Store Warrior

Store Warrior, a photo by gingerpig2000 on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
This is the latest in my series of abstract people, basically this is me in a shoe shop, trying out winter boots. I am quite please with the way it turned out!

This image is available as a print at: www.saatchionline.com/art/Photography-Store-Warrior/94195...

Old Geezer Fashion

Fashion 02, a photo by gingerpig2000 on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
Old Geezer Fashion

I have a passion, and that is not to let getting old mean you get consigned to saggy clothes, yachtwear or an old suit before they have to box you up and hide you 6 feet under the ground.

And this means getting some basic messages across, the first of which is there are just 2 stages in life - child and adult, plus a time when one has to navigate from one to the other.

When you are a child, your parents have to make a lot of your clothing decisions.

When you are an adult, you have to make most of your clothing decisions.

Hence, there is no such thing as 'age appropriate'. If you are an adult, you wear adult clothes. Some young people dress badly, some old people dress badly. And vice versa.

If someone cannot deal with older people dressing like they do, and that one is an adult, then we should be asking whether this person has matured enough, and whether they are still relying on other people to tell them what they should be wearing. Adults are adults. They make their decisions, and they should be respected for their decisions.

After all, only a child would laugh at what someone else is wearing.

Dried Corn in the Field

Dried Corn in the Field, a photo by gingerpig2000 on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
This is a field of drying out corn, ready for harvest we passed yesterday on our day out to Naleczow. Wifie took the photo, I edited it.

Here in eastern Poland the weather is getting cooler, but there are still some really sunny days when it is a pleasure to be out. We had a good walk along a country lane, seeing many cottages and the newly built houses of the nouveau riche.

A Solid Home

Cottage Swallow Tails, a photo by gingerpig2000 on Flickr.

When you are creating a business, there are places to spend your time, and other places where the return is less than the effort required to fix it. Which is rather an obvious statement.

Let's, though, take another look at the issue, see it from a different angle.

The picture shows the corner joints of a cottage, and at first glance it looks fairly basic, with rough-hewn timbers. But look closer - those joints are cut at a difficult compound angle so that the wall timbers are trying to slide down and inwards. That is traditional technology, and these joints will not fail until the timbers rot away.

The effort has been put into the joints, but what if the timbers had been squared off, the ends trimmed. How would the cottage look then? Well, like any other.

The parts left in their rough state give the cottage its character, it won't look like another. The same should be true of our business, it should be distinctive. So how do we make our business distinctive?

It might be easier than we imagine, all we might need to do is to do less work in the right places. Imagine that, more time to work on the important bits, and your character makes itself.

The trouble is, we might not recognize the important, character stuff. We might be so conditioned by society's expectations we may be working to eradicate the potential without realizing it. We may have been conditioned by life to believe that the core structure of our business must contain more than we need.

For example, take a look at this image. The original was taken by an early digital camera, at 640x480 pixels, and what you see here is just one small section of that image, I have cropped away 70% of the image. Do you miss those lost pixels?

I have only invested around 40 minutes on this image so far, less time than I have spent thinking about and writing this blog entry. I will spend another 6 hours to make this image 6000x6000 pixels and sharpened up ready to print. By practicing not doing things unless they are essential, I get better at only doing the things I have to do. What I have as a result is a distinct product, easy to make.

Orange Train

Orange Train, a photo by gingerpig2000 on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
I often miss opportunities to take pictures of trains, when I have my camera in my bag I forget how much I like working on the resulting images.

Trevor Butcher

See my images on: www.saatchionline.com/profiles/portfolio/id/94195

Lublin Stork

Lublin Stork, a photo by gingerpig2000 on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
Storks are one of those subjects where the thoughtlessly excitable in a nation get excited over 'their' national thing. I love storks, and I love the way many people put up poles upon which they can build their nests in safety. However, they are only here for a few short months, then they are off back to where they live in Africa for the rest of the year.

And they don't give a flying feather about some lunatic humans who want to pretend that they are 'theirs'.

Trevor Butcher

See my images on: www.saatchionline.com/profiles/portfolio/id/94195

Trailerman

Trailerman, a photo by gingerpig2000 on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
I have been watching some old Polish films, from the 1960s and 1970s. This image reminds me of these films.

Trevor Butcher

See my images on: www.saatchionline.com/profiles/portfolio/id/94195

Church in Kazimierz Dolny

Church in Kazimierz Dolny, a photo by gingerpig2000 on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
This is one end of the square, where it rises up to the church. Beyond the church is the castle, a classic location for many Polish films.


See my prints at: www.saatchionline.com/profiles/portfolio/id/94195