Checkpoint

Defined in Wikipedia:

Checkpoints are locations in a video game (generally found in action games) where a player's status is saved and where the character respawns in the status saved by the checkpoint. A respawn is most often due to the death of the in-game character, but it can also be caused by the failure to meet an objective required to advance in the game. Some of these checkpoints are temporary and last until a new checkpoint is activated, the level is cleared, or the player loses all his/her lives. Most modern games, however, save the game to memory at these points, known as auto-saving. In some games, bonuses are awarded for passing checkpoints.

Why a checkpoint and why the reference to a video game?  For the past 2-3 months I have repeatedly tried to regain my enthusiasm for this course and even for photography.  Each time I thought I was getting there my interest waned and I drifted away, spending much of my free time watching movies or playing video games.  At the beginning of this "dry spell" I did need a break and took Christmas off, however, it is now the end of March and my break continues.

I have tried to solve this problem repeatedly, each time ending up in a dead end, again drifting indolently in my free time.  There are reasons! In mid-Feb for 4 consecutive weekends I spent over 14 hours sitting on a plane with roughly 20 hours of travel.  9 hours time shift was followed a week later by 7 in the opposite direction.  In between work days stretched to 14 hours, just enough time left to eat and sleep.  This is supposed to be the quiet time in my annual working calendar, a time following corporate year end close and preceding the planning for the following fiscal year.  I expect to work 40 hours a week during January-May, and then 60 from June to December; working 60-70 at this time of the year is troubling.  I am an analyst and it does not require a great deal of analysis to see that I face a big challenge in the second half of the year.  Solving that one is taking much energy but it is not the point of this monologue.

The point here, is that I cannot divide myself into two people, there is no worker and student, there is simply me.  I have allowed the worker to overwhelm the student, a balance I need to reset.  It is very easy at the end of a long week to call the weekend a rest and basically do nothing constructive.  That does not help my studies at all, but nor does it really help my working life.  The OCA is a breath of fresh air permitting a regular switch from left brain to right brain thinking. A weekend spent taking photographs and writing about them is a great way to reset my mind.  I just have to avoid succumbing to what the Germans call the Innerer Schweinehund - my inner pig dog.

So, now I attempt my own checkpoint, a reset of my photographic self.  It starts with this text, not really about photography at all, but a way of writing down the problem and so making it easier to seek a solution.  My problem is motivation and ultimately that can only come from within, by writing this self-analysis I begin the process of once again engaging with the course.  I have much to write about, although I have not been formally studying I have been taking photographs, documenting the places I have visited, trying to think critically about where I was and how I wanted to represent it.  I jotted down 10 individual blog posts that I need to write, simply to catch up with what I have been doing since the beginning of the year.

However, most of all I need to start making photographs once more and get back to what I want to photograph.  So far I have let this course push me in a direction I simply do not like.  I must start taking photographs that interest me and not ones that I think will interest my tutor.  Sure, I need to pass this course, but I would rather pass with a low mark producing photographs I like than obtain a higher mark doing work that I dislike.  The Fest experience began this interlude, I started taking photographs that did not really interest me, and created a narrative that interested nobody.  I have an issue with the course, but that really should not be creating the problems I am having.

So, to conclude, I am going to start having fun with this course, take it less seriously and treat the exercises with the contempt they deserve, but with humor and creativity rather than cynicism.  Who knows where that may take me.  One thing for sure, close ups of people are not going to be a big feature, but stuff in boxes might make a reappearance.