I am a strong believer in the 4-day work week and the three day weekend. I think shifting our society to this rhythm would allow us to take full advantage of the genius that exists in our society and give us back the much needed mental and emotional space for healthy work/life balance, meaningful family time, and stronger relationships all around. When you are worked to exhaustion and can literally only focus on the day to day or the immediate next it is a waste of human potential. It does not have to be this way, sayin’.
Thank goodness it is Friday of this four day week.
Google Photos has reminded me that four years ago this week I was in Kansas City, Missouri, spending time with my Dad, his best friends, and their adult children as part of our annual Father/Daughter trip to Dad’s childhood hometown. There is a whole tangent of stories there that I’ve been meaning to write. Maybe when I’m not exhausted and able to focus on more than the day to day and immediate next I’ll be able to have the creative space and energy to assemble that cannon. It is a truly lovely interwoven intergenerational story of family, relationships, and responsibility spanning 50+ years. I’d love to get to that.
Today is about the work-life and the balance- I’ve never been one to get seasick or motion sick- especially if I understand the mechanics at play behind the motion but right now I feel like I could use some metaphysical Dramamine as I’m struggling. Work/life balance, what? Oxymoronic in one sense, aspirationally beautiful in another.
It is an almost recognizable feeling- the joy I working with students, the engagement of the creative process working together on photography, film, design, and media creation. That the thing I enjoy the most. Due to the proximity needed for the type of photography that excites me this is both challenging and potentially dangerous now during the pandemic. If I had a magic wand I’d change the lenses I’d issued to everyone from the standard 18-55 kit lens to the powerhouse 70-200 Macro lens (at a cost of almost $1000/per lens for 14 students). With these, we could maintain a safe distance and still engage in the awesomeness of the collaborative photography experience.
My synchronous hybrid class today was something akin to what I’ve been able to do before. I’d spent time yesterday thinking out the steps needed for the technology to run smoothly and there will still several hiccups.
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| The unusable selfie stick |
I brought a selfie-stick I had in the classroom equipment storage and it was too small for my phone. Last class, I asked a student to use their phone to live stream what we were doing for the cohort at home. I didn’t want to ask a student again so I was going to use my phone, on the selfie stick. The selfie stick came as an accessory a few years ago with other equipment- just a few years made it outdated- our phones are bigger and wider now, it didn’t work. That’s okay, I have a backup plan.
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| The wobbly tripod |
I brought a Manfrotto universal cellphone holder, thinking I could just attach it to the tripod that was left here in the room. Not equipment from my class, which I carefully think through before purchasing, but a tripod bought by the IT department to lend out to students. Well, this Manfrotto tripod had an unsteady attachment, so it was wobbly. Better than nothing, though, right?
So we set-up two mini shoots to use natural light through a door or window with a reflector. I was able to rotate all students in the class to take a portrait with this lighting and then we moved back to our computers to repeat the import and sorting process into Adobe Lightroom so I could teach advanced editing techniques. I had the at-home cohort on Google Meets, signed into the classroom computer connected to the displays in the room, but the screen sharing did not work well with Adobe Lightroom so in the middle of class we jumped platforms to Zoom. Screensharing here worked, total time spent managing technology was more than I’d planned so once we dived into the editing process we ran out of class time and the bell rang in the middle of a critical explanation. I still needed to close class, say goodbye to those online, and go through the COVID19 safety protocols clean up routine with the students in the room.
I wish I had more time to engage in some creative photography. Participating with the students in the upcoming Fall Foliage project will be fun, like an appetizer. I miss the portraiture components and the photoshoots of middle school students, capturing headshots and character images of them for leaderboard displays. I wish I could show you how fun this was and what great images we created but school privacy rules make this not possible.