Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/8, 1/100 sec, ISO250 “Blue Hour” Cedar Park, 2019
I went outside to bring the garbage can back to the house when I saw that the sky was looking pretty awesome. I grabbed my camera and took a few snaps to stitch together in Photoshop. I think it turned out pretty good! It’s amazing how good the stitching technology is these days. I remember having to manually align layers in Photoshop and do quite a bit of blending manually. Now it’s almost entirely automated. Very cool!
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/8, 1/120 sec, ISO200 “Last Light” Cedar Park, 2019
Tonight’s post is just to share the sketch I worked on tonight. I still don’t know how to color, but it’s fun to find out where my roadblocks are, and try to work on them. So much to learn, so exciting to think about new things coming! Anyway, here’s the timelapse video of the drawing:
Ever since high school (oh so many years ago) I’ve been creating visually. Back then, it was drawing and painting, which I continued until I graduated from college with an art degree. When I started working, I shifted to a digital medium and graphic design, and that is pretty much what I continue to do, quite happily.
But only within the past few years have I realized that I am way more productive in the mornings – the window of heightened creativity starts from when I arrive at work and lasts for maybe four hours or so, sometimes less, but rarely more. With that newly-found knowledge, I’ve been able to do better work, more efficiently than before. So when I have a particularly challenging project, I’ll block off the morning so I can concentrate.
It’s really a waste of time to be stuck in meetings during this morning window. In fact, I’ll bring my laptop and work on projects during those morning meetings if I need to, and I don’t feel guilty about doing that. It’s for the good of the team, and honestly, my strengths are not planning meetings or analyzing metrics. (Some of my co-workers are excellent at that sort of thing, so I’ll let the experts have their time)
It seems silly that my younger self used to think that creativity (at least my own) happens at the same level at all times of the day. It actually can come to me in the afternoon or evenings as well, but I’d say that the mornings are the time I can actually count on and plan for. But once those four hours are over, it’s pretty much gone for the rest of the work day, and I’ll shift to tasks that require less creativity, or at least more formulaic problem-solving.
It’s kind of interesting to be working on a project and then feel the creative juices start to dry up. It makes me wonder what chemicals in the brain are being depleted. Some days, it seems like my window is open for a shorter amount of time, but I haven’t thought about if I was working more intensely or not. I’ll try to note that in the future.
Anyway, I’m sure other creative-type people have creative windows too, but maybe some can go 24/7?! I wonder how that works? 😄
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/4, 1/125 sec, ISO2500 “Sumatran Coffee” Cedar Park, 2019
こんばんは。How’s it going?
Mariko and I are both coffee drinkers (and Bay is turning into one as well) which means we need a steady supply of coffee beans for our morning drinks. The photo above is the latest coffee we are trying, and I have to say, it’s pretty good! I always drink my coffee black, so I can easily tell if it’s too bitter, and this one is very smooth – almost too smooth, but what’s nice is that Mariko buys lots of different coffees, so before long, we’re onto something new.
One thing that makes a big difference in the taste of the coffee is grinding whole beans rather than buying the coffee pre-ground. Even before drinking, that smell of the freshly ground beans is awesome! Another bonus is that if the coffee happens to be too bitter, you can create a coarser ground next time for a milder taste. Conversely, I’ve also used the grinder to “freshen up” pre-ground beans (which tend to be less flavorful) and give them a stronger flavor.
I’ve read that the Burr-type grinders are the best, but we’ve had our Braun electric blade-type grinder for over 15 years and it’s still going strong, so we’ll probably keep going with it until it dies (which might be never).
