Conventional book advantages

Even though technology, conventional books still have some good advantages

50 good reasons for not dating a photographer

Fooling around in Facebook I have found a very curious and funny post about photographers: 50 good reasons for not dating a photographer. It was hilarious and I haven’t stop laughing since I read it, and even if I don’t want I must recognize some of the reasons on the list are completely true.

I think I must come up with a list of 50 good reasons to date a photographer but for now let’s just be fair-minded and start telling the inconveniences, because someone someday told me it’s better for you to be accepted with your weaknesses rather than only for your virtues.

So here we go.

50 good reasons for not dating a photographer

     1.    They rather carry their own heavy photography equipment than walking by the hand with you.
2.       In a romantic date you probably would be thinking “what a beautiful moment , this is great” whereas they’d be thinking of preparing their camera, tripod and thinking in the exposure time.
3.       You won't be able to enjoy a movie, tv programs or merely a magazine without visual mistakes pointed up by them.     
4.       They love to sitting in dark cafes for hours to contemplate in a voyeur way people passing by.
5.        If you both go to have a walk and find out an interesting illumination, they will make you sit, stand up and pose in public so as to let them get the perfect photograph.
6.       You will never be able to enjoy your meal warm since they will spend 15 minutes taking photographs to the meal with their iPhone.
7.       They will get upset about your friends asking them for advice and tell them: what camera will you recommend? I don’t want anything professional I just want it to take nice pictures.
8.       You might need to wait more than usual for them to analyze a painting in a museum.
9.       The same situation with will happen in the book-stores.
10.   When you’re thinking they are paying their whole attention to what are you saying, they are in fact thinking about how to improve the photographs of you with the cloning and patch tool in Photoshop.
11.   They are using you not to seem pervert when looking the people around.
12.   They probably would prefer spending huge amounts of money on equipment than buying a new purse for you.
13.   You couldn’t expect to have just one try when you want to have a photo taken with them, they will always want other five more tries.
14.   When you ask to them whether you are fat or not, they will answer not to worry they can fix it up with Photoshop.
15.   If the photo doesn’t have their minimal standards, there’ll be no way to make them use Photoshop to fix it, no matter how simple it would be.
16.   Did you have a photo taken yesterday? Good luck on waiting for them to send it to you.  
17.   They spend all their time in front of the pc, not watching porn.
18.   They are not able to have a normal conversation without having to come up with random numbers and technical terms.
19.   They are still using analog cameras.
20.   They spend more time with way more interesting people than you, like models, writers and of course other photographers.
21.   They will be further meticulous about the position of simple items, for instance a cup of coffee.
22.   They won’t call you back or answer your text messages but for sure they will be posting they pictures in their blogs or social networks.
23.   They love watching old films you have never heard before.
24.   On the whole they enjoy glancing oddly things.
25.   The only one thing they envy about you is your camera.
26.   If there’s a natural disaster, they have already on a plain for getting there to take pictures.
27.   Everything has a watermark.   
28.   They think other people photos sucks.
29.   They want to make color correction to the jersey shore twilight or to any other soup opera.
30.   They hate rainbows, mostly when those are spinning.
31.   When you are with your friends and the conversation turns a bit deep, they are likely to start writing down on their Moleskine notebook.
32.   They have Moleskine notebooks no matter how expensive they were.
33.   They enjoy trespassing abandoned, old, full of dangers buildings without any concern for their own safety.
34.   They  are always wanting to show you their last photo taken without caring if you like it or not.
35.   They dread the “artistic” photo of your friend’s Facebook profile.
36.   Sunny, cloudless skies turn them sad but apparently rainy days are great for them.
37.   They take you to cultural places where you can also are taking the risk of being assaulted.
38.    Your birthday gift will be a nice photo taken by them.
39.   You can’t visit a new place without having your date taking pictures all over the place.
40.   They will always ask you to be their model.
41.   Nothing is naturally pretty; everything needs to be retouched by Photoshop.
42.   Their photo equipment means more load kilograms.
43.   If you broke some of their stuff, you’ll be in serious financial troubles.
44.   You can’t give them a Christmas present without considering spending an important amount of money for making them like it.
45.   It’s their nature to collect all stuff that may seem to inspire them, such as old newspapers, magazines, boxes.
46.   They are weird and geeks.
47.   They have got plenty of hard disks stuffed with photos but they probably only have 10 printed.
48.   Secretly, they are always judging your creativity.
49.   If you use your camera in automatic mode, they will mock on you.
50.   They get extremely excited each time they learn a new technique.
 
I must say I tent to behave like that sometimes, but not all of those reasons are true.
So what do you think?

Creating my own whole messy small world

After traveling abroad, living my lonely experience and coming back again to the country of my heart (which is not longer so), I told myself “well at least you must stop being messy” and you just have to open the door of my room, of course if you can, to realize I haven’t changed not even a pinch, actually, I think I’ve turn my messy style into something a kind of creepy.

And I can’t really understand why, believe me I’ve had to bear the one hundred millions of times my mother has asked me, from whom did you inherited such an ugly manner? or why are you so messy?.

I can foresee what my mother is thinking in those instants. She might probably be thinking, what have I done to deserve this mess?, why she doesn’t answer such a simple question?. Well mom,  trust me If I had had an answer, I surely would have told you already, yet, as I don’t, I’m not going to bother myself trying to find a suitable answer. And even if I could find an answer the odds are 9 to 10 that you would be even way too upset with me for giving it to you.

So please let’s be honest, I’m 26 years of which almost 20 of them I’ve been a complete disaster, it means that my mother has spent 20 years of her life trying to change the way I am by nagging me as much as she can. 20 years of her life in which she could perfectly have done something pretty much interesting. I don’t know a lot of things come up to my mind, reading, singing, making fun of someone, I don’t know at least trying to be happy.

So let’s make some maths; My mother desperately ask me to tide up my room at least 2 times a day daily, if we multiply 2 per the 3 or 5 minutes she spends doing it it’ll give us a total of 70 minutes per week, now, if you want to know the outcome per month we can simply multiply it for 4, which are roughly 280 minutes or 4 hours and 6 minutes per month. but what is really concerning is that my mother has spent around 46 days of her life on that matter.

Well, 46 days are not a big deal, but if you think carefully, 46 days are more than the days needed for traveling, for reading a book or just for getting relax.

So, what’s the moral of all of this.

First, it doesn’t worth trying to change some people’s habits. Don’t stress yourself doing it you only will end up losing your time.

And second, I’m not going to stop being messy, even if my mom waste more of her time trying to persuade me.

Why one keeps on insisting on sharing with someone if you can be as miserable as being on your own?

Slap in the face

I can’t help myself feeling frustrated, I have this burning feeling inside of my chest; It’s not leaving me alone and it’s getting bigger and bigger.

This awful sensation It’s been along with me my whole life and it seems is not going to set me free till the day I die.

I’m just simply tired of working hard to obtain things I want and I even way too tired of hearing people telling me I must be happy and grateful for all the things I’ve already done, sure, maybe I’ve reached more than the average person in my country yet, it doesn’t mean I should be conformed whatsoever.

It’s hard for me to accept this is my life,  what I have to live and that I probably won’t experience all I would like just because I’m a citizen of a country with a lack of opportunities, or with opportunities for few who have enough influence or power to make them work according to their convenience.

Can someone tell me how can I do to persuade my brain and let it understand the reality in which I’m living in? it is inevitable to compare reality against what I’ve seen and lived and it’s slapping me blatantly on the face. I know comparisons are not healthy at all but I can’t help it. Probably it’s the root of my despair.

I remember like if it happened yesterday the chitchat sessions with my Russian friend Maria in which we used to talk about our fears and outlooks about our lives; For the first time in my life I felt myself understood, I know Maria is one of the few who feel exactly how I feel, her empathy towards my situation helped me realize I’m not the only one.

Situations in which we accomplished our goals but few moments later the cheerful feelings of glory seem to banish leaving for us just a bland taste in our mouths, have become on the day by day of my life.

Happiness seems to be something so ephemeral to me, drifting in the air moving as the wind goes allowing me to catch it for minimal instants, leaving as a result the dissatisfaction I’ve already accustomed to.

Beautiful people Mashallah!!

Last saturday I went to a turkish mosque here in the city I live in , Bogota. I was expectant, anxious and unpretentious to some extend, I was rather just waiting for the natural course of the situation to catch something new to learn. This new experience has broadened my horizon more and more.

Truth be told, everything was kind of weird, women were coming in and out all of them with their hair covered and modesty clothing just as I thought it would be. Even though, there was a sense of awkwardness it's hard for me to describe. jaja Maybe it was because I'd never been in a mosque before and I'm still processing the experience. 

I was amazed to see the smiles in their faces, vanishing the oppression idea out of my mind, Idea which is pretty common on western people's mind, a complete shame yet, to be honest, I was one more of the rest who thought Muslim people were just extremist and to some extend, fanatics, however, never is too late to fix things up and fight the conditioning imposed by ignorant ones.

Unfortunately, those stigmas are impossible to fight unless you are interested in getting to know something about the culture and what happen within, something that fortunately has happened to me and it has allowed me to understand the reasons behind certain behaviours and customs and mostly it has showed me the reality of a misunderstood world.

Everybody in the mosque was enormously kind with me but some Colombian girls around who were taken classes of Turkish arts and whose gazes were pointing at me with some kind of contempt. Such an appalling demeanor.

Anyway, I didn’t let them to spoil my crown moment.  

Later, after entering to the mosque, I was welcomed and almost immediately I was asked to have lunch with them which confirmed to me how welcoming and warm-hearted Muslim people could be; the plate of the day was a beans, potato and meat spicy soup, rice, cabbage salad and a delicious passion fruit juice, my favorite ever. you know? Although I had the chance to try passion fruit in New Zealand, nothing is compared with the taste of it here in Colombia, it's simply amazing.

After that, I was conduced to the women room, simply beautiful, it was ornamented with really nice and luxurious furniture, huge rugs and feminine wallpaper creating a complete cozy atmosphere, we (the friend who took me there and me) were asked to take off our shoes to get in, as I think it’s usual in the east countries and I proceeded to have a sit in one of the pretty sofas.

I spent like an hour or so making questions, resolving doubts and hearing what my guide had to say to me in order to clear my mind, yet, as everybody knows, the time is the major inclement protagonist of our lives, my time was over and I needed to go to work. Nevertheless, and if like there hadn't been enough with all the kindness demonstrations I witnessed that afternoon, they surprised me again giving me a book about the Mohammad prophet.

Is there something else should I have asked for?

Beauty and its miss-conception

How can I describe the beauty?

beauty has a lot of meanings at least for me and it depends on each one's  perspective.

Quickly,  the concept that comes up to my mind is the universal one, in which beauty has a wholly physical meaning, the one in which a beautiful person is who can unleash admiration (or envy in most cases) for their Harmony, symmetry and in some cases youth. of course it is a very subjective topic in which a lo t of variables reach their effect, yet not only the fist thought that comes to your mind is worth trusting.

Hence, me as well as many people I know tend to think differently.

When it comes to beauty, there’re a lot of things involved such as charisma, kindness, spirit, personality and so on. However, there are still people who keep on insisting beauty is something you can buy. This is the main reason of today’s post.

Living in Auckland I had the chance to take a bit of rest of the Latin American beauty standards and the pressure media has over people. I’m by no means trying to say people in New Zealand is not beautiful, nevertheless, there I wasn’t exposed as much female degrading advertisement as I’m used to back in hometown.

I had the opportunity to watch T.V. without feeling upset for sexual scenes in family time or for over the top scenes. I could walk in the streets without the sense of me being measured for hundreds of billboards shooting you with information of how you must look like, how your demeanor should be and what kind of clothes you are expected to wear and more important, I wasn’t concerned whatsoever about what my measures should be so as to be desirable upon other’s people eyes.

That is not to say there’s a lack of media advertisement in New Zealand is just I noticed the levels of women exposure for commercial purposes are minimal compared with the outright levels in my country.

In my View, It is a complete shame because even though we women in Colombia are considered part of the work force and  to some extend we are regarded equal to men, we are still a commercial sexual item.

Last week I was in a launching event of a soup opera named “la traicionera” or The Betrayer in which all the attendants had the chance to see the first episode in premiere. I was Like “what the hell is going on here?” when I started to see a nude scene without any sense. The main female character was brushing her hair naked while arguing with her grandmother. Tt doesn’t have sense at all.

It only means to me the uncensored levels we have reached in order to gain audiences.

I consider myself an open minded person but it doesn’t mean that I have to accept the dodgy strategies media uses to manipulate their viewers.

I don’t know whether I’m being Old fashioned when principles about but honestly, I think we are enpowered to play a role far important than making our bodies a subject of mistaken adoration exposing them blatantly and senseless and making millions of women feel embarrassed and miserable for not being as the ones they see in magazines.

I think the meaning of feminine liberation has been misunderstood making people believe physical beauty, perfect bodies and fake physical attributes are women's tools to be successful. By this, media has overtaken the real conception of what make us more humans and less false characters taken up from magazines and T.V.