Archive

Today I updated the sign up flow for my newsletter. I added two-step verification and worked on the design of the emails. It all looked peachy but then dark mode kicked in around 9PM and the whole padding fell apart. I’m also forced to use a white background, instead of the mail going fully dark as I prefer. To be honest, I’m not sure my work of today was productive. Oh well, at least I learned a thing or two.

It’s amazing how much a little working out can make a difference. All I did was two workouts this week and I feel more mental clarity and inner peace. It’s weird, I used to go to the gym five times a week. It always was an amazing way to burn some energy and to take a break. The past few month (years?) I haven’t been as devoted as I should’ve been. To be fair, my schedule has been increasingly busy but I don’t think that’s a solid excuse. Though it’s definitely still a reason. The funny thing i

Well won’t you look at that. All it took was an afternoon by myself in a distraction-free environment. I now have an outro written for the black & white squares project and I’ve settled on a name. All that’s left to do is write an intro and finish up the design of the book. But first, about that name... Can I get a drumroll please? I decided to call the project: One Two One Which can also be stylised as 1:1. Go ahead and say it out loud, I’ll wait. And...? Does it make sense? Not coincident

The amount of unrest I felt yesterday could be fully attributed to my lack of movement during the day. I know that to be a certainty now, because the three hour walk I did today was the only thing that remedied that. It was just as much tiring (in a good way) as it was invigorating (also in a good way). The way I set up the walk was a first for me. I planned to go to Utrecht and walk around a little, the same way I did last week in Amsterdam Zuid. Instead, I arrived at the station just in time

I wanted to make a quick book of a couple of photos I shot over the winter but felt like including some text too. Now I’m researching fonts and their heritages all day and the book is still pending.

While I did do some work on the book, most of my time today has gone to playing GTA Online for the first time. My god what a stressful game that is. Sure it’s still fun enough to play but I damn sure can’t do it before I go to bed. I won’t be able to sleep for at least another hour if I do. So now I’m unwinding with a book and a beer so that I can start the week with a clear head. That’s it for now.

Nick Cave just said “we are fireflies trapped in the hand of a boy”. I take another sip of my blonde beer and contemplate those words. My cat looks at me with questioning eyes. “You just had dinner, so that can’t be it. Do you want a good petting, perhaps?”, I think to myself. I give it a try. It works. The cat looks away. I return to my Fujifilm X100V and browse through the photographs I’ve just taken. They look so happy. So content with the surplus of food they now have access to. Good. I ho

What’s up people from the internet. I just came up with an idea. And then another one. Possibly even one after that. But that’s not what I want to talk about at this time. As it stands, I don’t have anything to talk about at all. Not right now at least. I mean, I should’ve had a follow up meeting on the one I did a while ago [/you-know-what-i-just-did/] but that didn’t happen because of reasons. That’s totally fine but now I don’t have much to share for now. All I can say is, I had a few ideas

As I mentioned only the day before yesterday [https://mitchellens.ink/i-need-to-get-out-more-damn-it/], I need to get out more. I also made a promise to myself it would be just me and my camera again. Today I held myself to that promise. Despite popular belief1, I still very much enjoy taking architecture photographs. It’s a subject I shot when I first started taking photographs about six years ago. There’s a lot of fun in taking photos that don’t require much effort to result in interesting i

I’ve been feeling a little anxious lately so to combat that, I only allow myself to do up to three things each day. I’m not counting simple stuff like making dinner and going to the bathroom, of course. Think about bigger things like working on projects, cleaning the bathroom, writing a newsletter. So what did I do today? Oh you know... * Converted my most recent newsletter into a twitter thread [https://twitter.com/lensinkmitchel/status/1372175510021738498] (which was a surprising amou

It has been quite a while ago since I realized I need to get out to get inspired. I can’t sit around the house dreaming up photo projects. I can’t expect to feel better about myself and my craft without doing anything substantial. I can’t pretend to work on so called completed projects, when I could be out there making more work. Better work. Maybe I should plan trips beforehand and don’t expect my tired body to feel excited to go somewhere spontaneous. Maybe I can just pick a place and an aft

I’ve had this song in my head all day now and I don’t know what to do about it. The cats seems to like it though. But they like many things so I’m not sure how good their judgement is.

I wanted to write something fun and thoughtful but I can’t come up with either of those things let alone both. Oh well, I guess I’ll try again tomorrow.

Check this. You know how I made those circles for The Silence Around [/the-silence-around/], right? Do you also know I had the honour of displaying those for over 5 months in the local library? That’s quite a long time! The original plan was to leave them there until December 31st 2020 and then move them to a new location. And a new location after that. Covid 19 changed that swiftly, resulting in the installations still being in their second location as I’m writing this 1. Well, in hindsight I

Look at that. Progress. It was an uphill struggle today but I managed to squeeze some time out of the day to work on my B&W Squares project. Of which I have come up with a title by the way. That I’m not ready to share. But anyway. Behold this first outlay of the page design, which is probably subject to quite a bit of change. I’ve strayed off my initial planning significantly but that no longer matters. Taking my time to go through the whole process is more valuable to me now. The groundwork

I’m a little sad because I couldn’t find proper time to work on some personal work today. I mean, it’s 7 PM right now and I could technically work on some stuff but I’m just too tired to come up with something creative by now. Perhaps tomorrow.

The other day somebody asked me how my photography business was doing. I didn’t know what to tell them. My business is doing terrible, I’m doing fine? Do I want to get into explaining why that is? Do I care to elaborate? Of course I could just say that taking corporate portraits made me miserable and weren’t the reason why I started taking photos in the first place. I also don’t want to sound like some slacker who quits the moment things get a little difficult. It’s a balancing act but I should

A square? No, a more traditional shape. And then create my own design from scratch? Or should I just use the software that comes included? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with a template if it improves the result. Right? Maybe I shouldn’t worry about the shape so much and think more about the contents. But I also want it to be perfect. Or well, not necessarily perfect but I want to give it my best shot. See what obstacles I can overcome and learn a think or two. I guess I’m just a little scared