You can read up on these resolutions in detail in this article by Lisa Bettany. I have never been to her site before reading this post but will most certainly take the time to look through and see what other delicious tid bits I’ve been missing. Resolution #4 is one that I personally struggle with. Maybe it’s because I had the liberty of playing with so much expensive equipment in my heydays that I think I need more than what I have to be successful, but so many amazing photographs have been made with just a hole in a box so I think I should be able to do just fine with my Nikon even though everyone talks crap about it compared to Canon. I’m one of them. But who cares what kind of gear you use. What’s important is what comes out of it.

Here’s to getting out of my own way!

Sidenote: One of my pet peeves is when someone says they “edit their photos,” when they really mean “process their photos.” Editing is the act of selecting the images you want to work with from your days’ shoot…”Editing down to 20 images and then processing them in photoshop.” I guess it doesn’t matter if it’s someone who’s not in the photo business but just thought I’d throw the correct industry terminology out there.

With the passing of author J.D. Salinger on Wednesday, I’ve spent some time reading lengthy obits and stories about him. I’ve probably read The Catcher in The Rye at least four times in my adolescence and I think it’s safe to say that it’s definitely made an impression on my life.

In April 1972, the New York Times Magazine published an article called “An 18-Year-Old Looks Back On Life,” by Joyce Maynard. That article got her a lot of fan mail, including mail from Salinger, which developed into a long correspondence and eventually, a romantic relationship. I think it takes a good writer to make an great writer go “wow” so I looked up the article and man, was I totally into it. First of all, you read the title and think “an 18-year-old looks back on life? How much experience can an 18-year-old really have?” But her article was just so well written and defines an era which I think makes it a really important piece. I was completely entertained, and with beautiful sentences such as “…we were torn — wanting to run for shelter but tempted, also, to sing in the rain,” who wouldn’t be? It’s quite lengthy and I hate reading articles and long posts online because I find it annoying that I can’t hold it, bring closer, make marks in the margins and be able to feel the pages between my fingertips, but this article kept me scrolling. I actually copied and pasted the article into a word document and considered printing it out until I realized it would use up a dozen sheets of my precious printer paper. I don’t think I could ever jump into the virtual book craze for these very reasons but then again I thought it was completely insane when TV shows were starting to be released on DVDs and that people would actually spend their hard-earned money on them. I mean c’mon! You can watch them on TV! But yeah, we’re now owners of more TV series on DVDs than I’d like to admit. My first purchase was the box set of My So-Called Life…and I justified that because you actually couldn’t watch it on TV anymore.

So without further adieu, if you have some spare time, I suggest reading Maynard’s article: http://www.nytimes.com/specials/magazine/seventies1.html If anything, I think it will prompt you to reflect on trends and important milestones and news events that happened while you were growing up…and that’s always fun.

The Referendum by Tim Kreider: http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/the-referendum/