Setbacks ... A good thing? And I am not a nature photographer.

In a week of ups (few) and downs (many) the best thing that happened to me was an angry bald man calling me f’ing idiot.

This has not been an good week.

It has been a week of setbacks, delays, interruptions and when things went wrong a pretty much universal view that Chris was to blame (with various degrees of culpability on behalf of yours truly).

Being a man of determination and fortitude I did what any sensible person would do and shut everything off and went to sit by a pond with a good book (M.R. James ghost stories if you are interested). I sat down in the peaceful surroundings and bounced from fury, disappointment, despondency, reading, anger, melancholia and occasionally proving to myself I am not a nature photographer by failing to get a decent picture of a duck.

In between my seething and attempts at nature photography (not as peaceful as it looks and actually quite stressful) I began to re gig my plans and formulate them into something workable with amendments. A setback is just a delay and while annoying not an end of a project.

This morning while munching my cereal I was browsing through Youtube. As you would probably expect the mysterious world of the interweb tunes itself into the sort of things you like and a vast proportion of my suggested Youtube viewing is Photography based. This morning it suggested a video promising to tell me why the vast majority of Youtube Photography videos were lying to me.

This was a business based video which was not entirely un expected as for a long while now the amount of enquiries I have had for Photography jobs has decreased. I naturally put this down to the state of the economy but I have been researching the business side of Photography promotion. As it happens this video was decidedly different. It was one I needed to hear.

The duration of the video was a touch under twenty minutes and for most of that time an angry bald sweary man was shouting about other Youtube video content. What also became apparent was he was also shouting at photographers in general and I was included in his ranting.

While most sensible people were sleeping at 5-30 this morning I was drinking coffee in my kitchen while a bald man yelled at me and I nodded in agreement.

I would like to say that while I was failing to take a decent Photo of a duck I had a eureka moment but I didn’t.

We all encounter setbacks in our life and the usual course of action is to get frustrated and then ideally to continue with renewed vigor and suitable amendments to make the concept work either as planned or in a different way. I regard it as mark of good character that a person can overcome obstacles and move onwards.

Except …….

A project normally has a lot of thought, effort and planning put into it. A delay can be frustrating but it can also lead to taking it back to the drawing board and making it better than originally planned. But is should also give pause for thought into whether the project is worthwhile at all. It is worth pursuing.

If you have put a lot of effort into planning a project a hiccup can be vexing but before preceding on regardless it is worth stepping back from the whole thing and considering its original merits.

Think of it like this …

You come to a fork in the road and you take a left … It is a lot longer than you thought and you travel a long way down it but you also realise the destination may not be as good as you thought. Do you carry on? Or go back and try the right path?

It’s a quandary is it not?

P.s. Love to all ..

P.p.s …. Enjoy the duck pic.

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