10 Upgrades for 2019 | David duChemin - World & Humanitarian Photographer, Nomad, Author.

Want better photographs? Of course you do. We all do. But it’s probably not our gear, or lack of it, or how old it is, that’s standing in the way: it’s our excuses and lack of creativity. How do I know? Because we have the most advanced cameras ever (even that ancient Canon Digital Rebel the people in your camera club look down their noses at) and we’re still not making photographs that are stronger than those made by photographers from 20, 30, or 100 years ago. It’s not the gear.

The whole article is worth a read and the listicle suggestions are pretty good.

I had a bit of a dark spell with photography at the end of last year. I felt unmotivated and unsatisfied by what I was doing. So I realised I needed to make a change. Then I looked back and saw that I had been indulging in photography the whole time and enjoying it.

One of my core aims for the coming year is to spend time with some of my photography books on Saturday or Sunday mornings. It’s such a great alternative to the endless stream of instagram.

I would point out that David is doing trainings and so his point about corporate shills who of course tell you to buy gear is a little hypocritical or his bias to sell workshops, books, and e-courses.

Got my notebook and pen stack sorted at work.

World Sketchnote Day 2019! — Sketchnote Army

Some ways to participate:

• Share your photo, holding a sketchnote w/ hashtag #SNDay2019

• Create a sketchnote about how sketchnoting has changed your life

• Teach a favorite sketchnoting technique to your followers

• Share your favorite sketchnote and tell us why you love it

• Share your photo wearing a sketchnote t-shirt

I’m excited for this years world sketchnote day. I think I’ll do a couple of these.

Catching the train last night.

A picture from our holiday in Malta last year.

I’m 10x more productive than I was five years ago. Do you know what I changed to make that happen?

I stopped obsessing over tools, apps, systems, and journaling systems. I quit it all, and in doing so, discovered a ton of spare time and focus.

Stop obsessing. Get to work. - Aaron Mahnke on Productivity

Turns out some of the best productivity advice is to…do the work. There’s definitely value in productivity advice, but sometimes (a lot of the time) looking for more productivity stuff is really procrastination that makes you feel better.

100 things that made my year (2018)

A pretty amazing list of personal pleasures from Austin. Not a bad idea of a list to make.

Three days into the Hobonichi lifestyle (I’m kidding…sort of) and I really like this notebook. It is a great example of a well put together thing. BUT It doesn’t cover every need (not that it should necessarily) and so I believe it’s time to assemble a Notebook Turduken for the year.

As part of my regular review and reflection with my now page, I’m writing another now and then update. This one with a slight focus on the year that’s been.

Last year was easily the biggest change in my life for a long time. I changed career path and became a dad. Either on its own could be acknowledge as life changing and merit reflection but both together, a mere month apart, was a killer one-two.

As I stand at the start of this year, looking ahead, I can’t imagine what life will look like in a years time. Still, this is about now.

Last month: December 2018

Half the month was spent travelling and seeing friends and family with Christmas. The time off work was lovely but I’m keen to get back. Partially its about not being at home, but also I miss work. Yes, as strange as it may sound to some people, I enjoy my work. Don’t get me wrong, I can find things to complain about but I enjoy the creativity and intrigue of my daily tasks as well as the rhythm of my daily routine.
The free writing experiments continued and I wrote a couple of things people seemed to like. I also wrote some things which I didn’t publish but were fun experiments. Maybe I’ll publish them one day or not.

This month: January 2019

This month I’m planning on continuing my reflections looking at the year ahead. I wanted to have more clarity over what I could drop or stop as well as what I should do more on. One of the things I want to get better at is properly switching off, making sure that I really engage with the people around me. Living in Poland means that improving my Polish would be a good way to do so and with the increasingly looming Brexit, being able to get Polish citizenship would also be a great help. I’d really like to add some more hard data to my now page health tracker. I wonder if I could somehow export my Apple Watch workout data to a graph and add that, or something else. Basically, I want some numbers to show how I’m doing.

This Year

I’m really excited about this year, there are some things I’m nervous about (Brexit, being a dad, where I go next) but I feel good about the direction of my life. I was very nervous about work last year and while I don’t feel calm this year, I don’t feel caught by my job or at the mercy of a single decision maker (ironically I was tehcnically self-employed last year and now I’m employed by a company. I should feel and have felt the reverse but it shows that not everyone’s self-employment is the same).

I have a few goals for the year including - learn and play 3 jazz standards at an open mic night - keep and play with a journal (hobonichi) - spend less time on devices and more time with people, doing things - start taking more photos again

If I had to pick a word for the year (something I love and dislike, but the love just wins out) I’d probably pick Intention or Attention Though I reserve the right to update this depending on how things look in practice.

Note from today’s journal entry that caught my attention.

Resilience is a powerful characteristic.

Rebound quick

• bad workouts are more important than good ones
• don’t underestimate the compounding effect
• missing one day is okay, make sure you grab the second

(Lessons from Atomic Habits).

Current iPhone homescreen (sharing so I can add it to my now page)

First entry with my new hobonichi (my first) and I’m sticking in a picture.

I started discussing some plans for a photo trip/ holiday with a friend this coming year. I just realised that it will be post brexit day and so I may need to do some extra steps to be able to travel.

Five new things I’ve liked this year

• Atomic habits 📚
• Chvrches: Love is dead 🎧
• Ask NT Wright Anything (podcast)
• Black panther 🎥
• micro.blog 📱

(I wanted to write a blog post with a four for each category but i found it difficult to think for each one.)

A halo created by my in laws tea light.

My daughter laughed for the first time and I filmed it on my phone. There maybe downsides of technology but there are also magical moments like that.

Lublin skyline.

Just wondering if there’s any easy way to add a video to a manton hosted microblog? Got a little fun project I might want to share. I could just use YouTube and embed right?

I was a big fan of google+. whenever a story of its impending death came out five or six years ago, the community ignored it and pointed to whatever signs that things were fine. It hobbled along for the next five years and never died but slowly faded away. After a while I stopped logging in, not all at once but gradually reducing. If Facebook is going to die, it will be like this. Slowly reducing over time. Most people won’t dramatically quit but will find themselves logging in less and then not logging in. I think that reduced use has been a trend for many users this year, but that could be my bias.

When you get tired, take a seat. Lublin, Poland.

My tip instead of resolutions: A bingo board of fun and/or useful things you’d like to do during the year. No pressure, but a good reminder of what you want. We actually managed a bingo this year! Julia Skott on Twitter

I really like this idea. I might have to steal it.

A little abrstract photo that might work for a wallpaper?, taken when flying yesterday afternoon.

Time to return to Poland. Thank you for a wonderful Christmas time UK 🇬🇧.

A healthy Boxing Day lunch…at five guys