Here it is the end of another year! Where does that time go? Well, from a scientific point of view, it only moves forward so at least we know what direction to look for it each year. There is always a rush to finish projects or start looking for tax information,too. It's also a time to reflect and to make those New Years resolutions. A year in review seems to be the moniker that hangs for this kind of stuff. Although, for me, my annual review is always in July. That's when I sit down and comb through all the services that I use and figure out if I am getting my value out of them. If not, then they are cut or terminated. I've already got a heads up on one for July 2017. AT&T forced me to go to U-Verse and now since they purchased Direct TV, they have figured out that it cost them $17 more per customer to stay on U-Verse and are planning to switch customers (I call it forced) to Direct TV. So, 2016 hasn't settled in the dust and a dust bowl is on the horizon for 2017 already.
Image Creators have that "forever stamp" in their indexes. Using a picture taken 5-years ago is just as timely as using that same image taken yesterday. There are exceptions, of course, but generally, stock images don't need to be updated as much as some think that they do. When bottom-line economics first appeared as a game-changer, I wasn't all that impressed. Now, today, all I hear is that no one listens to them anymore when they shop and certainly don't listen to them if they have an issue with something from a retailer to a bank to the phone company or even at times--- health care providers.
The big new thing that is really going to be the icing on the cake is all the talk about AI (artificial intelligence). Just yesterday the police want Amazon to turn over information from their Echo device in a murder investigation in Arkansas. It appears that even when not in use, the AI is still listening and recording that information. In my own home, why would I ever want something like that?
When I voted this past election, I ask my precinct foreman if my voting machine left a paper trail. He didn't know. But after I voted he came up to me and said, " no it doesn't." I had been observing each time that I voted for a few years that the election volunteer after checking the information inserted a smart drive into the machine before turning it over to me. I had already assumed that he was down loading the last persons vote and that after I left the machine, my vote remained in the machine until the next person voted, repeating what he had done before I used the machine. So when the Donald said that there was a great potential for voter fraud, I was not surprised. Now, this morning, the voter machines that I have been using have been declared not fit for election use because of the fraud issue. Why am I not surprised about that, either?
Yesterday, I started going back through my images from the first of 2016 and reviewing those that I have submitted, those that have been sold, and those that have been used by magazines, newspapers and as still shots on television. That is one class. The second class are those that have a WOW factor. They fulfill my mission statement : "A project to enhance the mind, stir the emotions and quench a thirsty soul." All the others I begin to delete. According to my camera numbering system, 2016 will be a bit off. As with the images from yesterday, 2016 saw the shutter click shut just shy of 50,000 clicks. That's about one tenth of one percent that end up earmarked as keepers. A good shot can still be good but for submission purposes, someone's arm or elbo in the shot pretty much marks that image for the delete button. It's the old adage: you create the beast, the beast wants fed. In this case, my beast is eating about 50,000 shots a year. As long as I am still having fun doing it, then the beast doesn't get hunger pains. When I have to put the camera down, for me, it's going to be a sad day.
So, in this last week of the year 2016, the unusual appeared. In searching back, my most amazing image came from a pigeon earlier in the year. Both were of animals. I'm thankful for that. Their brains may be smaller than ours, but they have more intelligence than we give them credit and their hearts beat just like our, too.
Image Creators have that "forever stamp" in their indexes. Using a picture taken 5-years ago is just as timely as using that same image taken yesterday. There are exceptions, of course, but generally, stock images don't need to be updated as much as some think that they do. When bottom-line economics first appeared as a game-changer, I wasn't all that impressed. Now, today, all I hear is that no one listens to them anymore when they shop and certainly don't listen to them if they have an issue with something from a retailer to a bank to the phone company or even at times--- health care providers.
The big new thing that is really going to be the icing on the cake is all the talk about AI (artificial intelligence). Just yesterday the police want Amazon to turn over information from their Echo device in a murder investigation in Arkansas. It appears that even when not in use, the AI is still listening and recording that information. In my own home, why would I ever want something like that?
When I voted this past election, I ask my precinct foreman if my voting machine left a paper trail. He didn't know. But after I voted he came up to me and said, " no it doesn't." I had been observing each time that I voted for a few years that the election volunteer after checking the information inserted a smart drive into the machine before turning it over to me. I had already assumed that he was down loading the last persons vote and that after I left the machine, my vote remained in the machine until the next person voted, repeating what he had done before I used the machine. So when the Donald said that there was a great potential for voter fraud, I was not surprised. Now, this morning, the voter machines that I have been using have been declared not fit for election use because of the fraud issue. Why am I not surprised about that, either?
Yesterday, I started going back through my images from the first of 2016 and reviewing those that I have submitted, those that have been sold, and those that have been used by magazines, newspapers and as still shots on television. That is one class. The second class are those that have a WOW factor. They fulfill my mission statement : "A project to enhance the mind, stir the emotions and quench a thirsty soul." All the others I begin to delete. According to my camera numbering system, 2016 will be a bit off. As with the images from yesterday, 2016 saw the shutter click shut just shy of 50,000 clicks. That's about one tenth of one percent that end up earmarked as keepers. A good shot can still be good but for submission purposes, someone's arm or elbo in the shot pretty much marks that image for the delete button. It's the old adage: you create the beast, the beast wants fed. In this case, my beast is eating about 50,000 shots a year. As long as I am still having fun doing it, then the beast doesn't get hunger pains. When I have to put the camera down, for me, it's going to be a sad day.
So, in this last week of the year 2016, the unusual appeared. In searching back, my most amazing image came from a pigeon earlier in the year. Both were of animals. I'm thankful for that. Their brains may be smaller than ours, but they have more intelligence than we give them credit and their hearts beat just like our, too.
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| Layla--a pure white German Shepard from Germany. |
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| Muscle is still Muscle |
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| Dragon Boat on White Rock Lake. One team trains here.The annual race is at Las Colinas in May each year. |
