Photography, Life and Keeping Things in Perspective

This is a just a screen shot, but stay tuned - I'm blowing this image up to a 30x60 metal print from Bay Photo. Captured with a LUMIX FZ1000.

"It's just a bad day, not a bad life!"

It's Sunday morning and as always I'm off track from marketing, business and photography. This is the time when I just kick back and let my thoughts go anyplace they choose. As always Molly the Wonder Dog is asleep at my feet and I can't help but wonder how great it would be if we were all the kind of people our dogs think we are!

For some reason that quote above popped into my head this morning as I read three "Chicken Little" posts and emails this morning. A "Chicken Little" issue is from somebody who every day finds something to worry about and does their best to rally everybody around them into believing the "sky is falling."

Over the years In photography we've had some big ones: Photographers in the fifties who felt photography was going to hell because of color! They had children who believed life photography was ending when auto-focus came into play. (Anybody remember when one of the biggest retailers in photography, Calumet, in the late 80's threw Nikon out because they stopped making manual focus lenses?) But it doesn't stop there because the same people upset over autofocus had kids who complained that imaging was over with the invention of the digital camera! And I'm sure we can find a link to today's challenges with social media, digital files, and the list goes on and on.

Okay, so I stepped back into photography for one paragraph, but here's how it applies to life. I'm so tired of having a conversation with somebody that starts out with me asking, "Hey, how have you been?" and then hearing how the sky is falling! And while we all have friends who truly have endured some horrific days - they recognize that it's just that; a bad day and they wouldn't trade their life with anybody.

So here's my point this morning - let's help those people who have mastered the art of pessimism to morph into something else. Instead of asking them how they're doing let's open the conversation with, "Wow, you sound great today - what's going on?" Let's help them to keep life's daily challenges in perspective and get them to stop writing their lives off because there are too many speed bumps along the way.

I spent a lot of time in Japan in the 80's, and when having a lot of differences in a negotiating session, there's an expression which translated means, "there are too many pebbles in the stream." So, one by one you work to remove each pebble, but nobody ever looks at the stream as a dried up creek bed!

Wishing everybody a Sunday, or Monday if you're on the other side of the world, that's filled with optimism and time with the people most special to you. Always go for those eleven-second hugs and think about how much the person in that hug means to you. And definitely, keep each day in perspective. Not every day is the one you're going to base your life story on, but without those days that are off a little how would you ever appreciate the ones that are stellar!

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.”
Dr. Seuss