TOP will be off on Monday for the Memorial Day holiday.
I've been trying to change up my life a bit to combat the danger of burnout, and part of that effort has been taking weekends and holidays off. At first I didn't do very well at this—I would work anyway—but I'm getting better.
We'll return on Tuesday with our next photo book sale, offering a really great Paul Strand title for almost half off and a matched set of books by Lee Friedlander at an even deeper discount, in cooperation with Yale University Press. After that, Jim Hughes has sent a moving piece about the recently deceased photojournalist Stanley Greene and W. Eugene Smith, which includes some material he was forced to edit out of his great Smith biography.
Our 600th week
Tuesday will begin our 600th week online. I started TOP in 2005 with the extravagant goal of keeping it going for a whole year—52 weeks—which at the time I considered an unlikely goal. For starters, I'm disorganized and not very decisive. And not very good at "sticktoitiveness." I used to say "constancy is my worst thing." How could I possibly find that much to talk about, and even if I did, how could keep up the work of posting every day—even if I didn't write it all?
Those 52 weeks ended 547 weeks ago: 7,466 posts and 201,945 comments have passed under the bridge. So far! Please come by on Tuesday to check out the cool book sale, and the rest of Week 600.
Flowers by a grave
Hope you have a nice Memorial Day, if you're a U.S. person. Originally, the way you were supposed to celebrate this holiday was to put flowers on the grave of someone who died in war. Even if you don't do that, spare a thought on Monday for those who perished, many of them far too young, and for those they left behind.
Mike
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More weeks to come
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Everyone needs and deserves time off.
Doing something different than your routine is the best way to get better and avoid burn out.
You shouldn't even moderate comments on your days off, because if you have to 'get back and moderate' you are not really 'Off'
I'm still waiting for some pix from a sunset sail on your beautiful lake.
Enjoy
Posted by: Michael Perini | Saturday, 27 May 2017 at 12:02 PM
Regarding the memorial nature of this American holiday weekend this video of an ongoing project struck a chord with me.
You have a good holiday weekend, too, Mike.
Posted by: Kenneth Tanaka | Saturday, 27 May 2017 at 12:05 PM
Congrats Mike, here's to the next 600,I can claim to be a devotee from day one as I used to enjoy your "Sunday Morning Photographer" articles at Luminous Landscape.
You're very wise to take w/ends and holidays off as all work and no play can make Mike a very burnt out boy.
Posted by: Michael Roche | Saturday, 27 May 2017 at 02:19 PM
600 weeks, that's a long run. Very few small businesses last half that long!
You cannot possibly work 365 days a year every single year. Some downtime is utterly necessary. Planning some downtime is the smart way to achieve it.
TOP is a great site, and I have every intention to continue reading it. I've got it in my RSS feed as well as in my set of regular browser windows.
Congratulations!
Posted by: David Dyer-Bennet | Saturday, 27 May 2017 at 05:24 PM
A fantastic photo op is at the Palm Springs Air Museum.
If you can brave the 106+ heat, the highlight is a formation of planes (This year was a Hellcat, Mustang, King Cobra and *two* B-25's) that fly over and the B-25 drops a load of flowers in honor of the veterans.
http://palmspringsairmuseum.org/programs/memorial-day-flower-drop-air-fair/
Posted by: KeithB | Tuesday, 30 May 2017 at 04:10 PM