Hmmm….
Well…
How long has it been?
What… happened?
What’s been happening?
Many things, that’s what.
Things I haven’t talked about.
I’ve been busy with other projects.
We saw the eclipse.
Speaking of the eclipse, I did remember to do a spooky photo this year.
Ooooohhhhh, spooky.
Anyway…
Before that was Christmas.
And before that was dealing with the grandparent’s house.
There were a lot of other things happening during all this.
A lot of not-so-good stuff.
That is why the photo looks like this…
As you can see, it’s a bit dark and moody.
Because that’s how things have been.
That’s why I vanished for five months.
I’ve been busy with work.
And when I wasn’t working, I was just sitting at home in the dark.
Doing nothing.
At the time, I didn’t know why.
I just didn’t want to do anything.
I lost track of time.
Weeks went by, then months.
It took a while, but I started to feel like something wasn’t right.
There’s a reason for all this.
I felt a little spark.
I had the urge to do something.
A photo, maybe?
Of what?
At that moment, the idea for the photo popped into my head.
If sitting in the dark is what I’ve been doing, then that’s what I’m going to show.
A simple close-up photo of me in the darkness.
But it couldn’t be completely dark.
So, I thought have having a streak of light across my face.
Could it be a glimpse of hope?
Or is the light slowing closing?
WHO KNOWS?!?!?
I didn’t have any bright lights, so I decided to use the sun.
BUT! All the windows in my house don’t face the sun.
BUT! I know a house that does!
I ventured over the The Aunt’s house on a nice Sunday after and got the photo done in 30 minutes.
After five months of nothing, I finally have something.
The only thing I didn’t think about was my expression.
I always think about the composition and not about what I’m doing in it.
I just did what I felt and ended up with this brooding look.
Am I mad?
Sad?
Disappointed?
Contemplating?
WHO KNOWS?!?!?
All I know is that I have something.
I SEE IT!
It’s there.
There was still a little more editing to do.
I had black and white in mind.
High contrast, almost blown-out highlights, little bit of bloom.
To achieve this, the photo has three layers.
One is just the photo black and white.
Next is a layer with the photo overexposed with some noise tossed in there.
Lastly, there’s a layer of high-contrast detail.
That way I can pull more detail out of the overexposed part.
All that was left was messing with the opacity of each layer.
Is that too much bloom?
Do I want to bring in more of my face?
It’s all a balance.
Eventually, I got to how it looked in my head.
It’s always I good feeling with that happens.
You think of something and bring it to life exactly how you thought it would look.
I LOVE IT!
Next is the video.
Remember, I said earlier that I didn’t know why I was feeling so moody.
Well, I was reminded why.
This is why I do the videos.
I document my thoughts and feelings, and they usually influence whatever photo I’m working on.
I can look at a photo and remember how I was feeling.
Then I can watch the video and see those feelings.
They go hand and hand.
So, I started editing the video for this photo and came to a startling realization.
There is a whole year’s worth of things that I haven’t dealt with.
Like I said, I’ve been focusing on other things.
No time to reflect on what was happening.
That’s also the point of the videos.
I get my thoughts out and reflect on them.
I haven’t done that in a year.
Editing this video gave me a chance to do that.
I was able to look back, process, and move on.
First, there was my grandmother passing away.
It kind of just happened and I didn’t think much of it.
Like with my grandfather, we knew it was going to happen.
However, there was something that was upsetting me when I looked back.
That was the last grandparent.
Kids always look forward to going to the grandparent’s house.
I always did.
But those days are gone now.
Second, I almost lost my house.
I go into detail in the video.
Long story short, my mortgage got sold to a different company, I wasn’t informed, autopayments stopped, house was foreclosed.
FUN TIMES!
But, after three months of hassle, we got that settled.
Third, the neighbor died.
That doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it was.
We talked all the time.
I had to help her with tech support a few times.
Her family gave me some things from her house.
An air fryer, dehydrator, so on.
Random things.
Now her house is sold and being flipped as I type this.
Fourth was one of my friends dying.
We spent the first elementary grades at the same school.
He left, and eventually, I got kicked out.
We ended up and the same school again.
We had lunch every day.
That was tough.
Fifth, there was a whole ordeal with The Aunt, whose house I invaded for this photo.
I’m not going to get into it here.
Sixth and lastly, the dog.
This goober right here…
LOOK AT THAT NOSE!
I didn’t show him much in the video because he was a mess.
Falling apart.
Eventually, he couldn’t walk, so we decided it was time.
As you can see, there has been death… everywhere.
Darkness… everywhere.
I got lost for a bit, which caused me to forget things.
Like making a birthday photo or celebrating 16 years of making these photos.
It is what it is, I guess.
I’m here now.
ONTO THE VIDEO!
The video covers everything talked about in this post.
All the events over the course of a year.
That’s it.
Now all this is out of my system.
I’ve reflected, processed, and moved on.
Next is probably Christmas.
I’ll see you then.
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