A Joneser's rants and riffs, ideas and trends, musings and innovations - all for your perusal and reuse. Steal it. Use it. Tell others.

Friday, January 20, 2006

Working

On Working

As I continue my search for a "real job" I find myself musing on my decision to exit the world of "real work" in the first place, as well as how I reached my conclusion that it is perhaps the sanest place for me after all.

The photography detour worked perfectly - a sabbatical away from all things corporate and big business, it gave me a chance to live out of my right brain for several months, and stop thinking entirely about the things that have occupied me workwise for the last ten years or more.

But through my pursuit of photography I have come to realize that the types of problems it asks me to solve seem somehow less expansive and complex than the problems I focused on in business. No surprise there, I guess. Compare these two challenges:

1. the challenge of figuring out how to get a group of fifty plant process engineers located in five different countries to identify and proactively share their ideas with each other, regardless of timezone, language, or plant pecularities

2. the challenge of figuring out how to adequately light a large room with strobe, and ensure the resulting flash is uniform, and does not create any unwanted shadows or flares in the image.

While both pose challenges that require solid problem-solving skills and analysis, it has become clear to me that I’m much better at, and happier, working on the first one. I just don’t feel like I’ll ever get to the point with my photo work that I’ll feel as consumed by any particular photo assignment as I do with virtually every client engagement I’ve ever worked on. And I don’t believe this is a function of the knowledge I have available to bring to bear being substantially less in the photo area, due to my less-intense pursuit of it over the years.

I think it has to do with the inherent complexity of the challenges that large systems pose. There’s so much going on, and an infinite variety of ways to proceed, that just getting to the point of understanding what’s important to focus on is an undertaking. And it is one that I really like.

So an insight I’ve gotten from this is: An interesting life is one that is filled with activities that provide the opportunity to exert the fullness of one’s genious in the service of some pursuit. A successful life, then, is one where those pursuits are in the service of some worthwhile cause.

  • Motorcycle roadracing – full on intensity – maybe the greatest of all. Not particularly worthwhile, tho.
  • Skiing – ditto.
  • Consulting – very intense, and sometimes worthwhile. Depends on the industry the client is in and the type of project.

So perhaps the goal should be to continue on with the Work, and find industries that have a purpose larger than only making money.

Monday, January 09, 2006


So this is a composite shot I made. We have a skating rink in the middle of downtown (Milwaukee), and I just started shooting skaters the other day. I've been playing with deleting backgrounds and putting my cutout subject on plain white - I like the effect. With these skaters it's easy to simply turn the ice into pure white, and then put a bunch of skaters all in one frame. Next: play with scale (viz Bruegel).