Wishes are easy to make, sometimes too easy. Yet, we all wish for things and hope that they will come true. In that vein, I have the following list of things I wish in several different categories.
There is a bit of humor in the items depending on your view. Consider them as food for thought, maybe adopt some. When you read some of the things I wish for you may think I don’t get it, but I do, I really do. Read between the lines, pass through the initial impact, drill into the message, just as you do with photographs! More importantly, feel free to add yours in the comments section and share with others.
It is OK to repeat them, either from my list or from others’ comments. There is strength in numbers! Life is too good to waste by only “capturing” it in your phone and missing the subtleties, the smell of the roses, shaking hands with friends. No, watching it on your phone is not the same thing; why constantly live vicariously on a screen rather than enjoying it in full in person.
Here they go …
Wishes For Family and Friends
- We all maintain our health
- Bumps in life level off for all, family, friends, and everyone
- Elif’s businesses take root (looking for a Life Coach, or great baklava?) Good luck kiddo!
- Mina’s great academic and artistic performances continue and even get better(er) She was off the charts in reading and math, my girl!
- We get a chance to see more family and friends
Wishes in General
- More people walking without staring at their phones. China even created phone lanes on sidewalks for these people, what is the world coming to?
- Fewer people experiencing life only on their dumb-phones.
- More people stopping to smell the roses.
- Fewer people driving with one hand tied to their ears, to hold their phones.
- No people looking at their phone while driving.
- More people using turn signals when driving.
- More people understanding the meaning of turn signals; they mean “I intend to” or “I would like to” turn or change lanes, not “I have turned” or “I am turning.”
- Fewer people cutting others off on the road just in spite (yes, they do!)
- More people actually socializing instead of kidding themselves on “social media”, no substitute for shaking hands or hugging.
- More people sitting at the same table chatting instead of sharing pictures of their coffee cups via face-o-gram, or whatever, and texting.
- What is the reason for using texting anyway, it is a technology from the flip-phone era. Call and hear your friend’s voice, heck make a video call and talk face to face.
- Texting is not cool, it only makes huge sums for the phone companies because its load on their network is like the effect of a butterfly fart on a tornado. That’s why they want you to text instead of talk.
- Totally forget about sexting!
- It’s OK to say “Hi” to strangers on the road, listen to “What a wonderful world” by Armstrong; the song is all about seeing and hearing, not capturing it on your dumb-phone.
- What good is it to have 10,000 followers if you never get a chance to “know” them? Instead, have 10 good friends that you can see often. (Pssst! They are really not following you or paying attention to what you are saying. Just thought I’d let you know. They just want to say they follow a lot of people including the twins who bare their bottoms! Now you know.)
- Reading five words from 150 people you may follow lets you learn what?
- How do you really follow thousands of people, honestly?
- What do you do differently if 20 million people are following you? Oh, you bare your bottom, I see!
- “Following” is a reciprocity-based business, if you follow them you hope they will follow you and your numbers will increase. And?
- I have one dumb photograph of a book cover on the floor on Instagram and 5 people are already following me. Why?
- By the way, that single picture made the number of my followers jump from 3 to 5. Think about that.
What I Wish for Photographers
- Your cup of coffee will not look any different from the one everyone else is having, why do you want to “share” it? If there is a bug doing the backstroke in it, well, call the manager!
- Less (preferably no) selfies (narcissistic,) more othsies (my term for seeing others)
- Stop documenting every moment of your life, try living them; your food will taste better in your mouth than on Facetagram!
- Buying a drone does not bring instant success to your photography. Try renting a chopper and you see it from high above, a far better experience. And, since it is more expensive and flies with rules you will be less likely to invade other’s space, people or animals, at least not as frequently.
- Avoid “_____” lapse, once you have done it and once we have seen it they are all the same whether you like it or not.
- There is a better time-lapse medium called movies, and your camera can record that too in case you forgot. Keystone Cops probably invented the look way back when, and did it with panache …
- Hyperlapse video of your friend standing still upright while moving on the streets makes me wonder if he is fart-powered. Watch this video after minute 5:30 to experience this phenomenon. Silly?
- Grunge HDR is totally out, in case you haven’t noticed it. (Thank goodness for that!)
- By the way, if you are seeing it, it cannot be an HDR photograph unless you are viewing it on a $25K BrightSide display. HDR refers to the scene, not the result, just thought I would throw that in.
- More saturation does not make better photographs. It makes it obvious that you need to take a few more lessons on self-control when it comes to digital editing.
- Ditto for sharpness. Beards should not look like dangerous instruments, the same goes for eyelashes.
- Human skin, even the smoothest one like a baby’s bottom has texture. Barbie’s skin does not. Nuff said! Get off that blur tool already.
- Showing cleverness like many DIY projects like making flashlights from film canisters probably saves you only $1.95, if that, and they look weird! Forget about salad bowl light modifiers, you spent thousands of dollars on that camera, spring for $125 for a real light modifier.
- It is not a particular virtue using only your iPhone to edit your photographs unless you are into masochism!
- Focusing on photographic intent and message rather than showing off technique (when it shows, it is poorly applied anyway!)
- Avoiding clichés, your lighthouse reflection in that puddle will look just like the other 143,245 (yes they all have that seagull too!) A Google search of “lighthouse” yields 99,400,000 results, yours is probably one of them.
- Try to photograph to improve your vision and understanding rather than to impress judges if you can bring yourself to doing it stop competing; you will see a marked change in your work.
- If you are a member of a camera club, don’t simply listen but question what they are telling you and ask questions. Here are some ideas: what is wrong with putting the horizon in the center? What is the origin of the “rule of thirds”? Did Weston, White, Adams, Caponigro, et al use these rules?
- Read about photography, it has a rich and well-documented history, great and inspiring work.
- Look at photographs outside the ones you and your close circle in the club produce, try to understand and appreciate them
- Appreciating photographs does not mean you have to “like” them.
What I Wish From Camera and gear makers
- Stop adding more functions, in fact, eliminate quite a few.
- Added functions should, well, function! Simply adding WiFi does not make it usable, think like a user not like an engineer.
- For goodness sake, agree on a few battery types and sizes and please stick with them for at least a few generations of cameras; it is total nonsense to introduce every new camera with a new battery.
- Stop changing the bottom plate dimensions and the location of the tripod screw hole; why do we have to buy new plates for every new camera to put them on tripods?
- Standardize the connections for remote releases; for a very long time, all film cameras used the same screw-in type releases. What’s wrong with that?
- Settling on USB and HDMI was nice, think along those lines rather than proprietary connections for everything. Oh, at least make them compatible among your cameras! If you cannot hack it, hire a few hackers who are already doing it!
- Don’t fuel “gear lust”, more gear does not make better photographers or photographs. It makes more gear (I know it also makes more money!)
- Don’t even think about adding an alarm clock to your camera to make photographers catch the “golden hour”; remember where you heard this first!
- Try to invent real improvements like optical viewfinders in rangefinder-style cameras.
- Accept that photographing your arms stretched goes against everything you have “taught” for a long time, nothing like looking through a good viewfinder and it creates a more stable form as well.
- Include that accessory grip you sell for $23.99 with the camera. You made it because you think it is useful, why are you selling it separately? It probably costs you $0.67 anyway. Oh, I get it, you want to chisel a few more bucks from us :-(
- How about designing a universal body that accepts different guts? Remember where you heard this first too, I want my royalty checks mailed monthly!
- Please, please, switch to using a sensible measurement unit for sensor sizes instead of the arcane 1/2.7″ or 1/1.8″ which only serve the purpose of confusing the consumer. Oh, what do you mean you want that anyway?
- Pledge not to introduce a replacement camera in the point-and-shoot class before people get a chance to fill one SD card with photographs using the current model. Did you know that it negatively impacts your costs?
OK, now it is your turn. Make your wish, write your comments.
Suleyman Gokoglu
Cemal Hocam, I follow you because you’re way ahead of me, but I do it when not driving :)
A. Cemal Ekin
Ah-ha! You receive notices from me, “following” on facebok, Instagrim, Punterest is the blind following blind!
Suleyman Gokoglu
Not that I am so blind that I cannot see the unsubscribe button.
A. Cemal Ekin
Touché!
Binnaz Melin
Sevgili Kardeşim,
Fotoğraf konusundaki dilek ve önerilerin beni aşar. Ancak diğer konularındaki dileklerine yürekten katılıyorum. Bu tür konulara daha bilinçli bir yaklaşımım olacak. Öğrencilerimle 10 Ocak buluşmamızda onları senin sitene yönlendireceğim. Sağlıcakla kal(ın).
A. Cemal Ekin
Fotograf konusundaki onerilerim de genellikle isin yuzune degil ozune yonelme yonunde. Bu yazdiklarimi cesitli baglamlarda soyleyip duruyorum zaten, hepsini bir araya getirdim, biraz da hiciv kattim corbaya! Selam ve sevgiler — Cemal
Mike Di Stefano
I admire you as a man who loves the advances of technology but also has the good sense of restraint on using it in moderation.
A. Cemal Ekin
OK, flattery will get you a cup of coffee Mike. Joking aside, thank you for your very kind words.
Jude Plante
Says the guy still waiting for flash powder to return as a source of illumination :-) (Happy New Year Mike!!)
A. Cemal Ekin
Jacob Riis was one of the first photographers to use a gun-like device that provided a blast of light, thus the name “flash gun”. Later, a less threatening platform on which the powder ignited was developed. (Never miss a learning op!)
Cemal
Joan Gray
Hi Cemal,
I enjoyed reading your ideas; esp. on photography. I have been following your articles & photos for quit some time. Still taking photos myself. By the way, your granddaughter is beautiful. Say hello to Jan for me.
Joan
A. Cemal Ekin
Hello and good to hear from you Joan. I will pass your greetings to Jan and tell her about Mina as well. I am glad you are continuing taking photographs, keep clicking.
Cemal
Leslie Jean
I just bought a new camera. I went from a 30D to the 5D mark III. Now I get to have fun deciding which new functions are useful and which are not.
Liked your post, so candid.
A. Cemal Ekin
Leslie, you will really enjoy the new camera. I have one exactly like that. Let me know if you have any questions. The post is candid, like I always am!
Cemal
Haluk Atamal
As per usual, your very readable articles have again caused me to be late to my work this morning.
I love your style and content-full blogs. They are really useful. I need more hours per day, 24 is not enough.
Many of your wishes, although quite right, are against the current economical trends which urge for more and more consumption and replacement. I had worn my first Camel boots for 18 years. Second pair had lasted for five. Who knows, maybe the next pair might be disposible “walk and throw away” type :)
Kindest regards from Antalya,
Haluk
A. Cemal Ekin
Haluk, good to hear from you. It is not consumption I criticize, the senseless and useless focus on gear lust and discarding things that are perfectly functional. I wish the photographers could focus more on improving their eyes and minds rather than on “better” gear, whatever that may mean. Cameras are ” recording” devices of what we see. Just as a better voice recorder will not make me a better singer, the expectation of he same in the photographic realm from cameras is futile. Take care in warm Antalya,
Cemal