Dear Friends,
Hello and happy Sunday to all of you. I hope this newsletter finds you doing well and have a wonderfully creative, relaxing summer. It has been such a long time since I sent you one of these newsletters. I have plenty of excuses that I will spare you here. I am sorry that I stopped sending them without notice.
To make a long 2 month story short, like many things in my life, I made the process of writing newsletters way too complicated. It should be a fun experience of writing, sharing, and connecting with you. Instead, each newsletter turned into a long to-do list of things to do in order for a newsletter to be “ready.” I have more than 1 newsletter sitting in drafts right now that is still “not ready.”
So, I write you today to say I am starting over - with format and frequency. I am going to focus on sharing consistency over complicated formats, spontaneous versus planned, and fun over function. I am going back to sending a “newsletter” every Sunday. What “newsletter” means will vary from week to week. Most importantly, I want to share the results of my creativity (ie photos, illustrations, writing, poems), things I have been watching, reading, and listening to over the week, and other news about my creative journey. I want to share links to the work of other creators. Some weeks the newsletter will be short and quick - a hello, a photo, a quick update. Others will have longer written pieces, photo stories, and much more. I hope you will continue to follow. Thanks so much for your support. Please have a fantastic week ahead — warm regards, Jeff
AIRPLANES
Here are a few photos I took a few weeks ago while at a professional meeting near the Chicago O’hare airport. The hotel and meeting venue were situated in the flight path to the airport so my primary subjects of the weekend were the airplanes flying over head. I went with black and white for this series as the clouds and sunrays provided a strong moody atmosphere. Which photo is your favorite? Let’s chat about it in the comments below.
NEWS
I received a bit of good news a couple of weeks ago. Two of my submissions for the 2022 Minimalist Photography Awards were selected as Honorable Mention in the Architecture and Open themes.
For the Architecture theme, I submitted “Vacant Views”, a trio of photographs with this description: “Remote work during the pandemic transformed busy parking garages to vacant structures with an unobstructed view of the residential world beyond its walls.”
For the Open theme, I submitted “Hold On”, a single photograph with the description: “Optimistic or pessimistic – the choice is yours!”
MIDJOURNEY AI
I keep running into AI art on social media. This week I spent a bit of time (while recovering from mild COVID-19) watching Youtube videos about Midjourney, one of the AI engines. It is fascinating and powerful. It will certainly be interesting to see how creators will use and more importantly collaborate with these AI engines in art, design, and other creative fields.
Midjourney! My tips & tricks for getting great images - Scott Detweiler via Youtube
Here are a two creators I follow on Instagram that are experimenting with Midjourney AI created pieces: @visualmemories_ and @laserkola. Raul Cantu (@raul_cantu_visual_artist) is also making amazing art in collaboration with artificial intelligence engines.
VERO
This week I re-established my VERO account and began using this social media platform daily. VERO is a strong departure from Instagram as it has a chronological feed, no stories, no reels, no ads, and great user experience for photographers including the ability to view photographs full screen. VERO allows users to share links more easily as well which is a great way to connect users with our creative projects outside of the platform. I look forward to sharing this newsletter on VERO for example as a way to grow this community. If you aren’t already using VERO, it is worthy a try. You can find, follow, and connect with me @jeffreymkarp.
SUBSTACK APP
If you aren’t already using the Substack app, I strongly encourage you to do so. I have found it to be a wonderful multi-media experience. I enjoy listening to newsletters read to me by either the author or the computer voice-over. I like how all of the photos in a newsletter can be viewed large within the app and how they become a slideshow. The new threads features will be a fun addition. In fact, I reached out to Substack and asked to be a beta tester of ways to use the threads feature with a photography focused audience (still waiting on a response to this). If you are an iOS user, please do check it out as I think you will find the newsletter consuming experience to be substantially better than via your email client.
If you are enjoying A Twenty Percent Creative, please consider sharing the newsletter with your family, friends, and your social media network.
I welcome feedback about the newsletter. Please email me directly at: jeff@jeffreymkarp.com
Instagram: @jeffreymkarp