Over the past 4-6 months, off and on, I’ve been having ongoing conversations with my new best friend, my Urologist, about plumbing issues for senior men of a certain age- prostrate cancer, peeing volume, peeing frequency, erection consistency, the list goes on. Blah, blah blah.
Damn. Shit. Fuck. In that order!
I thought I would be better at getting older. Come to find out, I’m not. Not at all. Can someone stop the clock please?
On my last visit, the doctor asked me, straight up (no pun intended), what I wanted to accomplish in our time together?
“Hmmmm”, I thought to myself.
I quipped briskly back, “Give me a single-dose pill, that will immediately work and solve all my manhood and aging health anxieties”.
I was kidding of course. Sorta?
The doctor looked at me, with a smile, and said gently, “It doesn’t work like this”.
Duh.
I no sooner got these sarcastic words out of my mouth, than I was reminded how I hate hearing the same, in the classroom, from beginner photographer types, who want the no-pain-but-big-gain solution to improving their craft.
They want, metaphorically, a single-dose pill, a magic elixir, a silver bullet, a rabbit-in-the-hat solution that will, magically and quickly, turn their shitty photos into sensational ones.
In photography, just like life, sadly, it doesn’t work like this.
The ones that try to teach you differently are the ones trying to sell you something and claim that “their pill” is the secret sauce to all? Ignore such claims.
Granted, bullshit aside, there are “Magic pills” for taking more regular, casual snapshots, memes, and such.
But, unfortunately, there are no “Magic pills” for making, consistently good, photographs, frame after frame, day after day, year after year.
The good news is that it is possible to create iPhone photos that don’t suck.
The bad news is that getting better at photography takes time, effort, energy, focus, discipline, and effort.
I wish there was a magic pill solution to improving photography.
There isn’t.
No panacea. No cure-all. No universal remedy
No miracle drip. No nostrum.
Just, plain ole’ fashion…blood. sweat and tears.
You have to be committed to marginal improvements.
Commit to the long-term prescription path, not the magic, single-dose, here-today-gone-tomorrow solution
I don’t have prostate cancer. That’s the great news.
The not-so-great-news is that I have a lot of work to do in this department.
I’m ready and willing. Let’s go. heads down. Full-throttle. Petal to the metal.
I’m ready to rise up (bad choice of words:))
Forgive my frankness and harshness. Here’s your Magic pill. Get your ass out of bed. Every damn day. Put one foot in front of the other. And breath. When you fuck up (and you will), try again, until you get it right. Forgive yourself. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Own your shit. Be grateful and thankful, for everything. You are your own magic. Magic lives inside you, not outside you.
Click.
Jack
