Sunday Caffeine - Wild World

Hey Hey, welcome back to the advanced digital compression engine aka Life.

Writing to you this week from Vegas.

It's my first time on the Strip, and the W has been the perfect little oasis away from most crowds. Everything here is over the top but has a gritty undertone to it.

I sort of love it.

My interest in photography is feeling renewed. I'll explain why another time.

The Meme Generation.

Everything has a tinge of irony to it.

Beneath that is stress and anxiety. The meme-ification is a humor response to not knowing just the hell what is happening in society. It's overwhelming and complex, and so the simplicity of boiling down your anxieties through shared irony I suppose is making people feel better. It's at least a shared feeling of "WTF is going on?"

The hard thing is the blurred line between what's real and what's comedic. As Jay Owens states, maybe these are simply a trojan horse for the truth. Or maybe something to hide behind.

We seem to have found different outlets for our identities through the various sites online.

Sharing our vices and our virtues as status signals and vulnerabilities like messages in a bottle. The problem is most times everyone else is filling the feed with their own quips or self-encouragement that once again we've got a sea of media to wade through as we hope someone notices us.

What is stress?

Stress isresistance.

Most commonly and incessantly resistance in the mind.

Things weaken from stress over time, like a building that crumbles from the weight of gravity.

But isn't it also true that stress causes growth?

I find this is true only in the sense that stress causes your body or mind to find alternative solutions for how to avoid that same stress in the future. In searching for those solutions, we can go about it positively or negatively. We can also obsess over solutions that we don't put into practice, or we can obsess over solutions that hurt us over time instead of help us.

Positive responses to stress help you avoid having stress again in the future. This is like working out at a certain weight, which causes your muscles to grow, and no longer feel stress with that amount of weight or distance of jog.

Then there are negative methods for future stress avoidance. This is coping with stress rather than growing to avoid it in the future. These are what we call addictions, drugs, television, sex etc.

Our primary goal should be to strengthen in such a way that we no longer have stress.

At that point, we can only take on the stress that we ourselves choose.

Because if we choose it, it is no longer stress, being that stress is resistance.

How to take a photo.

Prepare your device.

First, select your device. Smartphones are easiest to access when on the street or in a building. If you've selected your smartphone, swipe your thumb to the left on your home screen to open the camera app. Ensure that any extra lighting is turned off and that the image is full, being that you can crop things in later. Hover your thumb above the screen while using the other hand as support.

Selecting your subject.

More important than the crop of the image or the initial selection of the subject is the emotion of the photographer and the openness of TheEye.

Every image starts in The Eye of the photographer, and the tool that is used in this process simply helps them execute this idea. The photographer must take on a professional demeanor to activate The Eye, which may take some time to warm up. Test shots, roughly three of them, should help you sort any warm-up process for the subject you've selected and the activation of readiness.

Audience.

While audiences may reactpositively to expected images of common scenes or narratives, you may break through to a larger reaction by capturing theoff-kilter, unexpected or often left forgotten. Much imaging technology, such as the drone, the underwater camera, the fisheye lens and the Macro zoom lens has been created simply to achieve a new perspective previously unseen or rarely viewed. These green spaces allow for photographers to immediately provide a new perspective with little risk, however, novelty is often the refuge of the amateur.

Ease.

Being that your job as a professional is to capture what is in The Eye, patience and ease must be present for the moment to arise naturally. In a way, this is the challenge and game of photography. To see if you are able to capture that which you know could arise in a space or with a subject. Do not feel discouraged if this game is not won in every outing.

Photograph

With theEye open, a steady and professional ease, and understanding of both audience and your personal preference for risk, the photographer may line up and allow instinct to select the angle and timing of the image. Remember, even the best images in the world were captured in the few right seconds. Should the photographer be a world-class observer and professional, it's possible that their entire job could be fulfilled in a matter of seconds.

Teensof Reddit, What is considered cool right now?


Some response highlights from this question found on Reddit:

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"it's not really "cool" to have bad grades anymore (if it ever was, or TV is just lying to me.) being smart (but not obsessive) makes you look awesome. a few of the REALLY popular kids in my grade skipped a level in math and are now taking math class with the grade above us. "

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"Self-depreciation"

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"Doing everything ironically. Dabbing, memes, music, anything really"

---"Holographic prints, slime, millennial pink, Adidas Superstars, white converse, basically any white street shoe, joggers, messy buns, Starbucks, retro clothing in general, and oversized sweatshirts "

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"The big one I would note is that kids/teens today are much more aware of the world around them and interested in making a difference, activism etc. As a senior this is something I've definitely noticed changing over the past several years. My understanding is that it used to be cool to not care but now it's the opposite. As an example, the other day I heard two 13 year old middle school kids discussing AI and how we need a basic income on the bus. That's crazy. Or even just in school. More and more teachers are realizing that to connect with students they have to relate information to the real world."

That's it for today but I'll be back again soon – more conferences coming up soon, one here in LA that's about Blockchain tech that I should be live-tweeting from or something of the sort. I'll at least get you the recap. Enjoy your week and don't hesitate to be yourself,

-- David Sherry