No Longer Robotic

I recently saw a post in a neighborhood group: someone was offering a 35-year-old encyclopedia set for sale.

Got me thinking about nonlinear narrative and the struggle and strength of making a photo every day.

Almost everything gets me thinking about making photos.

I had the World Book Encyclopedia (WBE) when I was young. I often would grab a volume and start reading. The WBE and the NAPA Parts Pups girlie magazines hidden in my father’s closet were my favorite reading.

I recall when my parents purchased our WBE from a door-to-door salesman, likely tipped off by a birth announcement in the newspaper. Back then, answering doorbells was customary, a practice now almost as archaic as the encyclopedia itself.

When we bought our WBE I wondered if learning could end.

I naively studied wondering that if I absorbed every page of the WBE – from the detailed accounts of the Peloponnesian War to the intricacies of U235's specific gravity – I would possess all the knowledge necessary to excel in various roles: citizen, worker, believer, husband, father, and custodian. I envisioned a point where only new information would be essential.

Then I saw “Forbidden Planet.”

The film introduced me to Freud and the concept of the id, a topic the WBE didn’t cover. This revelation led me down a path of study, one that raised more questions than answers and plunged me into a realm of confusion. I realized that encyclopedic knowledge wasn't the solution I was seeking; it was, in fact, the opposite of what I wanted to know.

Understanding the id, along with Freud's theories, transformed my approach to problem-solving and photography. I began to embrace the fluidity of questions and the incompleteness of narratives. This shift in perspective taught me to value experience, manage expectations, and acknowledge ignorance. It instilled in me a humility, an openness to what lies ahead, and an eagerness for the possible.

The WBE was discarded years ago. I should have saved the Parts Pups I snuck from my father’s closet. Freud would be fascinated.

PhotoCamp Daily is always free! But you can pledge support at any time.

This is an Amazon link where I make a few pennies to help pay for my life. Today’s book is Robbie the Robot, introduced in Forbidden Planet.

Almost everything I shoot goes through Luminar Neo. Even after I’ve made the first edit of my raw file in Adobe Camera Raw. I’ve built my own set of Luminar presets for the places and things I normally shoot and for different lighting conditions at those places. Then it’s easy to adjust the results for fine-tuning each photo. This is an affiliate link so I might make a little something from sale. Download it for the trial period.