Pure Speculations was.

            One of my best photos was a test shot I took of one booth’s merchandise and it when I was looking at it I realized I missed out telling a story.   I didn’t even think about taking picture of other things till it was too late.

            There were other things I learned while taking pictures such as the importance of light, having an external flash and depth of field, all of which I never really thought to much about till shooting at Pure Speculations.     The light wasn’t the best specially for someone, like myself, whose lenses didn’t have a low aperture so I was forced to use my external flash and the modifiers I had on hand. Now luckily I had a soft box that could easily go over my flash but at times it was too bright and gave a burn out feeling to the picture. Now I learned the hard of using the soft box and reflecting the lights of the walls and ceiling which did help but I wished I didn’t have to use it.  Having a flash in your eye being near one is never nice.

            Another thing I learned was depth of field and focusing which is damn hard in low light and hand holding.  As people know the lower your aperture the shallower your depth of field, well I didn’t realize how much that can affect a picture till trying to do a group photo at the contest.  Because of the lighting and hand holding the camera I couldn’t get my shutter speed as low as I wanted so I set the f stop as low as it could go.  The results were photos that were mainly out of focus and poor quality.  I should have use a tripod or my monopod for those shots so I could have had a lower shutter and kept a good f stop for the shot.  Other possible solution to this could have involved wireless flashes set up around the stage to add the additional light or just gone with under exposure and then fixed that in lightroom or photoshop.

            What I do intend is take advantage of lenses rental so I can have a good fast lenses and enjoy trying out a new piece of glass.  I also hope to take advantage of off camera flash to see if I can better shape the light.  Either I will need someone to hand hold the flash or have a small tripod with me that I can easily use there.  

            Hopefully I will keep this all in mind when next Pure Speculations 2012 comes along and have had additional practice with my camera and simple photography skills.

Finding The Time

            One of the greatest difficulties in my life is finding the time to do everything I want to do.  I have multiple creative projects that I want to get underway but with the day job as well as part night school and the homework that entails I simply can’t invest as much time as I would like to in any given projects.  Among the projects I want to get underway is some world building for some of the literary work I want to be doing, some photography projects that my friend have proposed,  advancing the drawing project I wish to use to teach myself how to draw as well as trying to get in the habit of blogging.  On top of all that I still have my day job and school work still needs to be done.  So life is very busy but I think we all can agree with that.

            Most people have suggested prioritize you tasks and for the most part that can work for people but the issues is when the work life develop priorities it assumes should over ride other priorities such as school.   I have had case where I had to choose between going to class for the night or staying at work to meet a dead line.  In some rare cases  where I had to sleep at work for a few hours before driving home since I was to tired to drive and I’ve pulled 18 shifts at work on consecutive days to meet a dead line.  After the fifth day I had to have someone drive me home since I couldn’t safely drive.

            I jokily comment to my friends that I should have kept my camping gear at work and just live there.  It would save me on rent, I have access to a fridge and as long as I make it to the gym I can still keep clean.  Hell with my camping grill to cook food here it might be better then home since I don’t have to pay for power and the internet here.

            I understand that with working full time and school I won’t have as much free time as I would like but I still would like to find time to do the things I enjoy.  It came down to setting limits to everything including to work.  I had to limit how I let work dominate my life since I will not allow myself to fail my classes to make my bosses happy.  I also had to limit myself on the time and scope of my creative projects.  Even how I go about completing assignment for school had to be limited.

            It all comes down to how a person allow event or situations control one’s life.  I am now trying to set limits on the amount of time I dedicate to any one aspect of my life. Hopefully doing that will allow me to be a little more productive as well get on doing the projects I want to do.  Only time will truly tell if it works.

Here is My Soap Box

            It seems like everyone and their pet have a blog, blogs that cover across various of subjects from advances in technology to the events of their individual lives.  Since so many people and animals have one I have finally decided to join the masses flooding the internet with my very own rants about things that I believe are important. 

            I understand that I will only be one voice among countless others and will mostly likely be drowned out by the combined noise polluting cyber space but I don’t need to be heard.  The goal is to simply have an creative outlet, to challenge to critically thinking and writing as well as to get use to writing on various of subjects.   I hope by doing this I will improve upon all those things and encourage me to do more writing. Besides it’s just be plain fun to rant about things and who doesn’t enjoy a good ranting session from time to time.

            I will freely admit I am no expert, far from it, but like everyone else I do have the capacity to critically review everything I hear, see, read and reflect upon them. I am simply giving my interpretation on topics I wish to address and may be in error from to time to based on the source material I am used.  I am simply human and like all human beings I can and will make mistakes from time to time.

            So world, here is my soap box, here is me standing atop it shouting among the crowd seeing who will hear me.