Process

I write in markdown using iA Writer, usually on my desktop or laptop but sometimes on my phone as a last resort. The files are all synced across the devices and I can start up on my phone where I left off on my desktop at home.

The files are organized with my different newsletters, OBSERVANT and Skyriter Chronicles. Also, there are personal notes, practice writings, and my fiction writing.

Most of the digital photos I take are with my Fujifilm X100V, using the Kodachrome profile from FujiXWeekly. I don’t know how much it actually looks like Kodachrome, but I like it anyway. I import to Lightroom, with the files stored on an external hard drive, organized only by date. If I remember, I’ll add metadata at the time of import, but most files don’t have any. If there is room to improve my workflow, it is here, in the digital asset management. Sidenote, I hope I have Walter Mitty's job as a "Negative Asset Manager" in my next life.

For film, it is probably Tri-X in my Leica MP, usually rated at 320. The Nikon F3 will have color, usually Portra 400 (right now it has an old roll of Provia). I develop the black and white myself in Rodinal and send the Portra off to Richard Photo. I've done C-41 developing at home, but it's just too much work.

I scan my film with a PrimeFilm XA scanner and VueScan software, and import to Lightroom just like the digital files. I have metadata presets at import for which film stock, which camera and lens, etc.

I spend very little time editing in Lightroom. 30 seconds tops per photo. If I’m exporting a single photo for the website, I rename it, set the long edge to 2500 pixels, and export to the desktop. I can't think of the last time Photoshop was opened.

If I’m working on a photo essay or some photographic narrative, I create a collection and save the photos to it. Once in the collection, I’ll give a 1 star to the keepers and assign the shots by color. Wide, scene-setting shots get a color, portraits get a color, close details get a color, transition shots get a color, you get the picture. When they’re color-coded, I can quickly see what shot types I’m lacking, reminding me to take more of those shots next time.

This system was taken from the Finn Beales’ Photographic Storytelling book and video workshop.

I log into Squarespace, choose the newsletter (the cool name for blog), and hit the add new button. I cut and paste the words from iA Writer into the post, add a photo or two, choose a title, add some hashtags and other SEO stuff, and hit publish. 10 minutes tops.

Then I jump over to the marketing tab in Squarespace, choose email campaign, and copy the writing into an email blast to the subscribers.

Then I sit back and watch literally nothing happen. I love it. If you’re doing all this for anybody other than yourself, it will feel forced, fraudulent, it’ll become a chore. My publishing commitment and schedule is self-imposed. It has to be. I don't have a client, a publisher, a deadline, or anything other than my own promise, like a kid with a fake ID trying to get into the writers' club. If you’re reading this, know that very few other people have.

The Writing

This is the fun part. I don’t have a plan when I sit down to write. Honestly, I just start typing, either on the typewriter or keyboard in iA Writer, and surprise myself with what comes out. Usually, I start with a small recent observation, boring, common. As I describe it, I am reminded of something else, a feeling, a memory. Every single time, I realize something new about myself. This is the biggest advice I can give you. Write for yourself. I have no interest in creating content to impress an algorithm or writing on a topic I’m not interested in only because I know it’s popular.

Sometimes, when I sit down to write, it seems effortless. Words jump onto the page and the typewriter dings faster and faster. That happens about half the time. The other half of the time, I sit there, blinking cursor teasing me. Bukowski's poem, 8 Count, with his typewriter tombstone still, repeats in my head. But I don't mind these times. If the words aren't coming easily, I don't push it. Sometimes the inspiration comes at strange times, days or weeks later. When it does come, the surprise that it's here is half the fun of writing.

The Photography

The storytelling aspect of writing informs my photography, or at least the photography I'd like to make. They complement each other. The story is often found in the in-between moments, the preparation or the cleanup, and it is fun to look for the less obvious images that push the plot of the story forward. The visual notebook of photos is my personal journal, and the photos add specifics and memories that I rely on when writing.

I probably shoot relatively little, taking only one or two photos a day, sometimes none. As a dad, my days are filled with commutes to school, homework, grocery shopping, dinner making, all that stuff. It gives a different perspective to the times of the golden hours around sunrise and sunset. They're the best times of the day, not because of the great light for photography, but because of the time I have with family. I've learned to enjoy photography in the harsh mid-day sun, while the kids are in school, while I'm on a stroll around the neighborhood, or while I'm writing in my truck in the Whole Foods parking lot.

I often revert back to lessons learned from reading my favorite writer, Joan Didion. I relate so much to her essay, Why I write. She said,

I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means.

All of this process, choosing which space pen to write with on which Field Notes or Moleskine notebook, which typewriter to use or which mechanical keyboard with which word processing software, which camera, film, scanner, presets, website hosting, external hard drives, which words to write and when, or which photos to take and where, all of these endless process details seem pointless but they answer questions about myself I didn't know I was asking. They document where I am in this world, at this moment, and the thoughts I realize after the fact make it all worth it.