Perspective

I think I’ve mentioned that I can be found most Wednesdays in the afternoon continuing my higher education with a couple of retired school teachers, Chip and Steve, at my local craft brewery. We are usually joined by our favorite bartending staff Julianne and Season. And often joined by the proprietor, Ron, and occasionally the head brewer Abbey. Last but not least we’ll see Brad and Katie who both bartend as well.

I said all that to say this. The teachers and I were debating the nuances of the meaning of life when I suggested that “life is good” is a trite, meaningless, or prosaic statement, often used as a thought-terminating cliché, aimed at quelling social, emotional, or cognitive unease. Besides that, it is a half truth.

The problem with half truths is they set a person up for disappointment. So I offered an amendment to the offending platitude to make it read like this. “Life is good and hard.”

But my amendment immediately encountered resistance, when Chip countered with “It all depends on your perspective”.

Perspective

Now there’s something I know something about. Let me give you a definition. Perspective photography is the spatial connection between objects in a photo. Explore your landscape depth — paying particular attention to the foreground, middle ground, and background — to create dimension in your perspective photos. Commit to a focal point, experiment with depth of field, and observe from different vantage points to find out which angles form distinct geometric shapes. (Click here to read more on perspective in photography.)

Here are two examples of perspective. I recently photographed Taste and Tables, an annual event for the O’Fallon Chamber of Commerce.

More On Perspective

Speaking of galas and fundraising events…

Just for comparison, I brought my camera to the same event and took this photo and the zoomed in crop. See both images. These are examples of what an event photo should look like.

Ok. I have to come clean here. I was the photographer for this event and everyone who wanted to, got a nice clean well lit photo to remember their experience.

Shameless plug coming:

For corporate events, galas, fundraisers, if it matters, hire me and I’ll give your donors a professionally produced photo that will cause them to fondly remember your event. This effect is called legacy.

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Back to Perspective

I’d like to spend more time on the work I’ve been doing like Cupid Undie Run that raised 74k for the Children’s Tumor Foundation, and other interesting projects and people but for the sake of time I’ll put those in future blogs.

I’m not sure if “life is good” is a perspective or an expectation. I don’t think it would be espoused by anyone recently homeless having been bombed by a crazy Russian despot, or a young teen-aged athlete having gotten pinned between 2 cars by a reckless driver and lost both legs while visiting St. Louis.

I’m not sure I know what “life is”. Right now I’m sticking with “life is good and hard” as an expectation based on my 69 years of experience and observation… but hell, I’ve been wrong before. My one consolation is that I can capture a slice of life in a sliver of time with my camera and that most likely my work will survive me.

What is your perspective or how would you fill in the blank? Life is ___________. Leave your view in the comment box below. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Finally

Thanks for dropping in and thanks enduring my rant regarding gala pics. Like I said, life is good and hard. At least I’m not being bombed and haven’t had my life wrecked by a reckless driver. I hope life is good for you, for the most part and am looking forward to when we meet again. I’ll leave you with this perspective of two long time friends, both teachers and swim coaches, now my tutors in history and biology.

Best,
Mike

Ps. more amazing photos here