Tosin’s Images & Anecdotes (TIAA) is my self-assigned photography challenge of 2022. The immediate objective is to select one image from my inventory (a cityscape, landscape, portrait, oddity, etc.) each week and write something about it. This “something” could be the story behind the photo, a triggered memory in relation to the photo, or simply a reaction or reflection based on the subject matter featured. The long-term objective is to encourage myself to add more content to “La Vue Atypique”, which celebrates its first decade in publication this year.
What can I say about the photograph above?
This photo is an excerpt from a very choppy timelapse video, entitled “Clearing My Head”, that I created in the summer of 2014. That was the year when I first started to experiment with timelapse photography.
The video was a really fun experiment to conduct since it was captured remotely in the backseat of my car during a late night drive around downtown Seattle and the local vicinity. You can watch the video below, if interested. (If you were a fan of Seattle’s Route 99 bi-level viaduct along the waterfront before it was demolished, it makes a cameo in this video).
Experimenting with timelapses contributed to the demise of Ananda the First (my first Sony Alpha 99) which steered me away from timelapses for several years. Ananda couldn’t handle the perpetual, multiple exposures every few seconds for recording timelapses in addition to my regular demand for executing night, aerial, and event photography collectively. The process rapidly aged my camera in a way I had never experienced previously with any other camera. I think Ananda the First only endured for two years and became dysfunctional in 2015. Ananda II (the exact same brand and model camera which replaced Ananda I) has performed without issue ever since. Ananda II is still in use today and I never use her for timelapses — only for my cityscape work and commercial photography.
Conclusively, I decided if I ever engaged in this activity again in the future, I would use separate cameras exclusively dedicated to timelapse photography . Today, Alpharetta, my Sony a6000, handles timelapses flawlessly. She has taken close to 120,000 exposures in a little over a year and shows no signs of ailment or failure. You can watch a number of these timelapses here.
I chose this particular picture (above) for this week’s entry simply because I’m in a very grumpy mood. A lot of things and a lot of people are irking my nerves. It didn’t help that I had started reading about the 25th anniversary of Janet Jackson’s “The Velvet Rope” album re-entering the R&B album charts today (well done, Janet and JJ fans), and — somehow — ended up reading about President Biden’s rather dark comments about how close we are to a nuclear apocalypse should Putin decide to take that route. I truly don’t know how I made that transition (I think people colloquially call it “falling down the rabbit hole”). I had no intention of “doomscrolling” or deliberately seeking bad news whatsoever. Imagine your original plan was to visit a scenic oasis for basking but somehow you quickly found yourself perched on an island with writhing anacondas to the left and vicious piranha to the right. (Bloody hell! HOW?).
It’s bizarre how there’s some connection when clicking on links for articles about completely unrelated topics and the direction this will take you within the course of half an hour.
If I’m being very honest, the primary aspect of my prickliness is that I’m earnestly struggling to revamp my photography business. This has largely been a very complicated state of affairs in 2022, and a costly one at that. I question myself multiple times a day if TIA is worth saving after 13 years. The last two to three years have been among the most difficult due to the pandemic, extremely stupid behavior (I won’t mention names or trends), in addition to the world being a genuinely insane place to be today.
(It felt good to write that out, actually. Diplomacy can be stifling at times).
When I saw this photograph, it just screamed the words “Let’s get the hell out of here!” which is how I’m feeling at this moment.
(In retrospect, I’m currently wondering whether this specific choice of photo — which I truly perceived that I selected at random — is now more than just mere subliminal coincidence).
Thank goodness it’s Friday.
40 articles down for the TIAA challenge. 12 remain!
I was wondering how you s apples the photo while you were driving. Pretty cool. As for the scary news… let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that. I try not to doomsday scroll as it doesn’t do me any favours since I’ll only feel powerless. It’s all so depressing.