Friday, July 11, 2014

Last Saturday

Last Saturday:

It is a fine tradition (Do it once and it's novel.  Do it twice and it's tradition.) to take pictures of the boys and photoshop them doing extraordinary things.  Nobody falls for it, but its fun.  Plus I get to practice my photoshopping skills.

Robin Chin - up:


 Jack's one-handed pull-up.



Clearly I've improved in my skill level since I doctored the photo of Jack.  If you look closely you can see the pixels, and my sister's shadow and shoe.  I also did a terrible job on his shirt.  Hopper is also missing an ear.

The shot of Robin was easier because I had a cleaner background image.  Plus I've learned a few tricks about manipulating masks that made it easier.  The biggest challenge was adding a shirt to him to cover up Alice Louise's hands.  It doesn't look too bad, but you can still see the pixels.  

Jack Goes Camping:



Most of the time the ideas to shop things come from my Brother-in-Law.  Usually its to punk his mom who worries about Jack in the wilderness.  If you're wondering there was a huge fight but Jack emerged king of the jungle deep woods.

Why do I bring these photos up?  No real reason except that maybe these photos represent our hopes and fears for our kids.  It might be a leap, but perhaps we want our one year old to be able to do a chin up on their own to prove to the world how special we already know them to be.  Actually, the photos are just for fun.  Everyone knows a 13 month old can't do a chin-up. 

But it brings up another more serious point which is that these kids are going to be more photographed than we every were.  Sure our parents took photos of us, usually on special occasions.  Casual photography used to be a lot more difficult.  You had to actually put film into the camera, and them you were limited to 24 - 36 pictures on the roll.  Then you had to get the film out without accidentally exposing it.  Then it was off to the developers, where you had to hope you didn't mess anything up.  It was a lot of little inconveniences that added up to less documentation of our youths.  But these kids will have a pretty clear record.  That's pretty exciting.

But it also means that mistakes made could hang around a lot longer.  Photos are no longer just a print on a piece of photo paper, but are now easy to distribute digitally to the whole world with the click a button.  And once released it's almost impossible to completely delete its presence.  This is something I worry about.  As our parents grew up in a world without computers, we grew up in a world without social media.  So we don't have experience to fall back on to inform our decision.

I was bullied a lot in Middle School and some High School.  But the bullying ended at the school door, and so was a school only problem.  I grew a thicker skin eventually, probably because I had that breathing room to mentally refute the mean things said to me at school.  I'm pretty sure that if I met those folks now, they would be nice and considerate adults.  Middle school kids are just mean.  But in this generation bullying can follow you everywhere, spreading online.  And kids these days are nothing but online.  

And so I wonder how to deal with it.  I'm sure I'll be the parent I need to be when the time comes.

Well, I wandered pretty far afield from the start of this post.  But it's another post in the month of July.  Two posts makes it a tradition.  Maybe I'll even try for three.

I've made a facebook page for this blog at www.facebook.com/woodcutblock , so be sure to like it to see more from me.  Also, add your email on the gadget to the side to get a reminder when I post new content.

Also my other blog project has undergone a name change to Poems of a Younger Me and has its own page at www.facebook.com/poemsofayoungerme



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