Changing career and self help, c.1989.

During my twenties I worked as an electronic technician for Schlumberger in Aberdeen during the oil boom (and bust). I was based onshore but had many repair and maintenance trips to oil rigs. I didn't enjoy the job and i wasn't particularly good at it either. I needed a change of career.

As part of an Open University course to help me choose the right career path, I ended up reading some self help books. In a recent clear out of stuff, I found a note which, if I remember correctly was my attempt at summing up self help books. Here's what I wrote c.1989:

• What's important to you? Define it clearly. Change.
• Your goals? Clarify and attack them (!). Expect failures and disappointments but learn from them.
• Be active. Work hard at everything BUT always towards your goals.
• Be passionate, Desire something.
• Role models - find them, study them.
• Be good to yourself. Daily, do something you enjoy.
• Everything in balance.
• De-junk. Keep on of top things.
• Break down tasks.
• Increase skills.
• Nurture relationships.
• Be yourself - don't compare yourself to others.
• Live in the present. Worrying will solve nothing and damage your health.
• Listen to messages that fate can bring. (?)
• Care more and be more affectionate. Empathise.
• Write things down - keep a journal.
• Keep the faith - remain hopeful.
• Meditate
• Exercise
• Eat well.
• Drink plenty water.

I eventually boiled down all self help books to the Nike slogan - 'Just do it!'

Those who know me can now have a laugh at the bullet points I have utterly failed to do!

:-)

Anyway, what's a blog post without a picture?

Do you have f1.8 days, or maybe pinhole days?

I know I do.

Some days I just want to go out and shoot anything at f1.8 - like this taken yesterday:

I found this plastic bag  in bondage on a barbed wire fence intriguing.

Some days of late, I just want to see stuff through a cheap pinhole lens, just to see what it looks like - that's all. Like this gable wall of the steading at Ardoch:

Better still, leave it in colour. Most pinhole images - that is REAL pinhole images (which mine are not really) - are always in black and white.

As well as the cheap pinhole, I have a cheap plastic Holga lens and my mood of late is to take 'pretty' pictures with a messy, plastic lens. Most end up in the delete bin but some just about get saved due to happy accidents, like this one of Lochnagar:

None of this on their own means much but if I can add them all together in the right way for the right image, something may happen.

Hassles and issues at work this year has seen me in a real mood or mixture of feelings - mostly negative. I think there is a connection with my frustrated, negative mood and this desire to just get out with my camera and do stuff, like some form of anger release.

Anybody else experience this?

Does productive, creative work only happen when your mind is in a 'good' place?