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Log

2520F

I can’t think clearly when there is a footbal game going in the background in Hungarian. I’m at work again, another evening spent in a small broadcast technician’s booth.
I had many things on my mind today, but the most important was the following realization:

My mind needs a job where someone hands me clearly defined tasks that I am competent in executing. On the other hand my ego still clings to some ambition for doing something that matters, something to leave a mark, something that’s creative and important. I still cling to the idea that having a regular job is just a temporary way to make money and bide my time while I work on building myself up as a Great Photographer. I feel like I am supposed to be working on projects and publicity and building up my potential to rely on my art somewhere down the line. This makes it impossible to relax, to feel contented. I get after a full day at my job and an evening shift at my second job and I don’t feel like I’ve done enough. Any day I don’t spend working on my photography or at least worrying about it feels wasted.

In reality I bet if I could accept that having a stable job and making money is enough, and that art should be for having fun and recharging, I would be happier. I would feel better about myself if I could get rid of the irrational feeling that I’m always supposed to be doing more, striving for greatness. So many people are able to do this, to have a job that pays the bills and be happy with that and have calm, free mind space for making art when they have the time and feel like it. I wish I was one of those people.


During most workdays I don’t have much time to myself. I’ve always needed some alone time, although maybe it’s not very unique to me. A good day is when I have done work for money, spent quality time with my girlfriend and have had an hour completely to myself. I edit photos, journal, or go down a rabbit hole of random research.
Recently I haven’t had good days like this, at least not much. Work comes first and whenever I can, I’ll at least cook dinner and talk for an hour with J. But most days, after this, I don’t have much more time left before I need to be in bed.
So I steal time. I try to steal time at work, and I try to steal time in the evening, from tomorrow. I stretch out the time from the evening walk with the dog to getting in bed. But I feel guilty, because I know I’ll be underslept tomorrow, so I don’t relax and don’t feel good about this time. Instead I obsess or I scroll.
On days like these I don’t really feel like myself, I don’t really feel like an individual person. I need that comfortable hour of me-time to feel like an individual me, and not just an automaton on rails. I don’t know how best to do it, but I need to find a good, safe place in my routine for the hour for me.

Well, anyways.



2519S

I am in the middle of an epic multitasking session. I am at my second job at a sports channel, with a live broadcast going, while my laptop screen is split between a text editor and the new season of “Andor” playing.

On the way to work I listened to a recording of the new pope, Leo XIV making his first speech the other day, after his election. I am mourning the end of a momentus event that I didn’t get to be a part of.

The morning Pope Francis died, as I was drinking my morning cofee and reading the news, I remember feeling very clearly that I was supposed to be in Rome. I felt called or something like that. A calm, obvious feeling: this is important, this is happening at a particular time in a particular place and I’m supposed to be a part of that.

Then of course I didn’t go. I am not in a place financially to do something like this and I was just about to start in a new job so this wasn’t the time for me to up and go to camp out in St. Peter’s square for weeks, documenting the mourning, the period of the conclave, the people gathered from all over the world, in a community of faith and expectation and overwhelming emotion. The moment Leo XIV stepped out onto the loggia to give his first Urbi et Orbi blessing, I knew this chance was gone for good. A moment has ended, a chapter has closed, and time began to move forward. Sede vacante, an “empty chair”, felt somehow personal to me.


I’m thinking about how I work with my photo library. Currently I have a master Lightroom catalog with every image from 2019 to today in it, with the raw files spread across three external drives. A fourth drive holds exported jpegs, in a folder structure mirroring that of the raws.
This system feels fragile. A monolithic catalog, no way to put away drives with old images I don’t use. The reason is that my portfolio and project selects are only reliably collected as collections in this catalog.

So now I’m trying to come up with a new structure, with spearate catalogs by year, and a new library of “positives” - exported files, organized in some way so that can become my primary collection of work.
Meanwhile, Lightroom catalogs will serve for selecting and processing files, but ones things are exported, the catalogs of raws will not be touched again unless I need to make new exports.

I’m finding this difficult, my mind is not clear, and this seems at the same time very simple and very complex. I’ll need to keep thinking.

Well, anyways.