William Oldacre Photography

Tag: limitations

  • Simplify

    Simplify

    abstract expressionism, city street, urban, movement, motion, red, blue, pink, vibrant
    Unnamed Six, 2017 — Side Slide :: (click to see more)

    For some reason I’ve never spent a lot of money on camera gear. I suppose it’s something that began in my student days of limited money but then became a habit. Although, when it comes to anything shiny new and technical, I do tend to have “big eyes”, as we say. I’m a big dreamer and imagine how great things will be with this new piece of tech.

    But I’ve made it one of my life goals to curb this characteristic and try to work with what I’ve got, which when it comes to cameras has in many ways informed the things I end up doing. I usually manage to exploit the gear I have in interesting or unusual ways to get the thing I’m after. These gear limitations free me from preconceptions and simplify the situation which usually leads to success.

  • Goals and Limits

    I’ve been mulling over the goals in my life – trying to get to the bottom of them – the motivations behind them. I’ve noticed all of them result from limits in my life. Some limits are self-imposed, others are assumed and others are taught. But ultimately all my goals – both long and short term result directly from perceived limits.

    Is that the way we all operate?
    Is that the way we go about living our lives?
    Is that how we define our happiness?

    Okay, lets imagine for a moment. Your life is not nearly what it is right now. Imagine it has some really drastic limitation imposed on it. Something that you really love or are really happy about or something that you just plain can’t do without is missing. Its simply not there – it never was there. How would you be? What would be doing differently?

    For me, lets imagine I had no sight. I couldn’t be a photographer I couldn’t be interested in all things visual. I simply wouldn’t have a frame of reference for it. I’m not saying imagine I lost my sight – like I had sight and then it was removed from me. I mean imagine if I was born blind. I wouldn’t miss it because I wouldn’t have ever known it. But it would be a limitation on my capacity and would most certainly change my goals in life. I would likely still be happy and functioning just fine.

    Lets be clear here, I’m not using the word limitation in a derogatory sense – I simply mean limitation as in an absolute boundary.

    I think – for myself at least – if I am able to imagine myself without limitations then what would my goals be?
    How would my goals change?
    What would I do differently?
    What would my priorities be?

    Its kind of like imagining how your life would be different – hopefully better – if you had changed something important in your past – only we’re talking about changing something now to affect your future.

    I’ll have to give this more specific thought. See if I can come up with some ways to modify my now so that my future has different, larger limits.