Embrace the digital backlash - Take time to think

Stefano

The current social technology backlash has not only seen me respond in order to defend the tools and channels I use.. (http://bit.ly/frVzww) It has also seen me reflect on the amount of downtime I take in a day and how important that is.

The digital social tools we use are amazing. Sharing ideas and thoughts worldwide in the blink of an eye. But without a little time away to formulate these thoughts and ideas, we just regurgitate and retweet the same things round and round to one another.

I often get asked how much time I spend online.. Technically I am connected all day through a mobile device but I only spend about 4-6hours at a desk, 4 days of the week and have at least 4 hours of my day where I'm doing something that nurtures thought. Normally with my devices either off or out of reach.

In order to be innovative we need this quiet time to formulate our ideas.. Where do you go to think?

I have times I walk the dog with headphones and times I walk without. It's always when I'm unplugged that I get the ideas that stay with me.  For fun I occasionally go and practice bushcraft and although this gives me a chance to experiment with new tech and off grid power, it also allows me time to turn things off. It's only recently I realised why I enjoy ignoring the dishwasher and washing plates 'manually'. I can look out on the garden and just think. Sound's strange but I ride a motorbike for the same reason. Yes, you have to keep your wits about you but there is still plenty of time to be alone in your crash helmet on the open road.

I find these places and spaces not only important for creative thinking.  I feel we need them for our sanity. The tools allowing us to filter the chaos are not yet ripe enough for mass consumption so it is up to us to dial it down.  If I need to get a piece of writing done efficiently and in limited time i use Ommwriter.  It shuts off my notifications and gives me a blank page. There are more and more ways for us to focus but sometimes turning everything off is the easiest way.

Don't look at those fronting the digital backlash as the enemy. Behind the sensationalist articles and bandwagon reporting are some interesting studies into the evolution of our brains.

The pioneers on the information revolution are forging forward with out any protective gear.  They take a high pressure pixel hosing from multiple screens and the subconscious mind can't process fast enough as it's crammed full of noughts and one's.

Until the equipment comes enabling us to filter, stem and channel all this input our only defence is the off button.

Should you want to know more, people are dropping some great comments and resources on the bottom of this blogpost: http://bit.ly/frVzww

I'm @Documentally on Twitter
Filed under  //   photograhy   work  
Posted January 24, 2011
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Graham Wiseman

I was taking photographs when I heard the news. It's hit me hard. If I type I cant cry. So I am typing.

I feel like I have lost my father. Again. Worse this time. This person I knew.

I have just answered the phone to a shaky voice telling me a good friend of mine has died.

Graham Wiseman was more than a friend though. He was a father figure, a mentor, a teacher the one guy who enabled me to do what I do.

Graham_wiseman

Of course he would deny all this. He was way to humble to take any credit for the kindness and inspiration he passed on to others.

He would do anything for anyone. He did so much for me.

Up until recently Graham owned Redding Photographic studio in Rugby Town centre. The studio had offered it's services since 1904 and Graham was proud to pick it up and carry it past it's centenary.

I had I met Graham through his step daughter. I was heading off to travel the world and he told me not to take the ridiculously compact APS camera that was in my back pack.

I ignored him and it was many countries and years later when I returned to Rugby and told Graham he was right.

I was on the dole at the time and could earn an extra tenner a week if i was on a work placement. I asked Graham if he would sign me off not really intending to actually do any work. He did and he even lied to the officials that would pop round and ask how i was doing. I was in a band. I didn't need a job.

I found myself spending more and more time in the studio though. Whenever I was in town I would pop in. I learn't photoshop before I learned how to take a photo. I had access to a dark room and learned to develop and print before I knew how to use a camera.

Me_reddings

I walked into the local newspaper and said I was a photographer. Graham had a way of installing confidence in people. I still hadn't really taken any photos I was happy with. Still someone had phoned while I was in the newspaper offices and said the photographer had just broken both of her arms and I got a job.

That night I remember the both of us reading the manual of the newspapers weighty digital SLR. One of the first. We marvelled at the technology. And I knew I was hooked.

Still not wanting me to learn the wrong way Graham gave me an old 1950's manual rangefinder telling me It would do till I could afford a Leica. He was only half Joking.

One day he handed me a massive set of keys to his studio with a heavy keyring bearing my initials in brass. I was gobsmacked. Moved. He said anytime in the evening or on Sundays his studio was mine.

It was one of the single most enabling things anyone has done for me. The trust, the faith, the generosity just made me want to be as good as I possibly could be. This was my office in town. A place to shoot photos should I want to but mainly to surround myself in the tech, the history and the art.

A few months later I was taking photos for the dailies, a few more after that I bought a Leica M6. I proudly showed Graham the first frame off my first film.

Tunnelvision

He said "You've got it." He didn't mean photography. He said I'd never stop learning and he was right. He meant I had captured the 'Decisive Moment' and he handed me a book by Henri Cartier Bresson.

Over the next few years we shared books magazines camera purchases and his studio. We rarely worked together as we shot different things but we spent many hours chatting, browsing Ebay for tech and putting the world to rights.

When I went freelance It was because Graham said he would do all he could to help. All the PR requests that came through to the studio he would pass on to me. When he went on holiday with the family I would watch the shop.

He loved his family so much. He loved everybody and everybody loved him. Genuinely funny, truly wise. He would give his last penny if he thought you needed it.

Never has the death of a friend affected me so much. When I look around, when I look at me, my life and family. Much of it is because of the start he gave me. The confidence and advice in work and life.

I did thank him once. We had a manly mutual back slap after I had got back from Iraq. He was proud and that made me so happy.

His death came quick and sudden yesterday. He died in his chair. He wasn't old. He never will be.

He was my friend.

I'm @Documentally on Twitter
Filed under  //   death   dying   friendship   graham wiseman   learning   mentor   photographer   photography   rugby town   work  
Posted October 13, 2009
// 21Comments