On a more upbeat note

[pecunium]

Explore, at flickr, is a sport of delayed gratification. Some while after one posts something, it rises out of the crowd (how the thing is determined, I've no idea) and enters the ranks of Explore.

Some keep rising, some fall. Today the second of my picutres to make it appeared. For a few hours this photo was ranked in the top 500 for August 14th, 2008.



In the few hours since it appeared, it's fallen off, but the other photo of mine which made explore



Fell off, and is now back on, so who knows. It may even, somehow, make it up to number one.

What amuses me is that I care. I've never said, "Oh, well I don't care if I never get, "explored,", because that would be a lie. Who doesn't want external validation (for those who feel so inclined, imitation isn't the sincerest form of flattery, money is. When someone parts with hard earned cash to get a copy of something you've made... there are better things in life, but they are no easier to come by).

But this one popping up, and then down again so quickly.... it's funny. I think it's a more dramatic picture, but it's not better than the baseball. The baseball shot, though, is an photographer's picture. I know how hard it was to get the one, and how fortuitous (even in the realm of fortune favoring the prepared mind) the other.

And yet... I am still slightly atwitter that this arcane thing, which is Explore, has pulled a couple of my pictures up and said, "these are good".

Comments

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

That egret is beautiful. The picture is magic.

The laces are cool, but I love the nature shots. Thank you.

[shunra.livejournal.com]

You don't owe anyone (not even yourself) that upbeat note.

And the picture is beautiful.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I do owe me upbeat notes. Life is what we make of it, and my less than perfection isn't the be-all and end-all of the day.

So litle bits of self-cheering are therapeutic.

[shunra.livejournal.com]

To everything there is a time and a purpose. A time to laugh, a time to cry - and when it is the time to cry, upbeat notes are not owed to oneself.

Which does not mean that it's always the time to cry. But the apology for not being upbeat - as though that were all you ought to be - sounded an alarm for me.

Which may just be my clumsy way of saying: "I like you just the way you are, even if you're sad, or boring, or angry or whatever" - I keep coming to the blog because I like hearing your thoughts and their process.

I apologize for the clumsiness in expressing the above.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I seem to have been clumsy too. I took it as read. All in all, this is a tricky thing to write about, because I bring baggage to it, and the reader brings baggage, and rarely are then in any agreement better than counterpoint.

btw... I posted a variant photo on the grape tendril because you said you liked the one, not owed, just 'cause.

[shunra.livejournal.com]

Thank you - I think I saw it, and will go back and double check.

Text - even for those of us who do it every day, all day - is such a data-poor medium. Nothing has persuaded me more of this than the realization of how very clumsily I end up putting things that matter.

I'll go look at tendrils. Photography's compression is less lossy.

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

But, but... they are good! And there is nothing wrong with caring at all- your work is being validated, and that is always good.

Who doesn't? Me.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I respond to external validation less than anyone I have ever met.

K.

That is an absolutely wonderful

[dragonet2.livejournal.com]

picture. You caught the egret at the perfect moment. It is a work of art.

Wow.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I can appreciate (even without understanding it) the technical artistry of the baseball shot, but the first one takes my breath away. It isn't that I'm a sucker for nature pix, because I'm not. I'm a sucker for shape and pattern and contrast and texture, all of which are in this photo.