entropy

It's perhaps only because I'm on deadline at the office, working part of the weekend, not thinking about much else. Maybe it will pass after Tuesday. But there's no particular desire to pick up a camera at the moment. I'm getting residual messages from models, one local and one in San Francisco just recently, and I just can't get real excited about it.

Next week is Burning Man, which I'm looking forward to mostly because my cell phone doesn't work on the playa, and while there's e-mail at center camp, I'm never tempted to use it. For a week, I cut all ties with the outside world. They can't find me. Whatever it is, it has to wait.

This year I'm feeling a desire to bring a few political philosophy books along, and a notebook and a pen, and go back to basics, sort through core beliefs. We'll see how realistic that is, because the heat of the day tends to sap motivation. I don't deal well with extreme heat. And at night... if you've been, you know.

I do bring a camera to this event each year, and my style tends to go even more minimalist than usual. There's so much visual overload, it becomes essential to edit out almost everything, find very precise things of interest. Things, more often than people.

Maybe I'll deal with the models after I return. Right now, September feels like yesterday.

grrrrrr

I'm not in a good mood.

I'm on deadline at the office... that will pass, in a few days. And, someone has just failed... and I use that word consciously... to live up to a commitment they made to me just last week. By doing so, they've caused me a fair amount of extra work and stress at a time when it's not appreciated. And, I've recently had some additional unwanted responsibility dumped on me.

Once I'm past the short-term deadline, a few decisions will be made.

whirlwind

I'm at the Unicorn Cafe, in Evanston Illinois, about a block from the Northwestern University campus. This Chicago trip was a surprise, two days notice. I'm here to help an elderly relative who got into some financial trouble. The summary: 11 credit cards, and a bunch more they sent her which were never activated. She didn't even know how many she had until I asked. She tripped some credit report threshold, or else the companies are having cash flow trouble, and they all wanted to be paid at once. If I hadn't intervened, they would have grabbed her meager bank account, left a 76-year old lady with no money at all, no way to pay her phone bill, no way to buy food. They had pressured her into giving them bank routing numbers. What was in that account would have covered about one percent of the total.

Is anyone still wondering why there's a major financial crisis in this country?

For what it's worth, American Express was the easiest to deal with, very accommodating, very easy to work with. Chase Bank was the worst; transferred three times and still couldn't get a straight answer. Apparently the front-line people aren't trusted to make decisions, and the hierarchy is tangled and inefficient.

Oh, and Chase was charging her 28.99 percent annual interest. The prime rate is currently 5 percent... why is this legal? Even if it is, why is Chase charging nearly 30 percent?

I pulled my account from them more than two years ago, after they made three screwups in a few months. One wonders how inefficient companies stay in business....

Anyway, it's pretty much handled now, and I may even be able to get a shoot in this weekend before flying home. I'm back to traveling light, one 12.8 pound bag (just weighed it) with my laptop (4.8 pound 12" Powermac) and two Leicas. No heavy DSLR this time.

why?

What are the reasons we create our art?

Is it the creative process itself? Would we be satisfied if we created and walked away, if no one ever saw the art? Last summer I created a rock sculpture somewhere in the mountains of Lake County, stacked them into a mini-monument; certainly by now they've fallen, been scattered by winds or aninals, The process of creating was still satisfying. Is it art if no one sees it?

Or do we need the reactions... the praise, shock, whatever... of others? Must we show, get feedback, to be fulfilled?

Or must we profit from our "art" ???

I don't know the answer yet. Maybe there are many answers, varying with the questioner, with the time, with the place.

It comes up because of a question from another, on what to do about unauthorized non-commercial web use... if anything.

Must we protect our "property" ? (such a western concept, property).

Or is it better to maximize the number of viewers, sometimes with the unsolicited "help" of others?

Does it matter?