Behind Schedule

i really overestimated my ability to not sleep the whole way back from upstate last night, and now i’m behind schedule on my fiction project. i started writing a scene last night and it just came out like garbledigook so i put the ipad away and decided that i would do what i really need to get done and start working on my character casting. i totally blanked. how is it that i was unable to think of one movie or television character that i wanted to use as a baseline for elias in my story? or for any other character roles i’ve identified for that matter? it’s so bizarre. i am not going to let this roadblock stop me but damned if i’m not slowed by it. today in my spare moments at work, i will be thinking about character casting and see if i can’t at least fill the roles that need to be filled in order to move the story past chapter two. one bite at a time.

i’m also behind schedule on delivering some retouches to suswana from our most recent photo shoot, which is probably fine with her but not great for me because it means i have one more thing to take care of on a weeknight tonight would be ideal, before i head to the gym. if i can even get two of the images done, that will be a good night, though i am pretty sure once i get started it will be pretty quick

if i had been home all weekend, i would be down on myself for my lack of progress, but yesterday i spent the day upstate with camille, who was much in need of buddy time. we went to a panel discussion about hate and intolerance that included some pretty interesting speakers, and i snapped some photos to send to the organizers as a favor to help camille out since she is likely going to need support from the group ladies in the coming months. from there, we tread some old roads and eventually made our way to her dad and mom’s final resting place. it was really tough for her to talk about, and i could tell she was in no rush to go over there, so we didn’t make it until about a half hour before i had to get on the train, but it was enough time for me to let pops know i was there.

so yeah, i fell off the wagon a bit when it comes to my daily writing, and i have a backlog of photos to work through now. but i think under the circumstances, i’m at peace with that. i’ll continue forward at the same pace i would if i hadn’t skipped a blog post saturday or a fiction post friday. as if i hadn’t written less photo posts that i should be writing last week. because it’s important for us to pay respect to others, and sometimes that means putting ourselves aside.

The Long Ride Home

i mentioned the other day that i had some personal issues to deal with this weekend. so as it turns out, one of my best friends and i haven’t talked since the fall. back in september, her dad passed away, and he was somebody who really made an impact on me. his name was joe o’brien, but everybody called him pops. he was a retired new york city fireman, an old irish guy who had the biggest heart in the world.

back in college, i used to head upstate to middletown and crash at the o’brien place every couple months, and pops was always there and ready to have a good talk about anything and everything. he really was a great person to be around.

since i missed out on being at his funeral and my friend camille and i really needed to catch up, she crashed at our place last night? and then we headed upstate to have a day to pay respects and visit his final resting place, joining his wife who’d gone on before him about 16 years ago. to be honest it was a pretty heavy day and it was tough to go through with it, but i’m glad i made the trip.

now i’m on the train from port jervis to the city and still have to take the subway home from penn station. i probably won’t get home until 12-1am tonight but it’s worth it, i think.

i didn’t post a fiction blog post on friday, and i was planning on doing some writing on the way home, so we will see how that goes. i’m honestly pretty drained from the day and want to do some thinking before i dive in. i’m going to have to make up that missed post from friday this week, and i’ve got a lot of work to do, but the next step is casting, and i really need to make sure i’m populating this town with the right people. the hometown crowd is going to be so essential to the roots of this story, so i can’t let the people be shallow.

i’ve made a couple of casting choices, but still have a long list of roles to fill. one thing i do know is that i want pops to make an appearance in this book, just a way to pay him some homage. the hard part will be giving him some good company.

TGIF

i don’t really have much to offer today. it’s been a hell of a week, getting pushed around at work, realizing it’s time to prepare for a major adjustment even if the circumstances aren’t completely ideal - i would prefer to hold steady until june, but that feels like less of an option than i’d like it to be). it’s not all bad, though. i had a breakthrough yesterday and it helped boost my morale and standing, but there is an ever-mounting pile of negative that feels like it far outweighs the positive right now.

truth is, objectively, i can take the heat and knowing i am only a few short months away from the next step anyway should be enough to keep me going. part of me is of the conviction that i need to man up and just do my job. but the other part believes that we only have one life and to waste it by staying in a negative situation for any amount of time is irresponsible. the angel and demon on my shoulder are losing sleep lately as they debate the merits of each diverging path as i stand awaiting their consensus in my own personal yellow wood.

the good news is, it’s friday, and i won’t have to think about most of this over the weekend. even though i have some heavy stuff to deal with over the weekend on a personal front, i find myself being so basic in that i am so fucking glad it’s friday right now.

Non-Stop

it seems like i am constantly in motion lately, with barely a breathe between one activity and another. occasionally, i start to feel like it’s a bit overwhelming, and that has a tendency to trigger a whole sequence of messages in my mind, all of which amount to some form of justification for why i should let myself step back and cool off for a bit. like a smoke break without the cigarette.

my aim right now is to listen to those messages, but not to let them be in charge. i don’t have to obey them.

my practice now is to remind myself that everything i am doing - even the job i really don’t care for - has a purpose, and is part of a bigger plan to bring me to the next tier in life. my job pays the bills and affords me the ability to save money, and the thought of being able to use that savings toward purchasing a home next year brings me joy. my photography brings me joy. my fiction writing brings me joy. and planning for upcoming travel brings me joy. even searching for a new job and submitting applications brings me joy. my pursuit of physical fitness brings me joy. and most of all, my time with shanima brings me joy. just as importantly, the lack of any of these activities in my life would detract from my overall sense of fulfillment and joy. and no, i haven’t watched the marie kondo show on netflix but we’ve all seen the memes.

i have friends around the city who ask me when we’re going to have time to hang out, and i always feel bad about basically having to tell them that i don’t have time. i used to be so relaxed and free, and i would drop anything to hang with a friend or help them out. because of my life choices, i no longer have that luxury. i do miss it, being the go-to guy. always smiling, cracking jokes and supplying a much-needed dose of rowdiness to the world around me. but i’ve made my choices. they’ve brought me to where i am, and i stand by them. not for too long, though. i don’t have time to just be standing around.

The Camera Adds Ten Pounds

last week, i made an executive decision. i have been doing a lot of portrait photography lately, and i’ve taken on a new high-profile client for event photography. i already have a tamron 17-35mm f/2.8-4 zoom that works on the wide end of my range, and i have a canon 50mm f/1.8 stm lens that works for my mid-range. now, i also have a tamron 70-210mm f/4 lens, which is awesome for some of my portrait work, but when it comes to low-light photography, it’s dang near useless.

i’ve been contacted about some photo work in recent weeks that requires me to have full coverage of the 18mm through 85mm range, and while it’s ridiculous to think that a lack of 35mm to 49mm or 51mm to 69mm would be consequential in the least since that difference can be handled by taking a single step toward the subject of the photograph. regardless of the ignorance behind that requirement, i thought it would be good to shoot two birds with one lens. i found a used tamron af 28-75mm f/2.8 xr di ld aspherical (if) lens from b&h photo that seemed to fit the bill. after a lot of research on youtube, i decided to go for it, and i picked the lens up last week on my day off. but after a couple of uses, i realized that it was not going to work. the images that the lens produced were too soft to be useful in most cases, and it produced significant chromatic aberration when wide open, and when combined with even moderate iso in the 3200 range, images became too soft to be usable.

now, it’s not fair to completely trash this lens. it actually produced one of my favorite street portraits so far, and the softness of the lens was actually pleasing under the right circumstances - on an overcast day, lit by high-quality lighting designed by the experts at one of fifth avenue’s most affluent retailers. i’ll include one of the images below.

so, realizing that my search wasn’t over, i started doing more research, and came to the conclusion that i would be better served with a fast telephoto prime lens. so i decided to shoot two different birds. i realized that as much as i love my nifty fifty lens, it’s not really all that well-suited to portraiture, and that a lens of the 85mm, 105mm or 135mm focal length would be much better. part of the reason is that lenses wider than 85mm tend to cause subjects to look wider than they are in real life - and when you think about the fact that 35mm cameras were the most popular consumer focal length for a very long time, the old adage that the camera adds ten pounds actually makes sense. i would love to pick up a canon 135mm f/2 lens, because it’s known for it’s amazing sharpness and it would really add a majorly different focal length to my arsenal. but the problem is that the 135mm i want is too expensive for me to just buy off the cuff at around $800. in the 105mm focal length, the best available is the sigma 105mm f/1.4 art lens, and i may eventually get it, but that one is even more expensive, at around $1,300. so both of those lenses are out, and there’s no point in getting a lens that i am not absolutely in love with.

so that brings me to the 85mm focal length. there are three canon 85mm prime lenses, the f/1.8, the f/1.4 is, and the f/1.2. the best lens in this length is the f/1.4 is since it has image stabilization, but it’s too expensive. and the f/1.2 would be great to really open up my low-light abilities. but that one is way too much for me, too. so that left me with the canon f/1.8 usm lens, which runs for $400 including tax brand new. considering that the tamron 28-75mm af f/2.8 ended up costing $360 with tax.

so after putting a lot of thought into it, i bought the canon 85mm f/1.8 usm. that same day, i ended up having a portrait session with one of my regulars, and so i slapped on the new glass, and hit the streets.

it was a pretty bright day, and we met in the mid-afternoon, so for the most part, there was a good amount of ambient light around without it being overly bright. but something came to my attention as a result of the light conditions. in areas of some of my photos where there was extremely bright sky, my lens picked up a huge amount of chromatic aberration in the bokeh blur sections of the photos when wide open at f/1.8. so that is something i need to watch out for. honestly it’s not that debilitating because in instances where there’s that much light available, i don’t need to keep the lens wide open, and by the time i stopped down to f/2.8 in a later test, the aberration was completely gone.

the thing is, when i’m shooting in low light, i don’t need to worry about chromatic aberration, and in case it does rear its ugly head from time to time, i can always shoot some safety shots at f/2.8, underexpose them, and bring up the exposure in post. so for now, i’m pretty sure i solved my problems. but if for some reason this new lens doesn’t do the trick, i’m going to have to return it and come up with another solution.

Moving On

yesterday was an epiphany. i realized that i’m in the wrong line of work, and it’s time for a change. financial journalism has been good to me, both in terms of the people it has brought into my life, and in terms of the economic returns on my time, but i am just not feeling it anymore. i am not a person who believes in working nights and weekends constantly; in always being on call and never being able to fully commit to anything but the job, especially when i am working for a manager that takes every opportunity to cut me down and minimize my commitments. in short, i am letting the job go. not immediately, of course. i’m going to maintain the position until someone picks up the phone and calls me, but i have one foot out the door.

this morning, with the help of my loving and supportive wife shanima, i applied for four different positions that are way more suited to the type of work that i would like to be doing. we’ve got all our fingers and toes crossed and hope that the response will be positive. and now that the resume is brushed up and dusted off, and i have a solid cover letter template put together, i’m ready for anything that pops up.

truth be told, it’s been a really long time since i applied for a job. i did dabble in it a bit last year, but mostly that was for communications positions that were aspirational within the city government. i didn’t really put a lot of weight behind those, especially since i was in most cases very late in the game applying for them (some posts had been online for more than one month). prior to that, i have been recruited for the last two jobs i took, and so it’s been almost four years since i last sent out a resume and cover letter.

if my efforts bear fruit, i’ll probably talk a bit about that process, because in the past i’ve had a lot of success. but first i should make sure i’m not so rusty that i give bad advice.

in the meantime, i am going to keep going to work, keep doing what i am committed to doing, and not let the negativity that encircles me bring me down. i consider this a test, a challenge to my fortitude and resilience.

i will prevail.

Sideways

i hate days like today. i had early shift at work - meaning i signed on at home from 6am to 9am, and the team that was supposed to take over at 9an was delayed so i had to stay on until 9:15am. then, at 10am i had to sit in for a court hearing until 1pm when the next shift took that job over. at that point, i was planning on heading in to the b&h depth of field conference for an hour or so to take advantage of the model booths that they have set up to grab some photos for my portfolio. but of course as soon as i was about to get up from my desk, someone had to get a really juicy lead on a situation i’m covering, so i ended up getting sucked into that for the next two hours. and once that was all done, it was time to pow wow with the court hearing coverage team and compile our notes, which essentially took until 7pm. and now i’m finally out of the apartment and headed to the in-laws for dinner. i feel so battered and drained, and i still have a deadline that i’m not going to meet tonight for work because the rest of the team that i’m working with on that story is lagging and i’m going to get shit for it from my boss, who loves any and all opportunities to point out my the shortcomings of his subordinates.

on the upside, i did get through the edits from this week’s shoot with my regular client, along with some tasty images from a shoot with shanima on sunday night. and i did book another session with one of my favorite people. and i’m expecting to hear from another potential new client tonight or in the near term. so all in all, photo realm is on point. i also figured out a few key points that i’m going to be walking through in the fiction blog this week. so it wasn’t a total wash. but damn if i really wasn’t looking forward to getting my ass to that conference today. tomorrow i’m going to head over there. i didn’t get my break today after early shift, so i’ll take it then. i just hope the still have to photo booths running so i can snap some models for the gram.

Monday Morning

The subway train crawls around the corner, creaking like an old submarine, squeaking like a worn-out mattress at a cheap motel, smelling like a bachelor pad bathroom. The morning commuters all looking tired and unamused in the soft but unflattering light that accentuates every wrinkle, zit, crease and crater. Some try to sleep it off while others stare mindlessly into mobile phones. A little girl explains to her father what her plush rainbow llama is thinking about as it hops around the surface of her backpack on some imaginary adventure. 

The doors open and a crush of people frantically smushes their way in, their programming winding them up to be ready if anyone has anything to say about where they chose to stake their claim. 

Me, I sit here in the corner seat observing, chronicling the daily commute as if I am not a part of it, because it helps me cope with the fact that I am just one of millions doing the same thing this morning and there is nothing special about me. 

Overdoing It

this weekend i tried out a leg day routine that turned out to be more of upper body day disguised as a leg day. i’ll drop a screenshot of the routine from muscleandfitness.com below so you can see. essentially, i should’ve been wearing my gloves with wrist wraps, because when i was doing the front squats, an exercise i haven’t ever done with a barbell, i strained my wrist a little bit trying to lift too much. it wasn’t a lot of weight, and below the capacity of most of my body, but it was too much for my wrist, and we are only as strong as our weakest link. thankfully, the strain is very minor and already today, two days later, it’s feeling a lot better. but i did have to amend my arm and chest day routine to accommodate the tenderness in my wrist.

good news is, there are a lot of exercises you can do without putting too much pressure on your wrist - especially with good wrist wraps. instead of doing curls with dumbbells, i used a cable pull machine with a cloth strap wrapped around my forearm. and likewise instead of dumbbell flies, i used a short barbell. those are just a couple of examples.

the lesson learned is that i need to be more honest about where my body is at if i want to make gains without injuring myself. i got lucky this time. now it’s up to me to make sure i do everything i can to prevent the occurrence of a next time.

Busy-ness

sometimes life is way too busy to stop and post a blog. i feel like part of the issue is that any day i’m not on the subway is a day i have a hard time getting in front of the keyboard.

this weekend seemed to fly by. i was feeling the last dregs of a cold, putting in long hours at the gym, getting the laundry done, helping with meal prep for the weekend, and pushing out edits from an event and a portrait session. oh and i ran through some photos with shanima, too and had an awesome steak dinner

shanima and i both agree - we don’t know where the weekend went. but it was a good one.

Compound Exercise

one of my favorite youtube channels is hasfit, a husband and wife fitness video channel that i use at least once a week when i don’t feel like leaving the apartment but still want to get in a great workout. something they talk about a lot is compound exercise, referring to moves that work more than one muscle group at a time to help maximize the effectiveness of the time spent on the mat.

today while i was working out i realized that compound exercise can also be about more than working multiple body parts at once. it can also be about exercising the mind and body simultaneously. this is something i do most of the time when i work out. before heading to the gym, i pick out a set of moves (i’ve been leaning on muscleandfitness.com a lot lately since they have some good 45-minute routines) and i make sure i have a podcast downloaded that i can listen to while i’m hitting the reps. i bounce between fiction and photography podcasts at the moment since i’m really focused on improving in both of those areas. some of my favorites are (in no particular order):

• unfiltered by brendan van son

• picture this by tony and chelsea northrup

• story shop by sterling & stone

• sci fi & fantasy marketing by lindsay buroker

once i’m done with my lifting/ab/leg workout, it’s on to cardio. during that portion of my workout, i switch to youtube and watch photoshop tutorials and other videos that focus on camera tricks and tips. most of the time i just watch those and don’t take notes, but i’m working on changing that now because i’ve has a lot of good information flow through my mind with relatively little in terms of capturing and integrating those lessons into my workflow.

during today’s workout, i listened through the unfiltered podcast and then watched a video on high-end photoshop skin softening. this video was more of a hands-on walkthrough so i saved it for later and then turned to a photoshop compositing webinar. both were great videos and i’ll be turning back to those channels for more in the future.

the point of all this is to say that it’s really hard to find time for everything in life, but by combining tasks wherever possible, we can maximize the effectiveness of our engaged minutes and potentially free up some time for spontaneous living. it doesn’t have to be all work no play if you do it right.

The Long Game and the Fear of Falling Short

this week, setting up the parameters for the dailies and the weekly goal set has been all about the long game. working on my body so that i can live long and prosper (and hopefully age into a full-blown silver fox, if my hair ever turns). working on my photography so that maybe one day i can break the cycle of working for others and make a living traveling the world taking epic pictures of interesting people. working on my fiction so i can stretch my creativity and add another leg to my income octopus, bringing myself that much closer to autonomy.

today, i really would’ve loved to get this daily post out of the way earlier, but i worked the early shift (started at 6am) and worked from home. during my morning break, i took headshots for youtube personality and news anchor sarah taylor, and then i slaved away the afternoon pouring through court filings. once i was done working, it was straight into the workout, and then off to pick up groceries for the weekly meal prep tomorrow.

i still have to finish my fiction post for the day, and i now have three after-action reviews to write as my second photo post for the week—each with its own nuances that need to be laid out. this just goes to show that even the most conservative plan can easily go off the rails. stock henry and i spent a lot of time talking through dailies and planning this week, and what i’m realizing is how important contingency plans are to the process. more to come on that.

the truth is, i really want to back out of writing a fiction post tonight, but i have a deadline, and i would only be doing myself a disservice by missing it. and to miss it on the first week is just bad form. it sets a bad precedent. so i’m going to switch gears and get that post going.

Self-Centered

with this schedule that i’ve set for myself, there is literally no wiggle room, no down time. and despite my natural tendency to be chill, i am ok with this. nothing that is on my schedule is something i don’t want to do, and all of it is fulfilling and puts me closer to my goals. all the same, i worry that i will push myself to the edge and then have a crash. so to avoid that, i need to make sure that i program in down time in the form of short, self-centering close your eyes, breath and stretch breaks.

i feel that one of my weaknesses is that i’m not really so great at switching from one task to another and just pushing forward full-steam with that new task. i need time to ramp up and get into the groove. when i try to rush the acclimatization process, it never goes well. so i need to keep that in mind as i work through the balancing act of maintaining my daily tasks and pursuing my creative endeavors.

the other major challenge that i face is that i have a pretty intense job. i never talk about it here, or really at all outside of work, because honestly i just don’t think anyone would care. but i work minimum 60 hours per week. sometimes more, depending on what is happening on any given day. i actually get pushback for not working enough when i don’t put in time on things over the weekends and late at night, which i personally think is ridiculous and a sickness of our modern always-on connected world. eventually, i plan to transition out of the role i’m in, and find something that is more attuned with my own philosophies on work-life balance, but until then, i have a responsibility to do my best at my job, as well as to do my best to seek the fulfillment that it doesn’t give me when i’m not working for the paycheck.

i’ll probably write more about this job once it’s in my rear view mirror, but that will be quite some time according to my current plan. so in the meantime, i need to make sure that i’m giving 100% of myself to my work, to my wife, and to my creative pursuits. that doesn’t leave any room for error. and that is why self-centering is so important. taking a minute to orient myself between each task will save me hours of frustration in the long run.

Photoshop School

as i mentioned in yesterday’s daily post, i am going to start running through at least one photoshop lesson per week to step up my editing game. i’m going to be using only free tools like youtube and google to source my lesson plans, and i’m going to be treating this like it’s a real class.

i’ve already picked out a few lessons that i want to focus on right off the bat, and i’ll be picking one of these each week to run through. for this week, i am going to be working on color grading. there are two different techniques that i want to master, both of which are similar but useful in different scenarios. the first is the orange and teal look that is popular these days, and the second is the brendan woelfel look, which is more of an aqua and pink color grading.

i already finished watching one tutorial video and took specific notes on the process, but after trying that out on some of my own photos, it didn’t translate well, so i’m going to have to watch at least two more videos on each of these two styles and find the technique that fits my general shooting profile.

another lesson i want to integrate is eye work. i see so many photographers doing amazing things with eyes in their photos, and it’s all about the photoshop on this. eyes are going to be next week’s lesson.

other techniques i want to master are mostly tied to compositing, or putting together elements from different photos into a seamless image. packed into that are so many micro lessons, and i’ll have to unpack this and dole out those tasks across the next several weeks. i also need to make sure that i’m getting up to speed on landscape photography tutorials and techniques so that when i travel to europe, australia and asia later this year, i don’t fuck up my photos by shooting them all wrong. not like i’m going to get to go back to most of these places - maybe ever. so i need to get that shit right the first time around.

for now, color grading is, i think, the most important thing i need to get comfortable with, because i really want to develop my own style, and to understand which techniques are best for certain color and lighting scenarios.

I Should Probably Explain

to be honest, all of this is stock henry’s fault he’s the one who got me onto this daily business in the first place. and i suppose a bit of the blame could be reserved for shanima, my lovely wife. essentially, both of these people have been a huge influence on my decision to push myself to achieve more and to go farther than ever before. stock turned me on to this idea of “dailies” and shanima has told me that she doesn’t want a fat husband, and that i’m only allowed to buy camera gear that i pay for with camera work. hence, chasing realness was born.

i promised to lay out my dailies recently, and i can’t remember if the plan was to publish them on my birthday, but if that was the case, then i failed. in any event, i’m here now and i’m ready to put this out there. i’ve already committed to these things, already been achieving most of them regularly for some time now, and so i have no doubt about my ability to continue to do so.

before i list these out, i should explain that i’m not going to give a list of things i’m going to do every day. what i’m going to do is lay out a plan for myself, something i can follow for the months to come, and something i plan to update as i progress.

blog publishing goals:

• complete at least one daily blog post seven days per week

• complete at least two photo posts per week related to work i’m doing or lessons i’m learning about the art and craft of photography

• complete at least one fiction blog post on each of the five weekdays that moves the needle forward on the planning and writing of my current project

fitness:

my goals are simple. by june 25, i aim to:

• lower my weight from 195 to 180 pounds

• touch my palms to ground with straight legs

to achieve these goals, my fitness routine will be as follows:

• day one: 45mins core/abs + 45mins cardio (bike (15) + treadmill fat burning (30)

• day two: 30mins legs/back + 60mins cardio (bike(30) + elliptical (30)

• day three: 45mins arms + 45mins cardio (Elliptical (30) + treadmill (15)

• day four: 100 push ups, 100 sit ups

• day five: 100 push ups, 100 sit ups

• day six: hot yoga

• day seven: 90-minute cardio and stretching

diet

another component that will contribute to my goal of losing weight, and probably the more important component than physical exercise, is controlling what i eat. therefore, i commit to:

• continuing weekly meal prep with shanima and limiting restaurant and other pre-made options as much as possible, and blogging about meal prep on sundays

  • this essentially means that one day per weekend, we will design a meal plan and prepare all breakfasts and lunches for the week and potentially for the following week as we’re able.

    • i should mention here that we are lucky, in that shanima’s mom prepares us bengali food to eat for dinner every night on a weekly basis, so we don’t have to worry about preparing those meals ourselves in most cases.

• logging my food intake to myfitnesspal daily to ensure that i maintain a proper calorie deficit

photography:

• learn and apply at least one photoshop technique to my work each week. this will involve:

  • choose a topic that i want to learn

  • watch youtube videos from at least three sources on that topic

    • first watch, then re-watch the videos while taking notes

  • attempt to replicate the technique of the week using one of my photos

  • write a blog post that walks through the lesson and shows before and after images that apply that technique to firm up the learning process and give myself a reference point to go back to if i ever need to review

    • include links to the three videos and site the creators that i relied on to learn the chosen technique

fiction:

• complete character casting by the end of the second week of february so that i can move on to drafting the opening chapters of book one of the distant future series

• complete the first three chapters of book one by the end of the third week of february

• complete template story arc for book one by the end of february

• draft at least 25,000 words of book one by the end of march

• finish first draft by june 25

• publish book one before year end

• book 2? short story?

i am going to revisit these goals at the end of february to evaluate how i’ve done at keeping up with them, and to adjust the flow as needed. if it becomes necessary, i’ll update this list sooner, but i don’t foresee any reason for that. in the meantime, i’ve got a lot of work to do, so i had better get to it.

So Far, So Good

yesterday, i knocked out all of the essential dailies, and it feels great. i rocked out a daily blog post and a photo post on the way in to work, and i worked through some original content on the fiction blog on the commute home. i don’t know how i would get all this writing done if it weren’t for my 45-minute commute each way every day.

on lunch break, i met up with palak and we had our weekly photo shoot, which went well except for a couple of hitches i can talk about in my aar (after-action review if you’re new here) tomorrow. i would’ve loved to knock that out today, but i’m going to have to finish the edits tonight since i didn’t have time this morning.

after work shanima and i headed to her parents’ apartment for our weekly dinner and a movie. we watched an old bollywood flick that had actors i like but was so ridiculous. at one point, early in the movie, the central anti-hero got into a fight with some chinese thugs and there was a crouching tiger hidden dragon-style flying kung fu battle that was clearly trying to capture the magic of that movie. then, a later sequence was a scene-for-scene ripoff of the lobby fight in the matrix. the guy was even wearing the same trench coat and sunglasses as neo. gotta love the audacity of bollywood.

we never finished the movie but i’m pretty sure that it ended the same as all bollywood flicks: the anti-hero gets the girl, the comedic relief characters go back to their lives with more appreciation than they had before, and the bad guy loses. as formulaic as it is, i still love those movies.

when we got home, i almost went to bed before remembering my commitment to complete 100 pushups on every day that i don’t have something else planned out. i knocked out the first 40 no problem, but then things got more difficult. from 40 to 50 i was ready to quit, but then from 50 to 65, i found new energy. 65 to 80 i started to feel doubt and the old excuses creeping in (“you’ve done good already, why rush to 100? do 75 today and more tomorrow; build up to it!”). i shut that shit down and kept going. 80 to 90 was tough but not unbearable, and 90 to 100 was where i had to force my muscles to keep working against their will. the final rep was a bit sloppy, but not to the point that i didn’t feel like it counted.

im going to keep knocking out 100 push-ups on my off-days for now, and might even just add 100 push-ups to my dailies from now on, with the exception being post-arm day. i should also add 100 crunches or something similar to balance it out. it doesn’t take that long and it can be done right before bed, so there’s really no excuse.

TFP

someone reached out to me yesterday on instagram after seeing my photos on a client’s feed, and said that she would be interested in working together. i was super excited and reached back out right away. unfortunately, the individual was looking for someone to work for free to help her gather images for a business hat she is starting, and offering “exposure” as compensation.

here’s the thing. i could’ve been a jerk about it, and even if i wasn’t trying to be one, it could’ve been easy to sound like one, so i had to be careful about how i worded my response. essentially, what i said was, i love photography and working with new clients on building their brands, however i cannot work for free. i told her that she might be able to find a student or budding photographer through craigslist by posting that she is looking for tfp (time for photos) in the creative gigs section, and wished her the best of luck. i also said that if she is able to put together a budget for photos, then i would love to work with her.

i have to say, i found it interesting that she was looking for someone to work for free to help her build a business that she hopes to earn money through. as we’ve discussed before, i am a firm believer that getting started requires investment if you’re actually serious about seeing returns. it sucks putting all your money into your business st the beginning, but it’s worth it, so worth it.

at the same time, sometimes that is just not an option, and that is completely understandable. not everyone is building from a position of strength, and not all investments are a sure road to success. for this particular person, i believe that a strong social media presence with high quality images would do wonders for her and help her grow rapidly, but there are other ways, and not all of them require money.

truth be told, she could do a lot of good for herself with a good smartphone, a remote trigger and decent lighting. given that she is looking to do one-on-one yoga training, she could start a blog and a youtube channel making videos that show some of her routines and techniques—and most of all, her personality so that people know she will be a positive person to work with. she could put together sequence of images that walk through some techniques to help people improve their practice. these are just a few.

the point is, as much as i want to help her out, i can’t work for free, but there are a lot of things she could do for free that would probably do more for her than a few nice pictures on instagram. i probably shouldn’t publish this because i’m essentially telling people they don’t need me, but fuck it. this is supposed to be real talk, so let’s keep it real.

Strong Start

yesterday was a whirlwind. i accomplished nearly everything i set out to accomplish, with only one task left undone. i still haven’t officially launched the blog homepage because i have one piece of admin left to complete there—i need to decide which images i want to use above the link and description to each of the three blog threads that i’m running (dailies, photo, fiction).

the fiction blog launch went great, with an intro post laying the ground rules, and then a few posts about the setting and backstory that connects our world with the setting of this story. i also thought of a working title for the series last night: Distant Future, or some variation on that theme. All sci fi and fantasy series these days have a name like that, so i might as well get that established right away. will be blogging about that in more detail on the fiction blog later today, i suspect.

i went a little crazy posting yesterday, but since a lot of what went up was pre-written, i don’t see any harm in that. i want to get anyone who is interested up to speed on my research and process as quickly as possible so i can start making real progress on the writing of the actual story. i’ve already written the first chapter and about a third of the second chapter, but i won’t be sharing those until i do some more work on characters and plot lines so that i don’t run the risk of needing to change the format after i’ve already committed to the pre-write.

after about three hours at the coffee shop working on the fiction blog launch, i headed to korean bbq with shanima last night and it was great. 99 favor taste gives a free meal on birthdays, and then even gave me ice cream with a candle and i was serenaded by a poor sap in a monkey mascot outfit that was so ridiculous that i couldn’t help but laugh.

as part of my revised dailies - shit that is another thing i have yet to lay out in here - is that i am dedicating at least 30 minutes to shanima every day with no screens, no social media, just us talking about whatever. mostly her talking about her day, but that is what she likes to do and it’s important for me to let her do that for her happiness—something that is super important to me. so during dinner we both put our phones away and didn’t look at them until we were done.

to be honest, i was screened out after a full day of blogging and researching. but after dinner when we got home, i still had more research to do. i found a list of great indoor spots for photography so that my weekly client and i could do our shoot today despite the rain. we settled on 590 madison avenue, where there is a large indoor terrarium. right around the corner is a big red abstract sculpture that is located under the cover of an inlet at the entrance to the ibm building, so we’ve got two good options for photos even in the rain.

by the time i finally dozed off around midnight, i was feeling a bit under the weather and still am. sore throat, fatigued, and just generally not great. i woke up in the middle of the night, as i often do these days, and was contemplating just calling out from work today. i changed my mind and i’m not using a sick day over it, but definitely need to make sleep a priority the next couple of days so that i can push through this. i have a cough this morning, not a bad one, but definitely not a good sign. we’re headed to shanima’s parents’ apartment tonight after work as we do every week, but definitely going to have to push for an early return to the apartment so i can get the photos from today uploaded into lightroom and ready for edits in the morning.

so on my agenda today, outside of work, is one photo shoot, one fiction blog post, visit with the in-laws, and uploading the photos from today. i will write a photo blog post tomorrow talking about the shoot and location and sharing some of the highlight photos.

Smashed

after yesterday’s post was published, we met up with a group of some of my best friends. wishing i could’ve invited more but there is only so much room at the table. in typical new york fashion, they started serving the drinks long before the food arrived, and they were heavy. so after brunch, as we were all meeting a friend’s adorable puppy, another friend who had a habit of falling while drunk decided to give shanima a lunging hug, and shanima was not ready, so the two of them took two spooning steps before losing balance and falling. shanima ended up on the bottom and smashed her head into the glass pane at the front of the restaurant, which spiderwebbed on impact. it was loud as fuck and scary as hell. she said she was fine but she was crying and so we immediately took her to a local clinic to get checked out. the doc said she was fine but that we should keep an eye on her for a few warning signs that something might be seriously wrong.

shortly after that, we called it a day earlier than planned because shanima was not feeling great and understandably so. i was emotionally exhausted from the whole ordeal, so i was ready to head home, too. we grabbed an uber and shanima slept with her head on my lap the whole way home. and then slept the rest of the evening away. i kept an eye on her and watched rampage on hbonow (ridiculous movie but entertaining enough) she was sore this morning, but nothing to be too concerned about.

never a dull moment, right?

all of that behind me, i have a lot to accomplish today. my license expired so i had to head to the dmv to renew it, and i need to head to brooklyn botanical garden to get a permit for an engagement shoot i’m doing in april. plus, i’ve committed to launching my fiction blog today, and i have dinner plans with wifey tonight. gotta take advantage of that free korean bbq meal for my birthday at 99 flavor taste.

it would’ve been so easy to just take it easy today and not do anything, but i don’t want to start this year off with sloth and leisure. i have way to much to do to kick things off from that footing. so i woke up at 8am and had breakfast with shanima, then i did a hasfit workout at home that was absolutely brutal, especially since i did arm day yesterday and it was a weight training/muscle building workout video. once that was done, i did a little more workout out to round out the session, hopped in the shower, had a quick bite of some fried egg and ramen that shanima whipped up this morning, and headed out to the dmv. that took about an hour, and once i was done, i headed home, got my checkbook, called the botanical garden, and confirmed that the admin office is open today and that i can secure the permit. once that was checked off, i got a hold of the client who hired me for the engagement shoot and confirmed that they can venmo me today for the cost of the permit (it’s $150 in case you’re wondering). that in the bag, i got on the subway and now i’m off to the city. it’s just after 12pm and i already feel like i’ve gotten a whole day worth of work accomplished.

before i hit the garden, i’m stopping through bh photo for a little piece of kit that i’ve been eyeing for a while that will help me out with my event photography and some of my portrait work. i still have to try it out to see if it’s a keeper, but essentially i am pretty confident that it will be. more to come on that later, but this isn’t a photo post.

once i pick that up, it’s off the to garden, then into a quiet brooklyn coffee shop to get my fiction blog going. i’ll have a couple of hours for that before i need to leave to meet shanima for dinner, so i should be able to get a lot done.

i’m really excited for this year ahead, and can’t wait to see what i’m able to accomplish within it. ready. set. go.

Sunday Setup

ok so i’ve alluded to this already, but today i’m going to shift gears on this blog a bit. not a complete restructuring, but definitely a refocusing. photo posts no longer count as dailies. dailies are about life, what happens in between. the me moments.

we knew this weekend was going to be packed, so we made an extra push last weekend to make sure we didn’t miss meal preps and workouts. yesterday, shanima went to brunch with two of her friends and i went for a fresh haircut with my guys over at skillman barber shop. they always do a good job and the price is definitely better than a high-end salon, if a little higher than you are going to get at your local buzz shop. trust, me, it’s worth it, though.

after the haircut, i met up with stock henry and we had a nice hang, talking about life, goals, and a fix for his glidecam problem. see his blog for deets.

even before heading out, though, we hit the gym for an hour and 45 minutes for leg day and cardio. my leg day included deadlifts, reverse lunges, leg presses and calf presses, and bar squats. for the deadlifts, i kept it light this week with 45s on either end of the bar. for the lunges, i used 40 pound dumbbells. leg and calf press was at 320 pounds with 20 reps per set of each. and for the bar squats, i used the cable pull machine with 140 pounds of resistance. each exercise was done for a minimum of three sets and with some exercises including five sets. then it was on to cardio, and for this session i stayed on the elliptical machine for the duration, with the course set to interval training. on this settings the resistance changes between about half power for one minute and full power for a minute, back and forth for 45 minutes. the machine told me that i completed a 4.7 mile equivalent, but i am skeptical about those calculations.

so that was saturday. this morning, we got an early start at 7:30 and sorted out our pre-made meals for the week into our to-go boxes. by putting everything into the containers that we will take with us in advance, it removes the stress of last-minute morning packing, as well as the excuse that there wasn’t time to do it. making the prepared meal the easiest option at the time when it matters most is crucial to success on that front. maybe i’ll talk more about that in a future post.

once we wrapped that up, we washed up the leftover dishes, made a batch of rice for the week for dinners, and then did a 40-minute hasfit video that was absolutely brutal. it was a hiit cardio workout that crushed pretty much the whole body. we did the video this morning because we’re going out to brunch for my birthday today and i never workout after drinking, so it was either get the whole thing in first thing in the morning or skip it. obviously skipping is not an option, so we had to start early. our gym opens at 10am, so sometimes getting started at home is the only way. once we finished the video, we got ready and headed downstairs, because sunday is upper body day.

for my upper body workout today, i focused on arms and chest. i found a workout routine on muscle and fitness and gave it a try. it started out with three sets of incline bench presses, followed by the barbell bench press, bent-over one and a quarter cable flies, dips and decline bench press. each exercise included three sets of 8-10 reps. for the incline press, i started with 10 pounds on each side, added 10 more for the second set, and then added five pounds for the third set. these incline presses really work the shoulders, and as i get into doing them i am realizing how weak my shoulders have gotten through lack of use, so this one is killer for me. for the bench press and the decline bench press, i used 40-pound dumbbells. for the cable flies, i set each side to 70 pounds of resistance, and obviously for the dips i just used my overweight body for resistance and that was definitely enough.

min each exercise, i did enough reps to bring myself just to the brink of muscle failure. i am always hesitant to push it too far since i don’t have a spotter, but the more i go to the gym the more confident i become.

so that is my weekend so far. i think i should start including photos of the workout and such here but for now, i will leave you with this photo of the meal prep for the week. you’ll see salmon alfredo pasta with oven-roasted beans and broccoli, chicken noodle soup, homemade greek yogurt cinnamon rolls, and egg cups, which are made of baked hashbrowns, egg and turkey bacon bits.

we also have curries from shanima’s mom to eat for dinners, so essentially we have zero fresh cooking to do this week. with everything coming up, that is essential for us because without meal prep, we would either have to eat out - expensive and unhealthy - or cook at night, and we would have to skip a workout or go to sleep late, neither of which are acceptable options.

todays post is super long since i had to walk through yesterday, too, but i think worth it.