Don't rock the boat

Rather than talking about what I have been focusing on lately, I think I will speak a little on my other hobby, photography. I classify myself as an enthusiast because technically, I am relatively weak and well, I am not so interested in getting that much better. I enjoy it a lot though as I am a bit of a wanderer when I travel and having a camera as company (and my wife) helps me pay attention to what I am walking by. But, I haven't travelled in a long time and unlikely to be going anywhere anytime soon either.

What I do try to do in my posts is use my own photos, as the images or at the very least, create my own images from others. There are a couple of reasons but mostly, I feel that the post is more mine, more personal, more valuable when I include a photo or two that I have taken and developed or an image I have changed somehow. It isn't always the perfect image for the post and I might have to repeat occasionally but, being able to display my own images connect me deeper to the post itself.

Photography like many art forms takes time, patience, skill and a willingness to learn enough to achieve what is wanted. Some people think that posting an image alone is not enough for a post, but depending on the image, many, many hours may have gone into its creation, not to mention the hundreds and thousands to learn the trade. There are some great photographers here at Steemit, there are also many who are not. I consider myself an in betweener.

Perhaps in between is my place in the world, a place where I am not overly skilled or knowledgeable about anything but I have just enough in a lot of areas to be able to connect pieces of unrelated information together and cobble them into something that makes some logical sense, at least to me.

This also seems to happen when it comes to building relationships for others as I can often find the right language to get too seemingly unrelated people discussing a topic and using their combined skills to solve much more complex issues than they can alone. And often, knowing a little about a lot means that I can somewhat take both sides of a conversation and restart a dialogue when it stalls.

Being an in betweener does have downsides though as often I am dealing with experts who know much more than me in their field and this puts me in deep water one on one. Often specialists tend to think the non-specialist is inferior but, if the specialist is unable to get their message across to the right people, they are effectively mute and limited in their capacity.

I don't class myself as a middleman though as I see what I do as a specialist position of sorts as it requires some skills that not everyone has acquired themselves and for some of the sets, they are quite intensive and difficult lessons to learn. For me, I have been lucky that I have not had to search far for many of my experiences, I just had to keep my eyes, ears and mind open.

Although I have had plenty of good things happen in my life, most of my experiences have been discovered in the negatives of poor health, family relationship conflict or loneliness. It was in these areas I was able to still find the silver lining most of the time and, it was these areas that battle tested my thoughts and emotions.

It is because of these experiences and what I have learned from them that I don't mind rocking the boat as even if I fall overboard, I have enough faith in myself that I will find a way to swim, a way to learn from the experience and use it to build a stronger foundation for the future. Perhaps one day I may drown, that won't be today though.

Well, that wasn't about photography much at all so, the photo is from Venice on honeymoon and was taken early in the morning, as I walked the streets alone looking for a place to buy something to make my sick wife feel better. It is one of my favourite shots from our trip and it would have been nice to have shared the moment with her but, it wasn't to be. I see my self reflected in that Gondolier.

Perhaps this is why I enjoy photography, the audience gets to experience a little of what I do and perhaps through the sharing, we get to understand each other a little better. Maybe once we know each other, we will be more invested in the success of each other too.

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]