I’ve been using Instagram since 14 January 2011. Dropbox since 2009 I think. Tumblr since 10 February 2009. Flickr since 9 October 2004. And Apple photos apps since 2003 or so. How and where I store and share my images however is still a mess and in constant flux. The desire for one big egg basket.
The thing that got me thinking about this again today was finding a load of images in my Apple Photos library which I meant to share or document or do something with, but instead I just forgot. To exorcise them, and the issues causing their Photos app burial, here’s a dump going back a couple of months. A random and irreverent mix, but I want to try sharing here to see how it works.
This ‘Polite Customer Notice’ was in the Kingston University cafe. The length of the notice following the suggestion that it’s ‘polite’ took me as slightly passive aggressive, but more than that was it being another case of serving staff making notices for customers that I doubt any will actually read. It’s not helped either by the unfortunate typesetting, which makes it look more like a piece of poetry with the way that ‘page, drinks, drinks, Thankyou’ pops out. Is this a sign that the machines are too complicated? Or just an expression of their frustration?
More recently the notice has gone and this is there instead. More effort had gone in to it clearly, and less a polite notice than a proud one, but still just falling short. ‘You would be please to know…’ rather than ‘You will be please…’ making it sound like it’s not actually organic milk. To me anyway. Though a very picky point.
Evolution by Natural Selection
This four legged daddy longlegs hug out in my shed for days recently. Wonder how it lost the legs? And how long they actually live? And how many other people have memories from their childhood of pulling all the legs of off one…
These leaves fell and arranged themselves in my garden recently, soon after the US election. Felt like a sign from nature. We’re being mocked.
Someone pointed out to me recently that the hand rails on London Underground trains are colour coordinated with the lines. I like how the cardigans shared on the Victoria and Piccadilly lines also share the rails. Personally I’d have opted for Piccadilly to run horizontal and Victoria to run vertical as each slightly does in real life, but still, nice touch.
Two observations of my mucky and run down bike before a service recently. A random greasy ballbearing fixed to my down tube, and a missing bar end from the handlebars. Something about things designed to move being stuck, and things design to be fixed falling lose.
I keep meaning to stock of googly eyes in my pocket for the odd occasion that I get a black cab. These tongue poking smily faces are just too good.
At Kingston again and enjoying all the work on the walls. This little display reminds me of a Photographer friend who didn’t realise that people still designed typefaces. He thought all the ones that came on a computer were all that existed. All that were needed. While I couldn’t believe that he didn’t know about typeface design after studying at art college, he couldn’t believe anyone could care that much to bother making more letters. An interesting and humbling moment of realising we don’t all think and know the same things.
I wonder if ‘Manager Boss’ is the default on this cash register or if the Manager Boss gave themselves that title? I’d op for End of Level Manager Boss.
I’m a fixed pocket use person as I think I’ve written about before (phone front left, junk front right, keys and change rear right, wallet and elastic bands rear left), and since the whole Apple headphone jack removal, I’ve adopted the use of that little pocket on the inside front right pocket as my dongle pocket. Highly recommend behaviour. Not lost one yet.
More student work. These two projects I’ve seen before but I love them still. Very in keeping with my own love of documentary, the first records pencil thickness and the second the foot fall of people leaving and entering the studio for the day.
Went to collect at the Post Office recently and couldn’t figure out why this bin was so stuffed with boxes. Had the staff been opening deliveries? Were that many people so impatient to play with their new toys that they all had to instantly open them? It all made sense when I got my box and realised it didn’t fit in the bag I brought, unpacking and stuffing it in makes it easily transportable. Like a chrysalis skin shedding for the final part of the journey.
Oddly beautiful light and a captured contemplative moment at a car wash recently.
And that’s all for now. So, the experience of sharing these still feels pretty irreverent and irrelevant but part of the test here was also to try using Dropbox for storing the images for embed, rather than just using Tumblr (which reduces the image size in text posts like this) or going through the laborious use of Flickr (the uploader for which I couldn’t even get to load before all images had synced with Dropbox). Both Tumblr and Flickr worry me a little at the moment also. How much longer will they be around?
As for Instagram, each of these at the time taken didn’t feel ‘good’ enough for Instagram somehow, which suggests I’ve backed myself into a sharing and curation corner with my ‘audience’ on there, which is a shame. And finally, the Photos app doesn’t seem to make embed easy, or even possible. I seem always to get this screen when I try getting links in browser.
Sharing is hard. No wonder my kids struggle with it too!
Documenteering 