There is a mandatory Photoshop contest where I work. (For those who are unaware, I work at IUPUI, staffing computer labs part-time.) Part of my job is learning to use various programs, so that I will carry these skills out into the workplace and also so that I can assist people while I still work here. That is all well and good, but I disagree with how I am being asked to prove my skills.
I am supposed to create, in Photoshop, a TV-show related poster that is humorous and includes at least one face taken from another photo. Essentially, what they are asking me to do is to sabotage my own work by making it ugly. I love photography. I love capturing an image and allowing it to speak for itself. If it does not look quite the way I had hoped, I will alter the photo so that it looks just right.
This is something totally different. I am being asked to put together a Frankenstein’s monster of an image. Some image that has been hacked and attached and pasted from multiple sources. Something that does not look like anything nature would produce or that I would be proud of.
Given the nature of the assignment, there really is no way to make the end product conform to my aesthetic tastes. I will simply have to bite the bullet and endure the self-imposed shame of having something that blood-curdlingly ugly attached to my name.
I have been wracking my brain for blog topics. I suppose the best way to go about writing an interesting blog post is to actually go out and get some real-world experiences. Then come back to the computer and write about them and reflect on them. The problem for me is that I do not really get outside the house very often.
Maybe I am wrong. Maybe all I need to keep pumping out 2-3 posts a week is just a steady stream of information from the web. Of course, people are so interconnected on the internet, that it becomes an echo chamber, where the same five ideas and ten stories bounce from person to person. I do not wish to become like that. I try to develop my own opinions about various tech and political issues.
I can definitely see how getting out and experiencing the world first hand could potentially help me to become a better writer and a better thinker. I do not believe it can be healthy to simply get all of my information and opinions from the web. Taking into account all of the interconnectivity that goes on online, the web can be thought of as a single source of information. However, I do enjoy listening to many of the TWiT podcasts and reading Ars Technica. I love it when I find a little personal blog with a keen insight into a given topic. That is always fun.
I guess I need to try to grow my offline social circle a bit. It would help to get some thought and insight from people here with me. Maybe I should even try taking a few trips around the Indianapolis/central Indiana area. This is going to be fun.
Patrick Proctor was here 