Around the middle of June marks a very important point to me. Firstly it is my birthday and I was turning 27. Not that I hold any significance to that, but it was an excuse. I had enough vacation time and was beyond fed up enough with work to take off a week straight over the week of my birthday. Typically I would try and save up my vacation time to take off a week at a time. I preferred it that way. Even if some people (dave) said that’s too much time at once. And for whatever illogical reason tries to count the weekends as days off. So instead of taking 5 vacation days, it was both weekends and I was getting 9 days off.
I don’t see it that way.
But what happened and made this vacation different was that I was taking off just for me. We didn’t have a trip planned. I just wanted to take off from work and do what I felt like. Which turned out to be a good bit of video games and watching streaming services. I also remember putting together a puzzle that I then framed and is hanging on the wall currently. A really nice puzzle from one of my favorite book series, Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss.
Almost sad how badly I wanted to escape from that workplace. But leaving there was the best thing I ever did, twice. I don’t get off work and feel completely drained to the point where I don’t want to explore any hobbies. Sometimes I would come home from work and just lie in bed mindlessly browsing the internet until I got hungry enough to go cook dinner. What kind of an existence is that, you spend the majority of each day, and each week. At a place where you’re unhappy. To come home and let it effect your home life and make you unhappy. So you perpetuate the cycle of unhappy. I’ve been at a different job now for almost a year, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. The collective 6 years I spent at that last company really taught me a lot. And I’m using that as a reference for what I should never put up with again. No amount of money is worth it.
(the funny thing about life is. It’s all random. I don’t believe in fate, or destiny. Not karma or that saying something can jinx something else. But I’m writing this part here later in the day, this morning I wrote that above paragraph. Since then my currently job suddenly ended. First thing this morning we had a company wide meeting where the owner announced we were liquidated and closed effective immediately. 25+ people out of a job just like that. It would appear that I’m heading back to the previously trash talked job. Although on a temporary basis, as I will continue to seek new employment. I am grateful that I even have the opportunity to come back, it would be quite difficult to continue paying bills without it. So, funny enough. No amount of money is worth it, is exactly what I’m heading back to. Because some amount of money is needed so I can continue to function. I can only hope for another job offer quickly)
But back a few years ago, a week off vacation was a nice little break from the monotony and misery. And as I mentioned, photography happened.
It was the first real experience I had with just grabbing my camera and going out somewhere. Without a goal or purpose specifically in mind. I didn’t make it too far the first night, just out to the empty parking lot in the shopping center that is right in front of my apartment. But I went at night, so I could see the moon and try to take pictures. Armed with only a tripod, trigger release, and the 75-300mm. I’ll save you the images I’m looking at now, the fix few… well more than half. Didn’t come out. Night photography is tricky, long exposure and manual focus is tricky.
Canon T3i w/ 75-300mm - 10 Sec - F5.6 - 300mm - ISO 200
There’s a good amount of shots like this.
Canon T3i - 18-55mm - 1/2 Sec - F6.3 - 18mm - ISO 6400
I think I put one of the weird wide angle macro attachment things onto my kit lens. The one that is basically just extra glass that you screw in like a filter. If nothing else it does add some interesting lens flare.
Canon T3i w/ 18-55mm kit lens - 1/30 Sec - F3.5 - 18mm - ISO 1600
That’s about it really. Not too much of a lesson here, just me out playing around with my camera in a parking lot late at night. If you want to take something away from this, not every time you press the shutter button are you going to nail it. It takes time and a lot of practice. But it would be pretty boring if I only shared my successes and not the failures that got me there.