Sometimes I wonder if my life is some giant psychology experiment like "The Truman Show" or something. I seem to get into funny situations which sometimes turn stressful--all from the best of intentions.
For Ryan's soccer team, I agreed to take action shots of the kids during the games--we did it last year and the kids were really happy to get dramatic, stop-action photos of themselves in the middle of playing--we handed them out at the end-of-season party.
Fran got a little irritated that I volunteered to do it again. Her issue was that it made me miss the game while I was messing around trying to get pictures. It also really got under her skin that no one really bothered to thank me after last year's party (which would have been nice, but I'm just glad that they all seemed to like them--I think most kids don't learn manners as well as we were taught them). The fact is that I really like the challenge of doing it--My original plan was to just take action shots of Ryan so I could make a poster for his room, which has a sports theme. That felt a little selfish to do. Maybe not, but this is what I mean by the best of intentions leading me astray.
Ryan and I took a trip a couple of weeks ago, and when he got back I was really swamped with catch-up work. Day after day I had the entry of "finish editing pictures and have them printed", but the task went unchecked.
Oh yeah, that's my real secret to getting good pictures--it has to start as a pretty good picture, but editing really improves them--I divide the image using the "Rule of Thirds" either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Then I boost brightness and contrast slightly to make the colors pop out a little more.
Anyway, that takes time, and I had over 100 photos to go through and edit down to one featuring each kid, then send them off to be printed at the photo lab. Fatigue and my busy schedule caused me to put it off, day by day, during the week leading up to the party on Saturday. Fran wanted me to just give it up, and I quickly determined not to even mention it to her again because she was so ticked at me for agreeing to do it in the first place. At this point, she started to say that it was just my idea and that nobody even wanted me to do it.
I had edited all the pictures by Friday night but hadn't burned a CD or anything so I couldn't drop them off for processing (I hate printing them out on my printer because it is expensive and not as nice as real photograph paper). So I woke up early Saturday morning and went to work--I had to crop them to the right size and send them to the Wal Mart photo lab online. As I was in the middle of the final editing stage online, Ryan started asking repeatedly if he could use the computer to play a game. Focused on the task at hand nearing completion, I tuned him out.
Then he started asking me again and again in a whiney voice, which shook me out of my focus (one of his friends always talks with a whiney voice which drives us nuts when he comes over).
So, instead of poised and mature, I slammed my hand down on my desk and bellowed harshly, "Ryan! Cut it out!" which made him bolt into his room and cry. Nice, huh? Mission accomplished. I let us both calm down for a minute, finished submitting the pictures, and then went to apologize, but it really hurt his feelings and he continued sniffling.
This brought Fran around to investigate and I told her the whole story. I guess I could have just lied since I knew that the pictures were already an irritating issue to her and I also knew that she was about to tee off on me once she found out that it had led to me losing my patience with Ryan. I wonder what most people would do--Lie and make up something? I am really terrible at lying, so I would rather just take my lumps.
Of course, by telling Fran this I got the whole story about how she never thought I should have done the pictures in the first place. I felt the insinuation that I was just being a delusional fool and just offering to do something to bring attention to myself. It seems to me that anytime anyone does something nice for someone else, this could be said...You just have to decide which view of life you are going to take. My motivation at that point was just completing something that I said I would do. I wasn't looking for thanks or recognition or anything like that. Parents had seen me on the sidelines taking pictures of their kids and had told me that they were glad I was taking pictures of the team and that they were looking forward to seeing them. It would make me look more foolish to have done that for several weeks and not have anything to show for it. The pendulumn would swing from "Nice guy" to "Wow--he really doesn't have his crap together, does he?" (not mutually exclusive concepts, by the way).
I guess Ryan eventually forgave me for yelling at him and, after days of begging barefooted in the snow, Fran eventually let me back in the house, so all seems to be well. At the party, one of the kids, who had a pretty flattering action shot since he is unusually un-coordinated, turned to his dad and told him "I would really like to learn how to take pictures!", which I took as an indirect compliment.
Sometimes the "small stuff" makes me stop and take a look at my philosophy of life compared to other people's. It's still a work in progress and contains flaws. I know in my heart that my motivations are well-directed, and I guess that's what matters.
Now, back into the cage for another experiment...
For Ryan's soccer team, I agreed to take action shots of the kids during the games--we did it last year and the kids were really happy to get dramatic, stop-action photos of themselves in the middle of playing--we handed them out at the end-of-season party.
Fran got a little irritated that I volunteered to do it again. Her issue was that it made me miss the game while I was messing around trying to get pictures. It also really got under her skin that no one really bothered to thank me after last year's party (which would have been nice, but I'm just glad that they all seemed to like them--I think most kids don't learn manners as well as we were taught them). The fact is that I really like the challenge of doing it--My original plan was to just take action shots of Ryan so I could make a poster for his room, which has a sports theme. That felt a little selfish to do. Maybe not, but this is what I mean by the best of intentions leading me astray.
Ryan and I took a trip a couple of weeks ago, and when he got back I was really swamped with catch-up work. Day after day I had the entry of "finish editing pictures and have them printed", but the task went unchecked.
Oh yeah, that's my real secret to getting good pictures--it has to start as a pretty good picture, but editing really improves them--I divide the image using the "Rule of Thirds" either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Then I boost brightness and contrast slightly to make the colors pop out a little more.
Anyway, that takes time, and I had over 100 photos to go through and edit down to one featuring each kid, then send them off to be printed at the photo lab. Fatigue and my busy schedule caused me to put it off, day by day, during the week leading up to the party on Saturday. Fran wanted me to just give it up, and I quickly determined not to even mention it to her again because she was so ticked at me for agreeing to do it in the first place. At this point, she started to say that it was just my idea and that nobody even wanted me to do it.
I had edited all the pictures by Friday night but hadn't burned a CD or anything so I couldn't drop them off for processing (I hate printing them out on my printer because it is expensive and not as nice as real photograph paper). So I woke up early Saturday morning and went to work--I had to crop them to the right size and send them to the Wal Mart photo lab online. As I was in the middle of the final editing stage online, Ryan started asking repeatedly if he could use the computer to play a game. Focused on the task at hand nearing completion, I tuned him out.
Then he started asking me again and again in a whiney voice, which shook me out of my focus (one of his friends always talks with a whiney voice which drives us nuts when he comes over).
So, instead of poised and mature, I slammed my hand down on my desk and bellowed harshly, "Ryan! Cut it out!" which made him bolt into his room and cry. Nice, huh? Mission accomplished. I let us both calm down for a minute, finished submitting the pictures, and then went to apologize, but it really hurt his feelings and he continued sniffling.
This brought Fran around to investigate and I told her the whole story. I guess I could have just lied since I knew that the pictures were already an irritating issue to her and I also knew that she was about to tee off on me once she found out that it had led to me losing my patience with Ryan. I wonder what most people would do--Lie and make up something? I am really terrible at lying, so I would rather just take my lumps.
Of course, by telling Fran this I got the whole story about how she never thought I should have done the pictures in the first place. I felt the insinuation that I was just being a delusional fool and just offering to do something to bring attention to myself. It seems to me that anytime anyone does something nice for someone else, this could be said...You just have to decide which view of life you are going to take. My motivation at that point was just completing something that I said I would do. I wasn't looking for thanks or recognition or anything like that. Parents had seen me on the sidelines taking pictures of their kids and had told me that they were glad I was taking pictures of the team and that they were looking forward to seeing them. It would make me look more foolish to have done that for several weeks and not have anything to show for it. The pendulumn would swing from "Nice guy" to "Wow--he really doesn't have his crap together, does he?" (not mutually exclusive concepts, by the way).
I guess Ryan eventually forgave me for yelling at him and, after days of begging barefooted in the snow, Fran eventually let me back in the house, so all seems to be well. At the party, one of the kids, who had a pretty flattering action shot since he is unusually un-coordinated, turned to his dad and told him "I would really like to learn how to take pictures!", which I took as an indirect compliment.
Sometimes the "small stuff" makes me stop and take a look at my philosophy of life compared to other people's. It's still a work in progress and contains flaws. I know in my heart that my motivations are well-directed, and I guess that's what matters.
Now, back into the cage for another experiment...
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