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Earlier this year, I was thinking what we might do for an experience.  Somewhere out of the blue Havana, Cuba popped into my head. Are Americans allowed to go there? – Back to the internet to get the answer. 

The major allowance’s for Cuba travel fall under work-related reasons. Journalists, performers,  and athletes can enter Cuba. That’s not me. – I studied further. I found that individuals can get a special people-to-people visa. You must participate in a person to person cultural and educational experience – talk one-on-one with Cubans. Cruise ship companies saw great opportunities. They organized people-to-people tours. I contacted Norwegian Cruise Line. Two months later we were in Havana.

I listed a few things I thought I wanted to see in Havana:

1. Cigars making
2. Rum making
3. What did they do with all the money Russia gave them
4. Why do the they have classic  cars
5. How many books did Fidel write
6. Gotta see those dancing-girls
7. What are those faces on Revolution Square buildings

   

I saw all eight of them.

It is what I did not see that will prompt a second trip – I did not see the invisible – What growing up free in the United States and growing up under Castro did to the biased way we two people-to-people think, feel, and respond. 

To get around our biased thinking I suggest we ask Cuba’s unbiased National bird to host our unbiased National bird – The Cuban Trogon and the American Eagle. So, just to entertain you, I doctored my camera photos a little – read on!

I grew up free – living in our democracy while Cubans, my age, lived under quite different forms of government.

My communities were isolated and independent – the people of the community set the rules – no outsider set the rules:  In a 200 year old Brethren community, in the one-culture IBM corporate culture, in an Island 12 miles out to sea Block Islander’s ruled their Island, Texas Hill Country ranchers all lived one-way for 150, Drummond Island families lived as “Islanders” since 1850.  Each of my communities had it’s rulers that evolved from the community – whether elected or self-appointed, they ruled – but they ruled according to the free-culture set in place in 1776 by the winners of our American revolution.

Cuba sets it’s own rules. Whether Castro is self-appointed or elected is not my intended future study  – what I want to study is how do people think, feel, and respond as a result of the Castro communism and Batista’s dictator rules.

But for now – my camera saw two birds touring Havana (Trogno and Eagle) – know as “Tro” and “Eag”:

This has been one visible story of my Cuba trip – If I do a second one – I will look for the invisible – What growing up free in the United States and growing up under Castro and Batista did to the biased way we two people-to-people think, feel, and respond.

Yes, college is free in Cuba but only after you have Political Clearance: Students must be cleared by the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution before they are allowed to take the university entrance examinations. Students demonstrating good political standing in relation to their Communist beliefs receive a letter of approval allowing them to take college entrance exams. Students with a “poor” political standing may be “blacklisted” from furthering their education.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dave Cesari, once again, gave us wonderful  information on the birds he photographs.  He just posted photographs of the Kinglets – a very small bird.  To see them, click the Photo Page in the left column – then return to read my article below. By the way, I see I got a few comments – take a look at them and maybe add a comment – Thanks.

 

———-  I decided to write a story on re-education after Bob, the leader of our writing group, announced at our last meeting:  

“When I started writing as a hobby several years ago, I knew I had a lot to learn — and I wasn’t going back to school to do it.  So I started following blogs and checking out websites.  When I came across an article that taught me something, I captured it and added it to my elibrary .  I’ve been doing that for over five years, so my elibrary is quite full. ”  Bob went on to offer the content of his elibrary to us all.

……..Here is my story………

Of the 12 steps to happiness, close behind friendship, is having a job.   A job gives a person a sense of worth, a sense of accomplishment, a pride in ones self.   In short, obligation’s associated with a job give you fun! (Of course a job  can be a retirement hobby like Bob’s writing.)

I have had  many jobs.  Between each job I needed to re-educate myself.  I was lucky, my parents taught me to love learning.  I am still learning as I work to re-educate myself to write this blogs.   Oh my!

 In the future (say 30 years from now) everyone will be forced to learn to take on new jobs.  If the children being born today do not enjoy education, I fear our they  will fall into a group of humans that are frustrated and unemployed.

We older folks have an obligation to teach the young folks to embrace change. Teach them to be ready to re-train themselves when their job goes away.  In the future, most  jobs will go away every 10 years.

We will have drones delivering packages, robots delivering our food, and computers generating entertaining TV shows

–  we will have self driving cars, computers that do a complete medical diagnostic on us.  Why do we need doctors anyway? Computerized robots  can do a better job of telling me what medication I need  than any human doctor can do.

The echocardiogram I took today will produce all the vitals for the doctor to read. He will look at the vitals.  Then he will use his experience and education to tell me this is what we should do!

In 30 years all of that doctor’s experience and education will be dumped into the computer – Poof – The doctor’s job is gone – He or she has been put out of work.

In the old days when the car replaced the buggy – folks in the buggy factory could easily be retrained to work in the automobile factory. But when the doctor is put out of work – what will he or she be re-trained to do?   They must learn a whole new career – must love to re-educate themselves.

What about wars – if drones and robots fight the wars what will soldiers and pilots do –  it will take more people to build, maintain, and fly  the drones and robots – but re-training a soldier or pilot to program a drone’s computer will require re-education.

Before long the “pilots” job will be gone – the computers will be trained to fly the drones with greater accuracy.  Much faster than the human, the computer will digest thousands of inputs from satellites and other drones, before firing weapons.  It will accurately distinguish between a gathering at a church and a gathering at the enemy’s military headquarters.  Teaching the computer will require a different skill than “piloting” the drone. Only those “pilots” that embrace re-education will be employable.

It is not like in my day –  go to college, learn a career, and 40 years later retire from that job.  In the future, study for a career and be employable for a few years.

Today’s youth must be taught to embrace change and enjoy re-educating themselves  to teach computers how to replace them.

I read that the international game of competitive chess must be carefully monitored to assure that human competitors are not getting instructions from a computer. 

It took only 4 hours for the computer to teach its self how to never lose to a human chess player. No one taught the computer – it taught itself!  

This is not science fiction – we have the skill to build these computers and  we have the skill to build self driving cars.  The hard part is for our governments to sort out how to govern these new cars.  That will take several years – but in the next go around the computer will define new laws for self driving cars in only four hours. Who needs congressmen and senators to work on it for  years? The saving grace is, the computer will figure out what to do with all the unemployed congressmen and senators.

Maybe being a writer of a blog like this is a safe job? – Oops, I just got an idea – I could  program the computer to write my blog. Then what would I do?

Here is my message. Help your family embrace change. Set the stage for kids being born today – help them embrace change. Not only embrace it but be ready for it.  Help them learn to love getting re-educated over and over again. That way, they will always have a job. They will get new challenges, win some, and  have fun doing it  – They will be happy.

Dave Cesari posted some great bird photos from his improved bird feeder and up-state NY – click on TGO Photo Club in left column and then return to read my story on friends and opportunities below.

 

…………MY STORY ON FRIENDS AND OPPORTUNITIES……..

The subject of opportunities crept into a discussion my daughter and I were having relative to my granddaughter.  We envied the opportunities of our youth. 

How did she get into the college of her choice. Some said friends of her Dad help her assure early admission.  I believe her friends helped her prepare for the opportunity, seek the opportunity, and  accept the opportunity the moment it was available. In any case, friends were a part of her being at the college of her choice today.

Friends are the most important assets we have. Our friends are from our families, our spouses, and our communities –  neighbors, social media,  clubs, churches, and the list goes on.

In this writing, I want to look at only one  aspect of friendship –  Opportunity!  

What did I say?  We select friends because we want to use them for opportunity – that sure sounds terrible.  Well, read on.  I hope to illustrate that taking an opportunity from friends is an honorable arrangement. 

I found the following suggestion on the internet:  “You can attract opportunities to you by selecting  friends that have a strong focus in life.   Be curious to learn about their focus. Give praise to your friends. Give to support your friend’s focus.”         .

 First, let me add this caution: You must take opportunities and actions  that reward you in your own way.  Mine would not necessarily work for you.

Think about what YOU want as YOUR opportunity, how YOU will grab it, and  how YOU will attract YOUR own opportunities.  

Here is an opportunity given to me by my friends – It is just one of many opportunities I have taken. I strung them all together for a full life of extraordinary phases.

Here is a story of one of my opportunities  – “Block Island Preacher Man.”

Right after retirement from IBM, I wanted to give a year or so to the church on Block Island.  I discussed it with my friend Reverend Tony.  From that came an opportunity beyond my greatest expectation.

Tony gave me responsibility to help him expand three service’s offered by his church: 

 

 

1. Develop a  leadership program for small churches using his book, “Seeds of Renewal”

2. Run a church camp program for Rhode Island youth,

3. Offer “church weddings” to non-members – couples who fell in love while visiting the island and wanted to return to the Island to have a church wedding. Tony could not take time from serving his church members to do the pre-wedding counseling that the church required.  I needed to go to school to learn to do that. Then I was locally ordained.

To me the rewards were many. Here are a few:

I studied and learned much in order to be prepared to take on the responsibilities – I love learning.  Gloria and I worked together – she organized weddings – I performed them – We were a team doing a fun service for the church. Twice while doing leadership programs, I had the opportunity to live as a guest with a family on the Hopi Reservation – It was like a vacation trip to experience a different way of life.  Later in the year, several parents of young campers from Rhode Island told me the youth Camp program change the direction of their teenagers – that was a remarkable reward.  On down the road, couples I married, sent us photos of their new-born child and told of how wonderful we made their wedding day at the church on the Island.

The rewards continued long after we left the Island.  For example, at our ranch in Texas, a Navajo family I worked with in the leadership program, came, at Christmas, and prepared a “Navajo Traditional” Christmas dinner for us.  Here is an other example of continuing rewards:  Can you imagine, 30 years later, how much fun I have telling folks to speak nicely because “I am an ordained minister” and then watching their mouths drop open?  Finally and most valuable reward I received was an insight to Tony’s strong focused philosophy.  That philosophy forever changed my concept of the rewards of giving. I would need to write a book to tell you of all the rewards I received from this experience on Block Island.

Using my friends was a great arrangement for both of us. So, say I, make friends, use them, and most important – help them use you! 

Go to the Photo Club Page (Click in left Column) – Dave Cesari posted new photos.

Hey you are my community. See, below,  my STORY on COMMUNITIES. 

In Psychology Today Dr. Karyn Hall wrote of “Belonging to Community.” I paraphrase:  “A sense of belonging to community is a human need, just like the need for food and shelter.” Some find community in a church, some with friends, some with family, and some on social media. Some see themselves as connected to one or two people. Others feel a connection to many. Those that struggle to find a sense of belonging have a loneliness that is physically painful for them. “

The Brubaker family is one of my communities – a community that is generations old.

My daughter Heather and grandson Charlie made me laugh today. On my last visit there, Heather started a conversation during “Happy Hour” by saying we Brubaker’s are different.  She said we Brubaker’s try to see the humorous side to any situation.

Heather’s txt to me today said “Oh my goodness. Charlie IS half Brubaker….. we were driving down the road and we saw a sign that said “road work ahead” and he said “I sure hope it does.”  I smiled at his Brubaker style humor.”

We all have a community language that is common to our family, our community, our business, and our internet friends. The community communicates in a unique shorthand.

We humans talk and think local – those in our community experience the same things, so we know the same physical and social features of our community and they form the bases for communication. We are part of the community by talking and thinking a certain way. 

Most of my 80 years were in communities where everyone associated with their neighbors.  Since I moved to different places, I was often an outsider.  I knew to join the community, I needed to lean the insider’s  language and then use their language – and I needed to embrace their attitudes.

Remember, we use the same language within the community but not across communities.  “You’uns” may make me one of “we’uns” back home in the hills of western Pennsylvania – But, saying “you’uns” in a presentation to a group of IBM’ers in Westchester County New York would not fly. On the other hand, “Lets take the 6:40” would be clearly understood short-hand for  Westchester commuters to New York City.

Just for fun, see if this makes sense to you:  “I sure enjoy a pop – even on a unwedder day like this – but I could not have any because it is all. Sonny spilted the last one when he was redding up. I do not think it would have happened if Doris wasn’t rutching around so much. Anyway, I said to Sonny, come here once. I told him I would get more but nowadays pop is so expensive anymore. Looking out the window and seeing white, I said: ‘Is it snowing.’ Sonny said, ‘Is that a question or a statement?  It depends where I put the intonation.”

That paragraph uses the words and language  of the community that I grew up in.

Our community’s language,  elicits feelings of home – of belonging – If used in other communities, it can bring ridicule and carry a perceived lack of being part of the community. 

I ask you to look at your own community’s shorthand language and enjoy pondering it – Here are a few phrases (and attitudes) from communities that I have been a part over the last 80 years.  See if you relate to any of them.

1. See you at the painted rock.

2. No rush, they are running wild due to Kelly’s jeepsters.

3. Turn left at 4 corners, past James’s, by U block – it was at least 500 pounds.

4. We had a big hatch last night.

5. Love Feast is in the Soap Holler church tonight.

6. I saw a 10 footer just 2 ports down from the bee tree.

7. I saw a 10 pointer at flat rock.

8. Did you hear an Islander went down off the channel.

9. I am in a pickle. My pig is leaking. I should have painted it.

10. It is there by the low water crossing where Bernice shot the axis deer. 

….. A little side humor – Bernice (98 at the time) said to the Texas Conservation Officer: “It is my ranch and I will shoot whatever I damm well please on my ranch.” The female Conservation Officer understood the language and the attitude. She put her summons-pad away, got off the ranch with haste, and drove away.

Each one of the 10 phrases was understood by members of the community I was a member of at the time.

Like Dr Hall says, focus on building community, learn their language, use it to help say – “I want to be part of you” – them smile.  

I will show photos from only a few of my communities

Oh my – before I start my story – I say to you: “Hey, Join the TGO Writers Group – First meeting Oct 5 – See the Happenings for time and place.”

I will have to miss the first meeting – the club is a great group of people sharing their drive to write – mostly fiction – we talk to give you confidence to write, we talk of our minds, we talk of how we think, we talk of  how we create a story, and we have the joy of sharing whatever we write with TGO friends.

 

Now my story ———–“Your Story – Man, Woman, or Fitz”

For the first meeting I will still be on an island in the body of water connecting Lake Superior and Lake Huron – maybe 50 mils south of where the Edmund Fitzgerald went down on that cold November night in 1975. I look out to the south where I can see a freighter’s light on the path the Fitz would have taken had she survived the storm – thinking of the souls lost from the Fritz’s crew, on that cold dark night, send my inner mind from “Calm” to Fear”

Last night was the second night of fall, it was total darkness – I had a flash light strapped to head, miner style.  But, I kept it turned off – I have walked this road, to my barn, a 1000 times – no light needed – it was 38 degrees when I left the house at 9 pm.  I wanted to stretch my legs before going to bed.  Oh my, it is starting to mist. I turn on my miners light – in the beam of the light the mist looks like snow.  A deep chill runs thru my body.

 All of a sudden a beam of light flashes across the road 100 yards in front of me. I turn off my head light and step behind a large tree. The tree is right against the road pavement.  On this remote island, the roads are more like paths than highways. I wondered what fool, like me, would be out here walking this road at this hour, on a blustering night like this. 

There is that light again – there are only a dozen people who live on this dead-end road along the shore of Lake Huron – who could it be – then I see a figure stumbling, falling,  staggering back up – is it a man, a teen, a woman? 

I step out unto the road and shout – “Are you ok” – just as I stepped out from behind the tree the freights’s lights glide behind a protruding peninsula, the wind came upon me like a storm out of hell – the waves crashed on Huron’s shore behind me  – I only heard such crashing sounds  when we lived on Block Island – 12 miles out to sea in the Atlantic Ocean. 

In this mystery of a sudden storm, I shout again – trying to make my voice heard over the tremendous sound of the crashing waves. “Are you OK” – The figure is so bundled up, I still could not tell if it was man, woman, or child – the figure shook it’s head and outstretched their arms – with motions telling me to “Stay away – stay away.”

I ask “Do you want help” – they gave the same non-verbal response  – My god “What is going on.”  Is this bundled up figure a man, woman, or child – or an alien – a ghost?  My hair stands on end – so stiff it almost pushes the miner’s lamp off my head. 

Then, the winds stopped – offering a mysterious calmness.  In the far distance I hear the freighter’s horn announcing to other Lake vessels that they are rounding the peninsula – without thinking my head turns – for just a second –  to the south toward the sound of the freighter’s horn. I look back to the figure – IT IS GONE!

Who was the figure – was it a runaway teen, a woman leaving an abusive husband, an abused woman who just killed her abusing husband, an alien from the cloud covered sky, or a ghost from the crew of the Fitz.

In the morning, I wonder, are the police looking for me ‘cause I was the last person to see the figure.

MAKE IT YOUR STORY: You pick whichever possibility you like and then you can write the total story – a work of fiction. 

Normal people wonder where writers get their ideas. That is because they are not writers.  See, that nighttime walk gave me lots of ideas – ideas for you.  I think the writers must dwell on things that are not, then dwell on the stories that just maybe could be. That is how works of fiction start.

Writers are sort of like folks with Pareidolia. Folks with Pareidolia have the ability to look at objects and see things that are not – like faces on the surface of the moon. The dictionary says “It is a perfectly normal phenomenon.”   Pareidolia, is a word from the Greek, meaning, “resembling an image.”

I would like to be a writer and I sure have the perfectly normal phenomenon called Pareidolia.  My iPhone camera tells  true  image I saw – My PhotoShop computer tells the story I saw:

Fact: Jim, my son,  made me think of the 9,468 photos and 424 video son my camera – Outside, I snap photos every day to record what nature gave to me  at the moment.  Sometimes the camera does not quite get the feeling I had,  but I keep trying to help the camera do the best it can.

Fact: My son, Jim, and I planned a road trip this month – but due to circumstance it got postponed – but we chatted on the phone – somewhere in that chat he said  –  “Dad, I can not imagine you inside – from my childhood to this day I remember you always being out side” 

Fact: My Mother was often ask to do “readings” at gatherings from Mennonite church services, to farmer’s associations, to family reunions. She loved the outside and nature and most often recited poems about nature  – Any poem that was a metaphor of life and death with nature – she knew them all and practiced her readings on us kids.

The “Last Rose of Summer”(1805) by Thomas Moore – Mother had them all crying.

LAST PHRASE: 

“When true hearts lie withered,

and fond ones are flown,

Oh!, who would inhabit

this bleak world alone?”

Seasons Ebb Away (2016) by Jenny Kelley – A little more upbeat – and it is too recent for my Mother to read – but I think about how she could have used it as a “reading”.

LAST PHRASE: 

“People can be compared to the seasons.

They are born, bloom, and ebb away.

Like spring, summer, and fall they cannot stay.

Winter will come as it always does.

If we are blessed, we have experienced the

seasons at their best.” 

The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee (1970’s) BY N. SCOTT MOMADAY – read the whole poem by this Native American author  – bet you will like it.

SELECTED PHRASES: 

I am a feather on the bright sky

I am the roaring of the rain

I am the long track of the moon in a lake

I am a deer standing away in the dusk

You see, I am alive, I am alive

I stand in good relation to the earth

Fact: All these poems made me think of the 9,468 photos and 424 video on my camera – I snap photos every day to record what nature gave to me  at the moment.  Sometimes the camera does not quite get it but I keep trying to help the camera do the best it can.

Here are just a few outside photos from my iPhone as the phone tried to record what I saw and felt this summer – They are not meant to be great photography – just my attempt to share my summer’s outside experiences with you – enjoy:

Hey – Use the click options to the left – In the Photo Page Dave gives some insight to his skill in photographing hummingbirds. – The other options are interesting too.

 

———————–MY THOUGHT FOR THE DAY ARE BELOW.

 

If the following words of this blog – trigger one helpful thought, I have been successful – the words are to trigger the thought of loving animals and sticking to a routine!

Daily routine – One of the first elements of a happy retirement. Routine, really gives you contact with others, gives you a reason to get up in the morning. For example, In this summer 2018 life, people go by my house and if I am not sitting reading at 7:00am they worry. I feel an obligation to be there – a commitment. – a reason to get up!  I have been fortunate to always love what I do when I do it – and I changed it often. In that sense I do what I want to do when I want to do it.- After a while you can change your routine to a new routine – keeps you from getting bored that way.

I retired – yipes – 30 years ago from IBM management – That was my first retirement.  But I have lived many lives before that and since then.  Been a Brethren farmer’s son, preacher, teacher, Summer Camp Director, volunteer, software designer, rancher, remote island resident, Chamber of Commerce video producer, livestock auction employee,  Florida retiree, private business manager, husband, and hopefully friend to many.

Throughout each of those lives – even into retirement – two things are common – Daily routine and love of animals.  

As I said, you could set your clock by what I am doing, but my summer does not include owning animals – I sold my horse this summer – but looking at my library of photos I see animals photos are a major portion of my library. – so I still have animals around me to enjoy and photograph.

This morning, while making coffee I looked out toward the Bay, expecting to see gulls, ducks, geese, sandhill cranes, and of course deer – I did see them  – if they were not there, I worry – see, animals also have a daily routine.

Here are a variety of animal photos from my life that I would like to show you:

Too friendly to the camera

This blog is working to represent four entities (Click on the menu to the left):  1. The TGO Photo Club (Click Photo Page), 2. Blue Heron Galleries (Click Art Page),   3. My thoughts on many things in life (Scroll down this page or Click JIMSDAILY Thoughts)  and 4. Selected art to share (Click Selected Art).

MY THOUGHTS ON APPRECIATION:    ——————————–

My subject today is really about APPRECIATION. Today’s specific APPRECIATION is for the art around you.  Which art – The art in the Blue Heron Restaurant of course.   Without it the walls would be so drab – they would be mundane. 

APPRECIATE that each artist spent hours putting in that last line, that last glint in the subject’s eye, or that last flash of color to lead our eyes.  These last brush strokes help us see beauty, experience emotion, or just unknowingly have the art relax us as we sip the drink before dinner.  APPRECIATE the artist and the hours they put in to create the art for us.

So, what is an artist?  An artist is someone who makes art. 

So, what is art?  From Webster: “Art is the product of human creative skill and imagination, primarily for its beauty or emotional power.”

How does art come to be appreciated? – Skill and Effort by the artist – That is how.

I was reading a story in the Washington Post about how news photographers freshen up mundane White House photos  – they are artist. They use their skills to bring out a story, even in a mundane moment.

“The helicopter lands. A Marine opens the door for the president. He is escorted to the presidential plane. The commander-in-chief salutes and disappears into the cabin of Air Force One.”  It has got to be a rather mundane news story – don’t you think?

The White House press pool was brought to the airport two hours ahead of his departure, giving the photographers time to consider their options for the best shot.

Brendan Smialowsk worked every second of his allotted two hours to plan and prepare himself to capture the upcoming mundane moment – his piece of art!  Laying on his belly for one half hour protecting this exact spot to capture the shot he wanted  – this is the art he got!   I feel he worked with his skills to create interesting beauty and emotion – art.

(Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)  The APPRECIATION that followed is what I read in the Washington Post article.  I understand Trump asked an aide to request a print of this photo.  APPRECIATION.

Your Blue Heron art is the product of the skills of 50 artists.  The Galleries are the product of the artistic skills of  each artist, supplemented with efforts of Gloria Brubaker the gallery manager, the restaurant manager, the CSA management, and volunteers from TGO residents and the CSA board .  Hundreds of hours go into to creating and maintaining the Galleries. — APPRECIATE them and ask your aid (husband, wife, or friend) to purchase a piece of art for you.  The brochure in the Gallery tells them how to make the purchase. Show your APPRECIATION with a purchase.

The current hanging has 35 pieces of art – I will display them all soon – but for now click the “Art Page” in the left column (near the top of this page) to see a beautiful selection from the Gallery.

I have more on Cuba I want to show you.  But, Dave prompted me to deviate today.  Go to the Photo Page and see Dave’s new Ruby-throated Hummingbirds and his thoughts on photo lighting and bedraggled looking subjects! They are great – Thanks, Dave.

After you go to Photo Page, return and see:

_________________________________________________________________

Why be a photographer?

For years, I have been helping to  shape the Photo Club at TGO and I do not really practice the technology of taking a photos.

But, I have a very strong philosophical view of practicing “your” reasons for being a photographer – at any technical level and encouraging you to decide if they want to advance your technical excellence.  I encourage you to advance their own reason for being a photographer and not worry about your photo technology advancement!

On the internet I have located a site that gives us 54 reasons for being a photographer.  I have presented that topic at several TGO Photo Club meetings over the years (and other Club meetings also).  At the bottom of this page I will give you that web link.

Here are four reasons I often think about as I whip my iPhone camera out of my pocket as I go about my daily chores:

2. NOTICE THE DETAILS

I love photography because photography changes the way you see things. I notice light, shapes, colours, textures, and I often ask myself “Why is that subject doing what it is doing?” …Everything around you looks different when you start to see the world as a photographer.

14. TELL A STORY

Photography is a fantastic story-telling medium. Whether you’re telling a story with one image, a sequence, a series, or an entire portfolio, the possibilities are endless.

Just ask yourself what story you want to tell, and photography can get you there.

21. CAN MAKE OTHER PEOPLE THINK

With your images you can also make people stop and think.

Just a glance at a powerful image can stop people in their tracks. Some images can change the way you view the world for the rest of your life. Strong stuff.

54. DEVELOP A LOVE FOR LIFE

No doubt, there are countless good things about being a photographer. After all these reasons, this one should just make sense. With all the beauty, joy, love, connection, variety, history, adventure, movement, emotion, and awesomeness that makes up life, how could you not be stoked to get out there and experience it?? With camera in hand, of course.

Here is the one link I told you about (54 reasons to go there): https://photographyconcentrate.com/54-reasons-why-you-should-be-photographer/